Jozef Israëls

Jozef Israëls, 1824 – 1911, was a Dutch painter, and "the most respected Dutch artist of the second half of the nineteenth century.

He was born in Groningen, of Jewish parents. His father, Hartog Abraham Israëls, intended for him to be a businessman, and it was only after a determined struggle that he was allowed to enter on an artistic career. However, the attempts he made under the guidance of two second-rate painters in his native town Buys and van Wicheren while still working under his father as a stock-broker's clerk, led to his being sent to Amsterdam, where he became a pupil of Jan Kruseman and attended the drawing class at the academy. He then spent two years in Paris, working in Picot's studio, and returned to Amsterdam. There he remained till 1870, when he moved to The Hague for good, where he became part of the Hague School of painters.