Carel de Nerée tot Babberich - Fairy-Tale Teller

Carel de Nerée tot Babberich (1880–1909)

Fairy-Tale Teller

Pencil on woven paper

36 × 22 cm

Literature:

Illustrated in Sander Bink, Verfijnde Lijnen: Carel de Nerée tot Babberich, 1880–1909, WBOOKS (2025), p. 282, no. 105.

Condition:

In very good condition.

Additional information:

Fairy-Tale Teller is a highly stylised drawing from Carel de Nerée’s early adult period. The work was probably created as a design for a textile work, a discipline with which he was involved during these years in collaboration with his mother, Constance de Nerée tot Babberich.

Influences of both Jan Toorop and Fernand Khnopff are recognisable. The rhythmic repetition of forms, elongated heads and emphatic stylisation recall Toorop’s Symbolist compositions, while the stillness and psychological charge connect the work with Khnopff.

The emphasis lies less on storytelling than on the effect of form and rhythm. Repetition, decoration and line take on an almost musical function within the composition. Particularly striking are the large, emphatically rendered eyes, a motif that recurs throughout De Nerée’s oeuvre and gives his figures a hypnotic intensity.

Carel de Nerée tot Babberich was one of the most intriguing Dutch Symbolists of his time. Well versed in literature, charismatic and active in Hague society, he developed a visual language strongly influenced by Aubrey Beardsley: graphically refined, Gothic in atmosphere and imbued with subtle decadence.