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Floris Arntzenius started his training in 1882 with the artist Frederik Nachtweh (1857-1941). His parents had intended for him to study Agriculture in Wageningen but Floris had persuaded them to let him persue an artistic career and after his initial training started at the Rijksacademie in Amsterdam in 1883. He completed his studies in 1888 in Amsterdam, where he had received his training with other students such as Willem Witsen (1860-1923), Isaac Israels (1865-1934), Eduard Karsen (1860-1941) and George Hendrik Breitner (1857-1923), whose unfolding impressionistic style Arntzenius deeply admired. After this formal training and after he had spent a year studying at the Academy of Antwerp, the artist moved back to Amsterdam in 1889, which was the artistic center of The Netherlands in the last decade of the 19th Century. The artist spent another three years in the Dutch capital, regularly showing his work at Arti et Amicitiae. After subsequently practicing landscape painting in Nunspeet and the Geuldal for several years, Floris moved to The Hague in 1892 and further developed his mastery of city scenes, fervently making sketches and studies of various streets in the Hague. His studio was located at Piet Heinstraat 15. That same year he joined Pulchri Studio and was introduced to famous Hague School painters such as Hendrik Willem Mesdag (1831-1915) and the Maris brothers, who were at this time no longer the revolutionary avant-garde. Like The Hague School painters Floris was interested in capturing light and impressions, but he preferred painting city-life to the Dutch landscape which the older generation had chosen. Just like many of his contemporaries Arntzenius enjoyed working outside in the streets and squares and his work reflects the sophisticated atmosphere of The Hague around the turn of the century. His paintings and watercolours of grayish, stilled street views, often with a butchers-boy and his rush-basket, are amongst his best-known works. In 1893 he moved studio again, this time to Spui 58, which he shared with Kees van Waning (1861-1929). Only three years later he moved to the Sumatrastraat 2E. He had already established a reputation for himself and was selected to join the Hollansche Teeken Maatschappij whose exhibitions held international fame. Arntzenius would stay in The Hague for the largest part of his life and found his subject matter predominantly in and around the city, on the fashionable beach of Scheveningen and in the small fishing-villages around the Zuiderzee. In order to capture the city's wide range of everyday subjects Arntzenius had moved studio regularly, eventually settling in the Zoutmanstraat overlooking the Bierkade in 1909. PROPERTY OF A DESCENDANT OF THE ARTIST FLORIS ARNTZENIUS (1864-1925)

Floris Arntzenius (Dutch, 1864-1925)

Elegant ladies on the beach

Details

Floris Arntzenius (Dutch, 1864-1925)
Elegant ladies on the beach
signed 'Fl. Arntzenius' (lower right)
oil on canvas
22.5 x 37 cm.
Painted between 1892-98.

Provenance

The artist's estate, thence by descent to the present owner.

Literature

Anne Wagner, Louis Jacob F. Wijsenbeek, Floris Arntzenius 1864-1925; Het Haagse leven van gisteren, 1969, cat.no. 16, p. 27, ill.

Exhibited

The Hague, Haags Gemeentemuseum Laren, Singer Museum, Floris Arntzenius 1864-1925; Het Haagse leven van gisteren, June-November 1969, cat.no. 16, as: Strand met enkele figuren.

Special notice

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