Emile Claus was born on 27 September 1849, in Sint-Eloois-Vijve, a village in West Flanders (Belgium), at the banks of the river Lys.

The urge to paint did not let go of Emile and he wrote a letter for help to the famous composer and musician Peter Benoit, who lived in nearby Harelbeke and was an occasional visitor of the family.

Only with some effort, Peter Benoit managed to convince father Claus to allow his son to train at the Antwerp Academy of Fine Arts.

In 1883 Claus moved to cottage Zonneschijn ('Sunshine') in Astene, near Deinze (East Flanders, Belgium), where he stayed until his death.

As a celebrity, he became a friend of the family with amongst others the French sculptor Auguste Rodin and the naturalist Émile Zola, and with the Belgian novelists and poets Cyriel Buysse, Emile Verhaeren, Pol de Mont and Maurice Maeterlinck.

During his training, Claus attracted the attention of and found favour with the local upper middle class.

The Antwerp Museum of Fine Arts purchased one of his works, and The Picknick (1887), his well-known painting showing a farmer's family watching the Sunday outing of the urban bourgeoisie on the opposite bank of a small river (the Lys), was bought by the Belgian royal family.

In 1918, at his return from London after World War I and with the dawn of expressionism, Claus found his fame diminished.

In 1921, he was given a last survey exhibition in Brussels, where especially his London works (about the city and the river Thames) made a positive impression on the public.

Stimulated by his friend, the author Camille Lemonnier, and influenced by the French impressionists, like Claude Monet whose works he got to know during his trips to Paris in the 1890s, Claus gradually shifted from naturalistic realism to a very personal style of impressionism called 'luminism', because of the luminous palette he used.

Claus never sold it and after his death, his widow donated it to the city of Deinze on the condition they built a museum to exhibit it.

The naturalistic story is set at the Keukelmeersen ('keukel meadows'), a swampy area with dips, drains, ditches and trenches near the centre of Waregem.

At the end of the story, one of the poor hungry boys falls through the ice while trying to pull out a frozen fish, and drowns.