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The Shepherd’s Prayer

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The Shepherd’s Prayer

The Shepherd’s Prayer

Artist Jozef Israëls (Dutch, 1824-1911)
Place of OriginNetherlands
Date1864
DimensionsPainting: 35 3/8 × 49 1/4 in. (89.9 × 125.1 cm)
Frame: 50 1/4 × 64 1/2 × 5 1/2 in. (127.6 × 163.8 × 14 cm)
Mediumoil on canvas
ClassificationPaintings
Credit LineGift of Edward Drummond Libbey
Object number
1914.116
Not on View
Label TextIn 1901, nearly 40 years after painting The Shepherd’s Prayer, Jozef Israëls wrote in a letter to the owner (Edward Drummond Libbey, glass industrialist and Toledo Museum of Art founder): “I believe it possesses what I like best in my pictures, the feeling of quietness of the country, far from the madding crowd.” He also described the subject: “The shepherd is praying a little prayer before he takes his sober bread and coffee that is brought to him from the dwelling nearby, by an elder sister, while the vast campaign of the green and the sheep gives to the scenery the sentiment of the moment.” Israëls was the leader of a group of artists known as the Hague School, who emerged in The Netherlands around 1870. Seeing themselves as the heirs of the great Dutch painters of Holland’s Golden Age in the 17th century, these artists were interested in expressing the peaceful solitude of nature, rather than capturing a fleeting moment as seen in the works of the French Impressionists.Published ReferencesGunsaulus, Frank W., An Address Delivered at the Opening of the Memorial Exhibition of the Work of Josef Israels, Toledo Museum of Art Inaugural, 1912, repr. facing p. 121.

Toledo Museum of Art Museum News, no. 24, Dec. 1914, repr.

Godwin, Blake-More, European Paintings in the Toledo Museum, 1939, p. 126, repr. p. 127.

Sutton, Denys, "Nineteenth-Century Painting: Trends and Cross-Currents," Apollo, vol. 86, no. 70, Dec. 1967, p. 490, repr. (b&w) fig. II.

de Gruyter, J., De Haagse School, Rotterdam, 1968, I, pp. 52, 58, 113, no. 52, repr.

Toledo Museum of Art, The Toledo Museum of Art, European Paintings, Toledo 1976, p. 82, pl. 152.

Brettell, Richard R., Painters and Peasants in the Nineteenth Century, Geneva, 1983, p. 101, repr.

Leeuw, Ronald de, "Introduction generale," in L'Ecole de La Haye, Paris and The Hague, 1983, p. 34, fig. 20 (not in exh.)

Carbone, Genevieve, La peur du loup, Paris, 1991, repr. (col.) p. 73.

A Joyful Noise: Four Psalms, New York, 1996, p. 59, repr. p. 22 (col. det.), 25 (col. det. ) and 58 (col.).

Exhibition HistoryToledo, The Toledo Museum of Art, Inaugural Exhibition, Part IV: Israels Memorial Exhibition, 1912, no. 226, repr. opp. p. 121.

Los Angeles, Municipal Art Gallery, Old Favorites Revisited, A Loan Exhibition of Paintings, 1959, no. 27. repr.

Groninger, Groninger Museum; Amsterdam, Jewish Historical Museum, Jozef Israëls 1824-1911, 1999-2000, no. 18, pp. 159-160, repr. p. 161 (col.).

The Hague, Netherlands, Gemeentemuseum den Hagg, 2008-2009.

Toledo, Toledo Museum of Art, The Unseen Art of TMA: What's in the Vaults and Why?, September 12, 2004-January 2, 2005 (no catalogue or checklist).

The Hague, The Mesdag Collection, Millet and the Hague School, September 13, 2019-January 5, 2020.

Self-Portrait (or Portrait of a Man)
Self-Portrait (or Portrait of a Man)
Jozef Israëls
mid 19th-early 20th Century
Self-Portrait
Self-Portrait
Jozef Israëls
1908
Mending Nets
Mending Nets
Jozef Israëls
1886
Stumbling Old Man
Stumbling Old Man
Jozef Israëls
1898
The Mother
The Mother
Jozef Israëls
1874-1875
Evening on the Shore
Evening on the Shore
Jozef Israëls
about 1901
Child in Cradle
Child in Cradle
Jozef Israëls
1875
Old Man Reading
Old Man Reading
Jozef Israëls
1875
Girl with Basket Seated on the Shore
Girl with Basket Seated on the Shore
Jozef Israëls
before 1879
Baby in His Chair
Baby in His Chair
Jozef Israëls
about 1874
Old Katwyk Woman
Old Katwyk Woman
Jozef Israëls
about 1901
Little Johnny
Little Johnny
Jozef Israëls
1875

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