Sitting in the grass, a girl studies red and white flowers in her left hand, while gathering more freshly picked blossoms in the folds of her skirt with her other hand. The setting is only loosely suggested – just a few tall, grey-green blades of grass in the foreground hint at place and depth. The selectively refined detailing draws our eye to what matters most: the girl, intently picking flowers. Loose brushwork dominates the composition around her – a clue to Breitner’s affinity with the painting style of the Hague School artists.
This gouache by George Hendrik Breitner (1857–1923) must have been made in 1880, the year in which he lived and worked together with the Hague School artist Willem Maris (1844–1910) at Huize Rozenburg in The Hague. Breitner was then still at the very beginning of his artistic career. Barely four years earlier, in 1876, the Rotterdam-born painter had begun his studies at the Royal Academy of Art in The Hague, which was then under the direction of the rigorously classicist Johan Philip Koelman (1818–1893). Breitner had chosen the country’s oldest art institution on the advice of his fellow townsman and traditionalist Charles Rochussen (1814–1894), yet he was soon drawn to the modernity embodied by the Hague School. As Breitner took his first steps within the Hague art scene, first-generation Hague School painters such as Willem Roelofs (1822–1897), Jozef Israëls (1824–1911) and Hendrik Willem Mesdag (1831–1915) were firmly assuming a position in the artistic establishment.
Breitner and the Hague School
With a realistic – although at times rather sentimental – approach to landscape and a loose handling of the brush, the Hague School represented a break with the prevailing Dutch Romanticism and academicism. This appealed greatly to the young Breitner, and before long he became a member of Pulchri Studio, the artists’ society where the Hague School painters gathered. There, he met the doyens Hendrik Willem Mesdag and Jozef Israëls. Despite warnings from Koelman that ‘he would go to the dogs’ if he associated with this group of artists, Breitner increasingly gravitated towards the Hague School painters. Initially, he continued to attend lessons at the Academy, but he found it ever more difficult to conform to the rigid school system. His attendance became sporadic, and when present, his behaviour was often defiant. This ultimately culminated in his expulsion from the Academy in the summer of 1880.
Shortly before being suspended, Breitner took up residence with Willem Maris at Huize Rozenburg in The Hague, located at 128 Zuid Binnensingel. Since 1878, Maris had been working alongside Théophile de Bock (1851–1904) in this stately building, which would later become home to the Rozenburg pottery. On the occasion of the factory’s opening in 1885, the Hague writer Carel Vosmaer (1826–1888) shared his childhood memories of the house: ‘It stood there at the city’s edge, looking out over the wide meadows towards the Westland; it was a house from the early 18th century, with door and window frames richly adorned with carved ornamentation and a shell above, characteristic of rococo art; it was an elegant house, something like a country residence with a large garden, and if I remember rightly, a moat with a small bridge in front.’ Vosmaer describes how the house had fallen into disuse and decay around the mid-century. This atmosphere of faded grandeur must still have pervaded the house when it was later let to artists as studio space.
Breitner lived and worked there for about a year, during which Maris, who was thirteen years older, acted as his mentor. Through this connection, Breitner became further integrated into the circle of Hague School artists, many of whom often visited Huize Rozenburg. As a result, in the summer of 1880, Hendrik Willem Mesdag honoured the young artist by inviting him to contribute to the Panorama of Scheveningen – a prestigious opportunity early in Breitner’s career.
George Hendrik Breitner, At the Riverbank, 1880, oil on paper laid on cardboard, 25.5 x 41.5 cm, private collection. Photo: © 2009 Christie’s Images Limited
It was during this period of close contact with the Hague School that Breitner is believed to have created Girl in the Grass. It is even highly likely that it was painted in the garden of Huize Rozenburg. When Willem Maris later reflected on those years, he recalled how Breitner would also have dragoons pose on horseback there. Maris’s mentorship can presumably be detected in Breitner’s sketches and studies of verdant watersides made around the same time ( and ). The contrast between the light touches on the reeds and stems of grass against a dark, undefined background echoes Maris’s style. This very approach to nature is evident in Girl in the Grass, as becomes clear when the gouache is compared to, for example, Willem Maris’s Ducks in the Grass (). Notable here are the similar perspective and framing: a close-up of a corner of nature, although without a defined placement within a wider landscape.
In Girl in the Grass, Breitner adopted techniques used by both Willem Maris and his older brother Jacob Maris (1837–1899). The opaque watercolour, heavily diluted with water, lends the background a transparent quality in which subtle gradations of green and brown gently blend together. Less-diluted paint is then used to define details and highlights, such as flowers and blades of grass catching the light. The addition of sketch-like black contours to the figure – especially in the face – is characteristic of Jacob Maris’s watercolour drawings. This can be clearly seen, for example, in his work Picking Flowers ().
A child picking flowers was a popular subject among Hague School artists. For similar works, Jacob Maris () and Anton Mauve (1838–1888) () used their daughters as models. The identity of the sitter who posed for Breitner – who never had children of his own – remains unknown. In any case, it could not have been one of Willem Maris’s daughters, as they were born later. The model may have been Tine, Jacob Maris’s middle daughter, or her older sister Henriëtte. Nevertheless, the lack of distinguishing features suggests that such charming scenes were not intended as portraits but rather as atmospheric genre pieces created primarily for sale, and they were in high demand.
Watercolour drawings were generally well received on the art market. Less costly and time-consuming to produce than oil paintings, they were affordable to a broader audience. Hence the medium was commercially appealing. The Hague School played a significant role in the rise of the watercolour drawing as an independent art form. The medium was particularly well suited to outdoor studies and to capturing the atmosphere and colour effects of the watery Dutch landscape. In 1876, the Hollandsche Teekenmaatschappij (Dutch Drawing Society) was founded by artists including Anton Mauve, Jacob Maris and Hendrik Willem Mesdag. Inspired by similar foreign initiatives such as the British Watercolour Society and the Belgian Société Belge des Aquarellistes, the society aimed to promote the medium through exhibitions.
Jacob Maris, A Girl with Flowers on the Grass, 1878, chalk and watercolour on paper, 39.1 x 26.1 cm, Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam
Breitner finds his own voice
Despite his early affinity with the Hague School – as seen in Girl in the Grass – Breitner would ultimately follow a different path. Leaving behind the Hague School’s nostalgia for rural life, he turned his focus increasingly towards the city after his time in Rozenburg. Inspired by French Naturalist writers such as Emile Zola, he aspired to become ‘le peintre du peuple’ – the people’s painter. Central to this ambition was a desire to portray the harsh realities of the urban working class. This focus on the gritty underbelly of city life was highly unusual in the Netherlands in the early 1880s, and in this pursuit Breitner found a kindred spirit in Vincent van Gogh. Van Gogh had moved to The Hague in late 1881 and remained there until September 1883. Still in search of their own artistic voices, both artists connected over their shared fascination with the working-class neighbourhoods of the city, often roaming these districts together late into the night.
After a brief period in Paris, Breitner eventually settled in Amsterdam, where he would reach the height of his career. Subjects abounded in the lively and rapidly expanding capital. The writers of the Tachtigers, a Dutch literary movement then at the heart of the city’s cultural scene, championed him for the way he captured the energy of urban life in paint. In the early 1890s, Breitner made his definitive breakthrough as a painter of Amsterdam city scenes, while also gaining renown for his iconic girls in kimonos. Children continued to feature prominently in his work, but now as an integral part of the modern urban landscape.
Theo’s praise: ‘the best painter and thinker there’
Although Vincent could be sharply critical of Breitner at times, he ultimately respected his work. Theo van Gogh went even further, describing Breitner as the best Dutch artist of his time. He believed Breitner rivalled his former teachers: ‘[…] he [Breitner] is far from imitating Maris – perhaps just as great. Maris strives for total unity, where nothing can be added or taken away, while Breitner offers a slice of nature, in which the harmony of colour creates a whole, yet from which even a single fragment reveals the underlying sentiment.’
It is unclear exactly when and how this early gouache from Breitner’s Hague period entered the collection. Breitner could have given the drawing to Vincent during their time together in The Hague, but this is not the most likely scenario. Given Breitner’s chronic financial difficulties, it would not have made much sense to part with such a successful work – especially to a colleague who, at the time, had little to offer in return. Nor was their relationship especially close at that stage, making a gift purely out of friendship improbable.
It is more likely that Theo acquired the work from Breitner himself. One possibility arose in the second half of 1884, when Breitner was in Paris, working in the atelier d’élèves of Fernand Cormon (1845–1924). During this time, he also visited Theo, as noted in his sketchbook. On 2 July of that year, Vincent wrote to Theo that he was glad to have heard about Breitner through him. Vincent’s words also suggest that Theo had spoken favourably about Breitner’s watercolours. It is therefore conceivable that Breitner gave Girl in the Grass to Theo in Paris or sent it to him from the Netherlands, hoping this might lead to his work being sold through the Goupil gallery. That Breitner was aiming for this is evident in a letter he later wrote to Theo from Amsterdam, in which he asks the art dealer whether there might be an opportunity to exhibit some of his nude sketches. Another possibility is when Theo visited the Netherlands briefly in early 1889, during which he called on Breitner at his Amsterdam studio. Perhaps Theo acquired the drawing on this occasion, especially since it was following this meeting that he spoke so highly of Breitner.
Whatever the case may be, what can be said with certainty is that the work was cherished by the Van Gogh family. A photograph of the dining room at 77 Koninginneweg in Amsterdam shows the drawing displayed prominently, alongside paintings by Van Gogh and in full view of all visitors received there by Theo’s widow, Jo van Gogh-Bonger (). In 1902, Jo lent the drawing to the major retrospective of Breitner’s work at the artists’ society Arti et Amicitiae in Amsterdam. That such a comprehensive exhibition was organised during Breitner’s lifetime speaks volumes about the status he enjoyed at the time. The show comprised more than two hundred works, selected by Breitner himself and borrowed from over eighty different lenders. It is telling that Breitner insisted Girl in the Grass be included in the exhibition.
Julia Krikke
October 2025