Dutch painter and printmaker Marinus Adrianus Koekkoek was born on September 25, 1807, in Middleburg (Zeeland), the Netherlands, into a family of artists. His father Johannes Hermanus, brothers Barend Corelis and Hermanus, and his son Hendrik Pieter Koekkoek would all become noted Romantic painters. Koekkoek learned painting and drawing from his father, taking the time to travel throughout the Netherlands and beyond to find inspiration and working as a house painter in between early ventures to earn his living. He focused primarily on landscapes, though he was also known for coastal imagery and images of rural life. He exhibited regularly in the Hague between 1836 and 1862, and he earned a silver medal from the Felix Meritus Society for an oil painting in 1847. He worked in Hilversum and Amsterdam, where he died on January 28, 1868.

Koekkoek's work is held in museums in Sheffield, Amsterdam, Brussels, Cincinnati, Courtai, Enschede, Otterlo, and Rotterdam.