A still little-known Dutch 19th-century artist, Elias Voet belongs to the Romantic school but verges on Realism. Born in Haarlem, he took part in several exhibitions in Amsterdam (1842, 1844, and 1848) and Groningen (1849), but only a few of his paintings have appeared on the art market. A Still life by him is in the Frans Hals Museum in Haarlem. 

The silent and intimist atmosphere of this small group of drawings gives a glimpse into his work. An excellent draughtsman, he enjoys representing figures from the people – shoemaker, seamstress, young girl, and schoolboy – fixing them in a moment of pause. Suspended in time in a manner and spirit that reminds some works by François Bonvin, these figures are charming and full of psychological acuity. Their quaint and descriptive quality immediately transports the viewer into the heart of Dutch 19th-century daily life, but their quiet and introspective mood is here to recall, in a very typical way of Dutch painting, that every fragment of daily life is a world in itself.

Elias Voet’s œuvre is still scarcely represented. The artist was maybe more a draughtsman than a painter: drawing the attention to his graphic work will perhaps help a larger corpus to emerge