Willem Roelofs was born in Amsterdam on 10 March 1822. When he was a young man his family moved to Utrecht, where his father became an enlisted member of the Painters and Draughtsman Society in Utrecht, and received lessons from the artist Abraham Hendrik Winter. In June 1839, they moved to The Hague so that the young Willem could study in the Academy for Visual Arts in that city and train in the atelier of Hendrik van de Sande Bakhuyzen.
Willem Roelofs was born in Amsterdam on 10 March 1822. When he was a young man his family moved to Utrecht, where his father became an enlisted member of the Painters and Draughtsman Society in Utrecht, and received lessons from the artist Abraham Hendrik Winter. In June 1839, they moved to The Hague so that the young Willem could study in the Academy for Visual Arts in that city and train in the atelier of Hendrik van de Sande Bakhuyzen.