A family on the beach

The present lot is a delightfully luminescent example of Isaac's Italian beach scenes where he used a refined palette of pinks, blues, beige and a striking red in the seated woman's bathing suit. The apparently spontaneous impression of Isaac's painting is a little deceptive since the artist would often make his models stand still in the hot sun for a long time in order to be able to study every aspect of their pose (see fig.1). It is very likely that the present lot depicts a family on the beach of Viareggio. The fluent Italian speaking Isaac first visited this picturesque town, situated on the coast of the Tyrrhenian Sea in the North of Tuscany, in 1923. Viareggio was at its peak as a resort in the 1920's when Isaac Israels frequently visited the place and the beach was one of his favourite themes and a great inspiration for him.