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Jacob Maris, 'A Beach', probably late 1870s or 1880s

About the work

This beach may be at Scheveningen, close to The Hague, where Jacob Maris settled in the 1870s. A lone fisherman appears to be hauling nets alongside two beached flat-bottomed fishing boats. A few birds are the only sign of wildlife.

Maris painted the scene, particularly the sky, with broad visible stokes that are characteristic of his late work. The tracks of the brush’s bristles in the thick paint help create an impression of agitated windswept clouds and of breaking waves on the shoreline. Colours are mainly limited to ochres, greys and browns for the sandy beach, with a narrow band of indigo blue to indicate the sea.

Despite the small size of the canvas, Maris has created a sense of expansive space, in part by giving over most of the picture to the sky. Here he was following the precedent of other northern European artists, especially Dutch painters such as Jan van Goyen and Jacob van Ruisdael.

Key facts

Full title
A Beach
Artist
Jacob Maris
Artist dates
1837 - 1899
Date made
probably late 1870s or 1880s
Medium and support
oil on canvas
Dimensions
42.5 × 54.5 cm
Inscription summary
Signed
Acquisition credit
Presented by Mrs R.M. Dunlop to the Tate Gallery, 1927; transferred, 1956
Inventory number
NG4262
Location
Not on display
Collection
Main Collection

About this record

If you know more about this painting or have spotted an error, please contact us. Please note that exhibition histories are listed from 2009 onwards. Bibliographies may not be complete; more comprehensive information is available in the National Gallery Library.

More works by Jacob Maris

A Drawbridge in a Dutch Town
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The everyday quality of this simple functional bridge may have particularly appealed to Jacob Maris, and he paints it without embellishment or narrative incident. He also made a watercolour of the same view in 1875, but in this oil painting he emphasises the bridge’s monumentality by increasing t...
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A Girl feeding a Bird in a Cage
A Girl feeding a Bird in a Cage
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This small painting on wood was painted in the same year as A Girl Seated outside a House, also in the National Gallery’s collection. The two paintings have several common features. These include a young girl (probably the same model) wearing jewellery, seen in profile on the right of the picture...
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A Girl seated outside a House
A Girl seated outside a House
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When this small painting on wood was bequeathed to the National Gallery it had the title Vespers, although it had previously been titled Young Girl with Flowers. The composition is very similar to a picture titled Sunday Afternoon, which Jacob Maris had painted a few years earlier in 1863. That p...
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A Windmill and Houses beside Water: Stormy Sky
A Windmill and Houses beside Water: Stormy Sky
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This painting is typical of the views of the Dutch countryside that Jacob Maris produced throughout his career. A single windmill provides the only interruption along the flat horizon in a picture that is dominated by a stormy sky – the painting previously had the title La Tourmente (‘Turmoil’ or...
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A Young Woman nursing a Baby
A Young Woman nursing a Baby
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Jacob Maris was a highly successful painter of Dutch landscapes, but he also painted interiors with people and genre subjects. This small intimate picture was painted in Paris, where he lived from 1865 until 1871.The woman is almost certainly Maris’s wife. Their first child, Guillaume, was born i...
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Three Windmills
Three Windmills
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Born in The Hague, Jacob Maris trained at the city’s Drawing Academy and at the Academy in Antwerp. His interest in specifically Dutch landscape perhaps began on his first visit in 1859 to the artists’ colony at the village of Oosterbeek. After travelling in northern Europe, Jacob moved to Paris...
Not on display