Paard, kippen bij een hek en een vrouw gezien door een venster c. 1855

Jozef Israëls made this pencil drawing, titled 'Horse, chickens by a fence and a woman seen through a window', which is currently held in the Rijksmuseum. Israëls, living from 1824 to 1911, was part of the Hague School, a group that sought to represent everyday life and the Dutch landscape with realism. The sketch gives us a glimpse into a world where the intimate and the agrarian intertwine. A woman gazes out of a window, seemingly lost in thought, while a horse and chickens occupy the same pictorial space. The window serves as a frame, creating a sense of enclosure, maybe even isolation. Israëls' work often reflected his deep empathy for the working class and those on the margins of society. He once stated, "I don't want to paint pretty things. I want to paint what I see." Here, he captures the ordinary, rendering it with an emotional weight that invites reflection on the lives and experiences of those often overlooked in grand narratives. This drawing, though simple, gives us a view into the quiet moments that define human existence.