Briefkaart aan Philip Zilcken Possibly 1918

This postcard to Philip Zilcken by Isaac Israels is... well, it's a postcard! And that already makes it interesting, right? A small, intimate, everyday object turned into something that ends up in a museum. What strikes me first is the handwriting; these elegant, looping lines of ink. Look at the almost performative quality of the letter 'P' in 'Philippe', or the way the word 'Hollande' seems to dance on the page. It's like a little drawing, a set of marks that evoke a person, a place, a time. And the official stamps and printed text of the postcard itself create this contrast to the handwriting. It all reminds me that art isn't just about grand gestures or highfalutin ideas. It's in the small details, the everyday things we often overlook. Like a note scrawled on the back of a postcard, sent from one artist to another, just part of this big conversation that's been going on for centuries.