JOZEF ISRAELS DUTCH, 1824-1911

Jozef Israels acquired his greatest fame with the realistic and sincere depictions of fishermen and their families. The fishing genre aroused his interest in 1855, when he stayed in the fishing village of Zandvoort. Israels discovered that the harsh and simple life of the fishermen had far more meaning than the elevated historical subjects he had painted up till then. The present lot is a good example of this. It is an hitherto unknown, smaller version of the famous After the storm which Israels painted in 1858. The large oil depicts three generations (an elder woman, her daughter and her child) in an interior, unsure about the fate of the fishermen. The present lot depicts only two of the three figures: the young girl and her baby. The girl is waiting in the doorstep, anxiously overlooking the sea. The dramatic content of After the storm was praised by many, among which J.A. Alberdingk Thijm, who wrote: 'It proves he isn't satisfied with superficial feelings, but chooses moments of the finest and deepest feelings, which only men of genius can perceive and express'.