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A Son of the Ancient Race
Jozef Israëls
ca. 1889
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The son of an observant Jewish family in Groningen, Holland, Jozef Israëls became one of the foremost Dutch artists of the nineteenth century. After initially painting portraits and historical subjects, in the 1850s Israëls turned to painting genre scenes in a powerful realist style, particularly depictions of the hard lives of fishermen and their families. In the 1870s, Israëls became a leader of the Hague school and achieved international renown. Late in his career, Israëls portrayed Jewish subjects, notably The Son of an Ancient People (1889) and The Jewish Wedding (1903), as well as biblical subjects. His son became a painter as well.
The Last Breath is one of the genre paintings depicting the lives of fishermen and their families for which Jozef Israëls was best known. In this scene, a woman is weeping over the body of her husband…
This painting of a service at the Portuguese synagogue in Amsterdam is similar to a painting for which Jacques-Émile-Edouard Brandon received a medal at the Paris Salon of 1867. Both are views of the…
Leopold Pilichowski began painting pictures with Jewish themes shortly after moving to the Polish industrial city of Łódź around 1894. He depicted the everyday life of impoverished Jews and Jewish…