After his studies at the Ghent art academy, Maurice Sys roamed the waters of Belgium, France and the Netherlands with fishing boats fitted out as houseboats. Maurice Sys spent the years of the First World War in the Netherlands.

He visited Volendam, among other places, which at the time was a true artists' colony with Hotel Spaander as the central focal point. The hotel still owns one of his Volendam paintings.

Maurice Sys was influenced by luminism, in which the emphasis was on strong lighting effects. He was a master at depicting the reflections of light on the water, as this 'Sun effect' also shows.