Abklatsch van de krijttekening op blad 12 recto c. 1890 - 1920

This offset of a chalk drawing by Isaac Israels is an intimate peek into the artist's process. You can almost see him there, in the studio, breathing life into the image with each delicate stroke. The sparse palette focuses our attention on the texture, the varying pressures that the artist applied to the chalk, each mark a little world of its own. I can just imagine how the chalk felt in his hand – that soft, almost powdery resistance as it met the page. It’s like he's whispering, "Here, look closely." There is such a sense of immediacy and intimacy in this work. It reminds me of drawings by other artists like Twombly and Menzel, where every mark feels like a direct transmission of thought and feeling. It is as if we are witnessing the birth of an idea, a conversation between the artist and the paper, fleeting yet somehow captured.