Pijprokende man

Title: Pijprokende man ('Pipe smoking man'), Etching on hand-made paper. Hand-signed by Jozef Israëls, The art work is and has some stains of foxing. Jozef Israëls 1824 – 1911) Was a Dutch master painter. He was a leading member of the group of landscape painters referred to as the Hague School and was, during his lifetime, 'the most respected Dutch artist of the second half of the nineteenth century. He was born in Groningen to Jewish parents. His father, Hartog Abraham Israëls, was a money changer and intended for Jozef to be a businessman. His mother was Mathilda Salomon née Polack, and she hoped that Jozef would become a rabbi. When he was eleven years old, he attended Minerva Academy in Groningen and he began to study painting. He subsequently continued his studies in Amsterdam, studying at the Royal Academy for Fine Arts, which later became the State Academy for Fine Arts. He was a pupil of Jan Kruseman and attended the drawing class at the academy. From September 1845 until May 1847 he was in Paris, working in the history painter François-Édouard Picot's studio and taking classes at the Ecole des Beaux-Arts under James Pradier, Horace Vernet, and Paul Delaroche. He returned to Amsterdam in September 1845, where he resumed his studies at the Academy until May 1847 Israëls remained in Amsterdam until 1870, when he moved to The Hague and became a leading member of the Hague School of landscape painters.