Schetsboek LIV met 18 bladen c. 1886 - 1934

This is Isaac Israels’ sketchbook from around the late 19th or early 20th century, we don't know exactly when. It’s a small, intimate object, a place where ideas begin. Looking at the cover, it's all about the materiality. The rough, unadorned cardboard has a beautiful texture, a testament to its age and use. See the way the light catches the fibres? You can almost feel the history embedded in its surface, the stains, the marks from handling. It has a beautiful worn feeling. The number 'LIV' is scrawled on the front in green, a casual mark that feels so personal. For me, a sketchbook is like a conversation with yourself. It’s a space for thinking through making, embracing the provisional, the imperfect. Israels’ sketchbook invites us to consider the messy, generative process of artmaking. It reminds me of Degas, another artist who embraced process, leaving traces of his hand visible in the finished work. Ultimately, art is about this ongoing dialogue, the exchange of ideas across time and between artists.