Schetsboek LII met 43 bladen 1875 - 1934

This is Isaac Israels’ sketchbook number LII, a humble object, but full of potential, made with paper and bound in card. It's the kind of thing that sits quietly, waiting to be filled. The cover has this really lovely blue, a bit faded and worn, with marks and smudges, like the ghost of ideas past. It's so easy to forget that sketchbooks are where artists work through their thinking, make mistakes, and try things out. They're not precious, they're a tool. The texture of the cover almost feels like fabric, doesn't it? It invites you to touch it, to imagine the artist holding it, flipping through the pages, searching for inspiration. And those little marks – a red smudge here, a dark spot there – they're like tiny clues, whispering stories about the artist's process. A bit like Cy Twombly's notebooks, where the mess becomes part of the message. It’s a reminder that art is a messy, human endeavor, full of starts and stops, and happy accidents.