Isaac Israels artwork • painting • previously for sale Portrait of a young woman

Isaac Israels, together with George Hendrik Breitner, was the leading representative of the group of Amsterdam Impressionists. He painted fragments of life he chanced across in the capital’s shopping streets, coffee houses and café-chantants, where busy urban living was played out. In a few apt charcoal lines or quick, spontaneous brushstrokes, with subtle colour accents, he captured everything he saw. Israels also painted beach scenes at Scheveningen and was an adept portrait artist. In 1903 he settled in Paris for several years. This sensitive female portrait comes from the collection of the Israel collector Jan Michiel Pieter Glerum (1879-1930). This stockbroker and brother-in-law of Joop Siedenburg bought the portrait from art dealers Francois Buffa & Fils in Amsterdam. Between 1915 and 1920 he bought 102 paintings and quarelles from Buffa. Like so many others, the stock market crash of 1929 forced part of his extensive collection to be auctioned. The rest followed in 1933.