Eugen Gustav Dücker has most probably been through ages the best known artist of international grasp, who also has had tight connections with Estonia. Art Academies of Düsseldorf and St.Petersburg that were the landmarks of the realistic art of the 19. century appointed Dücker a professor and academician. Among his students were a number of highly appreciated German artists and also Oskar Hoffmann, his continuously high-level creation was acquired into the collections of art museums in Germany and Russia and private collectors. As a member of the Düsseldorf school that had become an outstanding phenomenon in the Eastonian art history, according to the words of art historians Dücker brought about the renewal of the German and Russian landscape painting (!) and extremely powerful entrance of trueful painting style into the Estonian art history. Despite grand success Dücker returned again and again to his birthplace at Saaremaa, where were accomplished several of his most outstanding works. While sitting on a bench at sea and painting it, Dücker was able to join the firm touch and exactness of an cademician and colour and room handling which possessed a symbolic charge. “A man at sea” is simultaneously an honest and direct self-portarait of Dücker and his art.