Interior of a Marken fisherman's cottage

This interior view of a poor fisherman’s cottage is typical of artists who identified with The Hague School. The group, which centred around Jozef Israels, found inspiration in the lives of everyday Dutch people.

In 1871, Petrus van der Velden studied on the island of Marken, near Amsterdam, capturing the customs and costumes of the local peasants and fisherfolk. There, he created the sketches for this painting.

Certain motifs in this work, such as the broken stool, exist as preliminary studies in Van der Velden’s sketchbooks.