Edmond Marie Petitjean was one of the French painters who came to Holland in the 1880s to paint the landscape in the footsteps of the Barbizon painters Charles Daubigny and Boudin. They were particularly charmed by the rivers and canals with their beautiful light, the mills along the banks and the reflecting clouds in the water. Petitjean stayed in Dordrecht around 1886 and was probably also in Scheveningen and Katwijk around that time to paint the fisherman's life on the beach. Petitjean was a well-known harbour painter and frequently traveled along the French and Belgian coast to paint large and small harbours with ships and fishing villages.