Woods at Scheveningen

Between 1870 and 1914, although predominantly based in Berlin, Liebermann regularly travelled to the Netherlands to sketch people at work and leisure, later using the sketches to produce paintings and prints in his studio back home. The following etching depicts the crowds resting and strolling through the woods in Scheveningen, one of the coastal districts of Hague, where Liebermann spent a number of summers, frequently in the company of his life-long friend, Dutch painter Josef Israels and the latter’s son Isaac, also an artist. Here, Liebermann masterfully renders a fleeting impression of a busy outdoor scene through a laborious and technically complex etching medium, achieving a degree of liveliness akin to an ink drawing.