Isaac Israëls (1865–1934) was born on 3 February 1865 in Amsterdam, the son of Jozef Israëls, one of the leading painters of the Hague School. He grew up in The Hague, trained early in his father’s studio and studied at the art academy there, and the collector Hendrik Willem Mesdag bought one of his paintings when he was only sixteen.
In 1886 he moved to Amsterdam, where he shared a studio with George Hendrik Breitner and enrolled briefly at the Rijksakademie. The two friends became the best-known painters of Amsterdam Impressionism, catching modern city life in cafés, theatres, streets and department stores with abruptly cropped, snapshot-like compositions. From about 1903 Israëls spent long periods in Paris and London, and he also travelled to the Dutch East Indies. Late in his career he won a gold medal in the art competition at the 1928 Olympic Games for his painting Red Rider.
Israëls died in The Hague on 7 October 1934, two days after being hit by a car.