A painter, possibly the artist W.B. Tholen, at work in a punter on a sunny day

One of the characteristics of the Hague School, which manifested itself in the last quarter of the nineteenth century, was its representatives' preferred method, following the French Barbizon School, of painting from nature in the summer months, equipped with a paint box, sometimes a light, folding easel, and often a parasol. Many oil sketches were produced in this way. Some of the artists, fascinated by the Dutch polder and water landscapes, used 'floating studios', as illustrated in this painting by Gabriël, a foremost representative of the Hague School, who portrayed one of his friends, in this case probably his pupil Willem Bastiaan Tholen at work in a boat, seated under a white parasol. The present painting was likely painted in the vicinity of Kampen, and is dateable to circa 1882. In 1879 Tholen was a pupil of Gabriël in Brussels, and the two became friends. In 1880 and for several years thereafter they spent the summer together in Kampen, where Tholen's parents lived. The watery region around Kampen and Giethoorn, with its lakes and peateries, presented Gabriël with a number of subjects that recurred repeatedly in his repertoire. An important example is The Kamperveenderij: Zwijnsleger near Grafhorst in the collection of the Kunstmuseum in The Hague, inv. no. 0331363.

With a borrowed boat, Gabriël and his young companion painted the peat landscape and the windmills at Giethoorn, generally on a small canvas pinned to the paint box. They also made many sketches that were later worked up in the studio as monumental paintings such as The Kamperveenderij. And each of them was apparently attracted to the idea of portraying the other at work in a boat, resulting in portraits both picturesque and of documentary value. One such painting, executed by Tholen in 1882, shows Gabriël painting in the boat, likewise under a white parasol, with his paint box on his knees (Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen, Rotterdam, inv. no. VdV 78). In 1884 Gabriël settled in The Hague, followed a few years later by Tholen.

The fresh-toned oil painting presented here in a finely gilded contemporary frame (from the renowned Leiden firm, D. Sala & Zonen) is a particularly attractive example of the portraits each artist painted of the other while working en plein air, probably for their own amusement. The accomplished technique suggests that Gabriël painted the work in the studio from a drawing sketched in situ, largely in black chalk. A similar drawing of a man in a boat amidst reeds is in the Kunstmuseum in The Hague (J. Sillevis a.o., De Haagse School. De collectie van het Haags Gemeentemuseum, The Hague 1988, no. 84). The literature mentions another oil sketch by Gabriël of Tholen painting under a parasol, but in this instance on land (A. de Jong, Willem Bastiaan Tholen (1860-1931), exhib. cat., Gouda, (Catharina Gasthuis), 1993, p. 24, ill. 21).