interior with children, Jozef Israëls

Recently conserved for this exhibition, Jozef Israëls’s painting depicts a young girl who looks on as a boy peels potatoes in a domestic space. At the time that Thayer purchased Interior with Children, Israëls, a Dutch Jewish artist, was at the height of his fame. The demand for his work was so strong that publishers reproduced, circulated, and sold prints after his paintings on an international market. While Israëls specialized in scenes of agricultural life and fishermen at work, this painting relates to others in which he explores the themes of children preparing food and families at mealtime. A 1909 letter from the director of the Art Institute of Chicago, with an inscription by the art dealer Henry Reinhardt, suggests that the painting was once displayed in that museum’s galleries, possibly also in the exhibition Contemporary Dutch Paintings held earlier that year.

Recently conserved for this exhibition, Jozef Israëls’s painting depicts a young girl who looks on as a boy peels potatoes in a domestic space. At the time that Thayer purchased Interior with Children, Israëls, a Dutch Jewish artist, was at the height of his fame. The demand for his work was so strong that publishers reproduced, circulated, and sold prints after his paintings on an international market. While Israëls specialized in scenes of agricultural life and fishermen at work, this painting relates to others in which he explores the themes of children preparing food and families at mealtime. A 1909 letter from the director of the Art Institute of Chicago, with an inscription by the art dealer Henry Reinhardt, suggests that the painting was once displayed in that museum’s galleries, possibly also in the exhibition Contemporary Dutch Paintings held earlier that year.

Sallie Casey Thayer purchased this painting by Jozef Israëls around 1910, a time when the artist was perhaps at the peak of his fame. Israëls specialized in the portrayal of rural laborers and their families, whom he generally represented using dark tones, neutral colors, and rough brushwork. In the late 1880s, imagery that conveyed moralizing messages about the value of hardship appealed greatly to art collectors in Britain, France, the United States, and Canada.

Tap the image above and swipe to view the back of the painting and a letter regarding the installation of Israëls’ painting at the Art Institute of Chicago, as well as a photographic reproduction of the painting dedicated to Mrs. W. B. Thayer and signed by the artist.