JOSEF ISRAËLS (Groningen, 1824-Scheveningen, 1911). "Peasants." Oil... Lot 22

JOSEF ISRAËLS (Groningen, 1824-Scheveningen, 1911). "Peasants." Oil on panel. Signed in the lower left corner. Presents an exhibition label on the back. Measurements: 19 x 28 cm; 31,5 x 41 cm (frame). In this painting, with the peasant family with cart advancing by a wild road, the stylistic proximity of this Dutch painter and the French Millet is made manifest. Like Millet, Israëls painted the life of humble people with profound humanity, although -according to Duranty- in the Dutchman's work the sadness and suffering of the working or rural classes seems to be perceived with greater crudeness. Josef Israëls was an outstanding member of the Hague School. Born into a family of Sephardic origin, although his father wanted him to be a merchant, he finally allowed him to develop an artistic career, on the condition that the courses, given to him by professors Buys and van Wicheren in his hometown, passed through paternal supervision. That pressure would lead Jozef to move to Amsterdam, as a pupil of Jan Kruseman and later to Paris, where between 1845 and 1847 he attended the classes of Horace Vernet and Paul Delaroche at the Ecole des Beaux-Arts in Paris. He then returned to Amsterdam, where he would remain until 1870 to move and settle in The Hague. Israëls began making portraits and paintings of historical subjects, following the dictates of Romanticism in his early years. An illness would take him as a convalescent to the fishing village of Zandvoort, near Haarlem, where he was able to delve into the tragedy of the most forgotten classes, which further stimulated his solidarity gaze. Among the works of that period are The Fisherman of Zandvoort (in the Amsterdam gallery), The Silent House (which won the gold medal at the Brussels Salon of 1858) and Poor Village (which received a prize in Manchester). In 1862 he achieved some success in London with Shipwreck and The Cradle, two paintings that the Athenaeum magazine described as the most moving of the exhibition. Other works by him include The Widower (in the Mesdag collection), We Grow Old and Alone in the World (Amsterdam Gallery), An Interior (Dordrecht Gallery), Frugal Meal (Glasgow Museum), Between Field and Seashore and The Curiosity Dealer (which won two medals of honor at the 1900 Paris Exposition Universelle). He was much admired by Vincent van Gogh, who often quoted him in letters he wrote to his brother Theo. Some of Van Gogh's early paintings show a strong influence of Israëls, as is the case of The Potato Eaters.