Beschreibung:

A reclining nude signed 'Isaac Israels' (lower right) oil on canvas, 54x80 cm Exhibited: -The Hague, Gemeentemuseum, 1960, no. 92. -The Hague, Kunsthandel G.J. Nieuwenhuizen Segaar, 1963. Provenance: -Collection P. Rijkens, Brockham Park, Betchworth, Surrey, by 1960, inv. no. 186. -With Kunsthandel G.J. Nieuwenhuizen Segaar, The Hague, 1963. -With Kunsthandel P.B. van Voorst van Beest, The Hague. -Collection B. Meijer, Wassenaar, thence by descent to the present owners. Painter of women Even if the artist, Isaac Israels was initially indebted to his famous father, Jozef, he quickly showed that he possessed his very own imaginative style. His interest in the human form is one thing he did share with his father; the big difference is that Isaac saw colour and light, not grief and poverty. Isaac is a painter of the mondaine society, the carefree lifestyle, with lots of colourful sparkle. Whereas his father, Jozef, focused on evoking our sentiments in his work – on the inner world – from the very start, Isaac was more focused on what was happening outside; he has an eye for movement. People in the outside world are his subjects, especially in the city, the theatre, the cafés and on the beaches. First Isaac went out onto the street to paint en plein air. Before that he used to make his sketches on paper outside, which he then translated to oil paintings in his atelier. From 1894 he started taking his easel, his brushes and paint into the city; he visited parks in London or Paris, in the Bois de Boulogne, and he would just as easily go to the boulevard in Scheveningen as to the one in Viareggio. The art critic Jan Veth described Israels impressionistic style of painting as ‘art because it has the power of almost coming alive, and none of that power is lost in the bright blonde figures of girls – it practically bursts out of his brushstrokes of bright and beautiful colours. Isaac himself described his impressionistic way of painting as ‘drawing in oils’. He immediately captured his impressions in oils, or as Dolf Welling put it, Israels observed aspects, not structures. Commenting on Isaacs’ preference for painting women, Dolf Welling said: ‘the female, whether in popular or elegant form, is what captivated him in particular. He used strong strokes for them or more cursory lines with fine nuances of colour, including pink and even the greys of the The Hague School’. In the three lots of resting nudes that are on offer (132, 142 and 143), we see what Dolf Welling meant: all three paintings are prove of the unrivalled virtuosity of Israels at his best. Sources: -Anna Wagner ‘Isaac Israels’, Venlo 1985. -Dolf Welling, Isaac Israels, ‘The Sunny World of a Hague Cosmopolitan’, The Hague 1991.