Arrival of the Boats

In 1884 Scheveningen, the fishing village by The Hague, still had no harbour. That came only in 1904. Its flat-bottomed boats, the bomschuiten, sailed straight onto the beach, and horses were used to drag them up the sand. So waiting for the boats was a daily event on the shore, and that is what Maris shows. Women and children stand in a group on the beach, a man on horseback in the middle, and the sails are coming in behind them. The canvas is upright, well over a metre tall, and the museum notes that its format and composition pull the viewer in among the waiting people. It was given to the Rijksmuseum in 1910 by the collectors Mr and Mrs Drucker-Fraser.