The artistic development of the young Franz Skarbina, born in Berlin in 1849, was decisively shaped by his intensive study trips to Belgium, Holland and France, for which he took leave from his teaching duties as professor of anatomy and proportion studies at the Royal Academy of Fine Arts in Berlin for an entire year beginning in October 1885. “As Menzel says — just study nature, and exercise, and let yourself be influenced only indirectly by the artistic air in Brussels […],” wrote Skarbina to Felix Possart (1837-1928) from Dordrecht in 1884, giving his student advice that the latter held dear for the rest of his life. It was the “natural” life in unspoiled seaside towns, far removed from civilization, that attracted the city-dweller and became his repeated subject matter, despite his academic training.