The German painter Max Liebermann (1847-1935) founded the German impressionist school and coordinated its development with the modern movement in Paris.

Max Liebermann was born on July 20, 1847, in Berlin into a Jewish family. His admiration for the Dutch painter Jozef Israëls and the many Jewish themes found in his works, particularly those executed in the Netherlands, testify to his religious consciousness. Liebermann began to study art at the University of Berlin, but he did not enter an art academy until 1868. This was in Weimar, where he remained until 1873. Between 1871 and 1875 he made three visits to the Netherlands, a country which appealed to him and to which he returned many times later.

Liebermann started to paint as a realist, and the free brushwork of Frans Hals influenced him decisively. Liebermann settled in Paris in 1873, and his early contact with the Barbizon school (1874) made him an adherent of...