Herman Bogman's cityscapes and still lifes are notable for their delicacy of colour and pure light. The painter was influenced in this by Willem de Zwart, from whom he received advice as a young and gifted artist. Like De Zwart, Bogman was a native of The Hague, for whom the streets, squares and parks of the royal city were an inexhaustible source of inspiration. Until the age of fifty he worked mainly in oil paint, after which he started to paint watercolours. In a short time he developed into one of the most prominent watercolourists of his time, able to achieve the same bearing capacity and depth with watercolour as with oil paint.