Judges of Israel; or, a History of the Jews, from the Death of Joshua to the Death of Samuel, Including an Account of the Reign of Saul

Israëls was born in Groningen to poor Jewish parents. He trained as an artist in Groningen and Amsterdam, and between 1845 and 1855, he expanded his training by travelling to Paris, Dusseldorf, and the artist's colony at Oosterbeek. However, the most influential locations he visited were the Dutch seaside towns of Zandvoort and Katwijk, were he adopted genre painting as a means of documenting the lives of the towns' fishermen. His painting "Fisherman Carrying a Drowned Man" earned him an international reputation when it was shown at the Paris Salon in 1861. After this, he continued to focus on capturing the inner lives and the grief experienced by poor fishermen and their families.