Abklatsch van een pentekening c. 1885 - 1911

This print was made by Jozef Israëls, sometime in the late nineteenth century. It’s a type of transfer print, or "Abklatsch" in Dutch, which is created by pressing a freshly drawn ink drawing against another surface, in this case a page in a sketchbook. Look closely, and you can see that the residue left behind is very slight; it's a ghost of the original idea. The artist, instead of directly drawing in this book, chose to carry the trace of an image over from somewhere else. This suggests a reluctance to commit, or perhaps a desire to keep things fluid. Israëls was known for his depictions of working-class life, and there's a connection here, perhaps. Like the poor who make do with scraps, he’s making art out of an indirect, transferred impression. It goes to show you that the most apparently ephemeral gestures can have real power, precisely because of their material modesty.