Groep figuren, mogelijk een menigte 1875 - 1934

This sketch of a crowd was made by Isaac Israels, though it's hard to say exactly when. The smudgy graphite looks like it was applied rapidly, in nervous, searching strokes. It’s like Israels was trying to capture the essence of a fleeting moment, the collective energy of a crowd, rather than a detailed portrait of any individual. You can almost feel him, pencil in hand, trying to keep up with the ever-shifting scene before him. There’s something really appealing about the rawness of this sketch, the way the graphite clings to the tooth of the paper. Look at how the figures on the right sort of bleed into one another. It makes me think of Daumier, another artist who was fascinated by the everyday dramas of city life. But Israels has a lighter touch, a kind of breezy optimism that’s all his own. Ultimately, the beauty of this piece lies in its ambiguity, the way it invites us to fill in the blanks and imagine the stories of the people in the crowd.