Children of the Sea

Four fishermen's children play in the shallows, and the Rijksmuseum reads the scene as a glimpse of their future. The eldest boy carries a small child on his back, the way he will soon carry the weight of the family, and the toy sailing boat stands for the hard life at sea that waits for them. They wear ragged clothes, and apart from the boat their only plaything is a stick one of them drags through the water.

Israëls painted children with toy boats in the surf more than once, and this version is dated 1872. It came to the Rijksmuseum in 1907 with the bequest of the Haarlem collector J.B.A.M. Westerwoudt. Far out on the horizon at left, almost lost in the haze, are two small sails.