George Hendrik Breitner - Portrait of the Young Writer Lodewijk van Deyssel

The novel Een Liefde (One Love) by the 19-year-old Van Deyssel published in 1887 still holds its own today. While the verse of his colleagues Willem Kloos and Herman Gorter has paled in the course of time, Van Deyssel’s book transports the reader back to Amsterdam in the late 19th century. The city serves as the setting for the unravelling of the marriage of a young stockbroker and his wife.

George Hendrik Breitner - Dutch painter and photographer born in The Hague in 1857. He studied at the Royal Academy of Art in The Hague and in Paris. He is known for his realistic and detailed depictions of city life, particularly in Amsterdam and Paris. He was a member of the Amsterdam Impressionism movement, which focused on capturing the atmosphere and mood of the city through light and color. Breitner was also a pioneer in the use of photography as an aid in creating paintings. He died in Amsterdam in 1923.