An important figure in Amsterdam Impressionism, he is noted especially for his paintings of street scenes and harbours in a realistic style.

From October 1878 till April 1879 he worked as an art teacher at the Leiden academy Ars Aemula Naturae.

In the same year he lived at landscapist Willem Maris's place at Loosduinen and was accepted as a member of Pulchri Studio, an important artist's society in The Hague.

Interest in the lot of the common people, which many artists felt in that period, was nurtured by the social conscience of French writers such as Émile Zola.

He was the painter of city views par excellence: wooden foundation piles by the harbour, demolition work and construction sites in the old centre, horse trams on the Dam, or canals in the rain.

It is not impossible that Breitner's preference for cloudy weather conditions and a greyish and brownish palette resulted from certain limitations of the photographic material.

By the turn of the century Breitner was a famous painter in the Netherlands, as demonstrated by a highly successful retrospective exhibition at Arti et Amicitiae in Amsterdam (1901).

Breitner travelled frequently in the last decades of his life, visiting Paris, London, and Berlin, among other cities, and continued to take photographs.

At that time van Gogh gave Theo a less than flattering account of Breitner's paintings as resembling mouldy wallpaper, although he did say he thought he would be all right in the end.

"[8] Breitner introduced a social realism to the Netherlands that created shock waves similar to that of Courbet and Manet's in France.

On other occasions, Breitner used photography for general reference, to capture an atmosphere, a light effect or the weather in the city at a particular moment.

[9] Breitner is remembered in a Dutch figure of speech: when the streets are grey and rainy, people of Amsterdam whisper grimly "Echt Breitnerweer" (Typical Breitnerweather).

The scene is a noted beauty spot in Amsterdam and the palette rather brighter than Breitner's norm, although still muted by comparison with his French counterparts.