The title of this work, Le Zélandais, or, The Zeeland, (Sea/Land) refers to those native-born Dutch people living in the westernmost province of the Netherlands. A surprisingly modernistic perspective portrait for its day, with the subject of a man smoking a cigar taking up much of the foreground of the picture and a group of women and child framed on the right side with the backdrop of a windmill in the background, Willems exhibited the photograph (cat. 741) at the IX International Salon of Photographie hosted by the Photo Club de Paris in 1904 as well as the 49th annual Exhibition of the Royal Photographic Society the same year. (cat. 501) Willems was from Brussels, Belgium.