Potato eaters

Jozef Israëls painted Potato Eaters in 1902, an evident reference to — and perhaps dialogue with — Van Gogh's famous 1885 painting of the same subject. Where Van Gogh's potato eaters were the culmination of years of struggle with peasant subjects, Israëls's version comes from a long-established master of The Hague School treating a subject that had been his career-long concern. Israëls had painted the poor and the laboring classes since the 1860s, and his return to this quintessential subject in old age represents a kind of summation. The Kunstmuseum Den Haag holds this late work as part of their comprehensive Israëls collection.

Israëls renders the meal scene with the warm, low-key palette and dense tonal handling characteristic of his mature style. Interior light — from a lamp or window — illuminates the figures from one direction, creating the chiaroscuro that had defined his treatment of poverty and labor since mid-career. His brushwork is more relaxed than in his exhibition pieces, with the confidence of long mastery.