Amsterdam’s Van Gogh Museum is selling a limited number of replicas of the artist’s sketchbooks for the first time ever. While only four of Vincent van Gogh’s (1853-1890) sketchbooks exist today, together they offer a rare insight into the artist’s life and artistic process.
Executed in pencil and black charcoal as well as ink and chalk, the entries include scribblings, quickly drawn notes, copies of poems, and a number of thought-out studies for later paintings including The Sower (1888). The publication marks the first time that all four sketchbooks will be replicated. A limited number of 1,000 editions are currently on sale at the museum’s shop and online sales are slated to start next week. A box set containing the four sketchbooks and a short commentary is retailing for $850.
Three of the four original sketchbooks are currently part of the Van Gogh Museum’s exhibition Van Gogh at Work. The show, which inaugurated the museum’s newly renovated space, coincides with the 160th anniversary of the artist’s birth and offers an extensive overview of van Gogh’s oeuvre.
