Mauritz Frederik Hendrik de Haas rose to prominence in the 19th century for his marine paintings of European coastline and of the New England coast, focusing on Long Island and its surrounding areas. De Haas was born in Rotterdam, Holland in 1832, and began taking art instruction at the age of eight with Jacob Spoel, a portrait and figure painter. At fifteen, de Haas enrolled at the Academy of Fine Arts in Rotterdam, where he took antique and life classes. He then attended The Hague, and received instruction from Nicolas Rooseboom, a landscape artist, and Louis Meyer, a distinguished marine painter at the time. In 1851 he traveled to London, where he began to work in watercolor. Upon his return to Rotterdam, he discovered that the Queen of Holland had come into possession of one of his paintings. She was so impressed with him that he was able to gain a position as a painter for the Dutch Royal Navy. In October of 1859 de Haas moved to New York, where the reputation of his marine paintings had spread. He began to receive commissions, most notably from Admiral David Farragut who had him paint a scene from his bombardment of two Confederate forts outside of New Orleans, LA, Farragut’s Fleet Passing the Forts Below New Orleans, produced sometime after the battle which took place in April 1862. In 1863 de Haas was given membership into the National Academy of Design, and by 1867 he was a full Academician. In 1864 he rented a studio in the Tenth Street Studio Building in New York, famous for tenants such as William Merritt Chase, Albert Bierstadt, and Frederic Edwin Church. In addition to being an Academician at the N.A.D., de Haas was also one of the first members of the American Watercolor Society. Mauritz Frederik H. de Haas died in 1895, he painted prolifically throughout his lifetime, and is remembered today as a premier marine painter of the Dutch tradition.