These delightful, informal sketches depict one of Liebermann's closest life-long friends, the renowned Dutch painter Josef Israëls, head of the Hague school of peasant genre painting and a frequent depicter of Dutch Jewish life. The two met in 1880 during one of Liebermann's regular visits to the Netherlands and often worked together subsequently. Late in life, Israëls entrusted Liebermann to write his biography, which was published in 1901 in Berlin by Bruno Cassirer, and underwent multiple editions. As scholar Yosef Kaplan has observed, Liebermann 'provides a loving portrait of the older artist, and in many respects compares Israëls' artistic energy to that of Rembrandt'.

In these intimate sketches, Israëls is depicted towards the end of his life, during one of his walks along the Dutch seaside in Scheveningen. An etching by Liebermann, depicting Israëls in a similar pose, is also in the collection of the Leo Baeck Institute for the Study of German-Jewish History and Culture.