This is one of the major paintings from van der Velden’s Marken funeral series, which also includes Burial in the winter on the island of Marken [The Dutch Funeral]. Marken Funeral Barge focuses on the final journey of a drowned fisherman, travelling by barge and accompanied by his widow, to the town of Marken, which can be made out in the distance. By the 1870s, van der Velden had established himself as a successful painter and had become a member of the Hague School, a group of leading Dutch artists interested in realism and portraying the daily lives of rural peasants. As was popular with the Hague School painters, van der Velden used subdued tones to show the atmospheric effects of light on the landscape and accentuate the sombre nature of subjects like this funeral.

(New Dawn Fades. November 2018)