Who painted As one gets old?

As one gets old was painted by Jozef Israëls in 1890.

Where can I see As one gets old?

As one gets old is held by Rijksmuseum.

What movement is As one gets old?

As one gets old is associated with Dutch Golden Age.

As one gets old by Jozef Israëls (1890) · Meaning & Museum

About this work

Subject & Meaning

This imagery functions as a potent symbol of pain, solitude, hardship, and misery, representing the suffering condition of old age among the dispossessed.

The painting depicts an elderly peasant woman hunched over with a bent back, warming her arthritic, deformed hands by a small fire within a large stone fireplace. Dominating a scene of rustic interiority marked by a wall clock and uneven floor, the figure is enveloped in a worn woolen mantle, her face remaining indecipherable in shadow. This imagery functions as a potent symbol of pain, solitude, hardship, and misery, representing the suffering condition of old age among the dispossessed. Unlike the artist's other peasant subjects captured at labor, this work portrays a moment of contemplative stillness where the woman is not working. The composition utilizes a palette of brown and reddish tones with selective highlights to emphasize the woman's isolation and physical decay.

Technique & Style

The work is an oil painting on canvas measuring 160 cm in height and 101 cm in width, executed in 1878 by Jozef Israëls.

The handling combines broad initial underdrawing with successive, short, closely placed strokes that build up form and volume. Subtle touches of light pick out contours of the seated figure, the wicker chair, and the wall clock, while a muted palette of browns and reddish tones dominates. The composition centers on an elderly woman bent over a hearth, her body wrapped in a faded, worn woolen shawl and her hands visibly deformed by arthritic swelling. The scene’s stillness is heightened by the play of a single light source from above, casting an elongated shadow across the uneven floor and leaving the woman’s face largely in shadow.

History & Provenance

Jozef Israëls created the oil painting *As one gets old* (Dutch: *Als men oud wordt*) in 1883, following his move to The Hague in 1871. The work reflects the artist's period in Zandvoort, where he studied the lives of humble fishermen and peasants, drawing stylistic inspiration from Rembrandt. The painting is currently held by the Kunstmuseum Den Haag. It is not owned by the museum directly but is maintained there on loan from the estate of Erven van Hijmans van Wadenoyen. The work depicts an elderly peasant woman warming herself by a fireplace, a subject chosen to represent the solitude and suffering of old age.

The painting As one gets old is held in the collection of the Kunstmuseum Den Haag. While some records associate the work with the Rijksmuseum, its primary location is identified as The Hague museum, where it is kept on loan from the estate of Erven van Hijmans van Wadenoyen.

The work was included in the exhibition Il lavoro dell'uomo da Goya a Kandinskij (The Work of Man from Goya to Kandinsky), which took place at the Braccio di Carlo Magno in Vatican City between 1991 and 1992.

Context

Critical reception of As one gets old emphasizes its embodiment of Jozef Israëls’s characteristic focus on the dignity and hardship of peasant life, with scholar John Ernest Phythian noting it encapsulates his painterly technique in depicting non-laboring rural figures. Scholarship situates the work within the Dutch Hague School and its social realism, highlighting its emotional depth in portraying old age as a state of solitary vulnerability through compositional elements like the hunched figure, limited palette of browns and reds, and precise rendering of textures such as worn wool and stone. The painting’s placement in art history reflects its significance as a representative example of 19th-century genre painting that merges realistic detail with poignant thematic focus on marginalized subjects, distinct from contemporaries’ approaches while drawing on influences like Rembrandt’s treatment of light and form.