Comment:
This is clearly one of the most extensive of the sketchbooks with a total of 171 drawings distributed among 167 pages. It had also been in use over very many years. The first group, depicting wild animals and acrobats, has a fairly certain dating at 1916 – as we know that he was present at one or more of Cirkus Hagenbeck’s shows in Kristiania. The second section is dominated by drawings in connection with the City Hall decorations, which he had hoped to execute; these too with a relatively certain dating of 1928-30. In addition, the accompanying texts in the book describe in detail how he imagined these decorations: "Structure - City Hall - Vika demolished Oslo city hall erected - Main panel lateral panels - Workers coming and going to work and their Sunday excursions to outlying neighbourhoods, where present-day Oslo is also depicted - and one sees details from the streets and vicinity - Another hall - the old Oslo and its history – the Major scene from Hakon Hakonson and Skule with their struggle - and finally the fire in Oslo". (Page 29 verso)

What is more problematic is that many of the drawings that closely resemble the paintings executed during various periods earlier in the 1920s appear in between the City Hall drawings from 1928-30. This applies among other things to "Starry Night" (Woll 1451, 1922-24), "Dance on the Beach" (Woll 1031, 1921-22), "Nude, Sitting on the Couch" (Woll 1521, 1925-26), "Vampire in the Forest" (Woll 1509, 1924-25), "Naked Man and Woman in the Woods" (Woll 1314, 1919-25), "Winter Night" (Woll 1459, 1923) and "Woman in the Garden" (Woll 1585, 1926). It doesn’t seem very likely that Munch made sketches for these paintings randomly spread throughout the sketchbook, and then filled up the pages with the City Hall drawings, although it cannot be excluded. We lean towards the possibility that he repeated these motifs at a later date, and have therefore chosen to give these drawings the same dating, 1928-30, but with the additional comment "uncertain".