Portrait of Nurse Nelly, Jan Toorop, 1894
pen, h 510mm × w 435mm More details
Petronella Alida Goudkade (1870-1956), ‘Nurse Nelly’, obtained her diploma in 1892 from the Buitengasthuis in Amsterdam. She then moved to The Hague, where she worked as a district nurse for the Red Cross. She married the writer Ary Prins in 1894. Toorop may have made this portrait of her shortly before her wedding. Behind her is a vague fanciful pattern of birds. This type of portrait is one of the first of a long series that Toorop would continue to make in the following years.
