Comment:The first part of this sketchbook contans sketches and watercolours made during a travel from Bergen to Kragerø in June 1909. He travelled by boat, horse, and carriage and part of the way on the recently opened Bergen railway, and his travelling companion was his cousin Ludvig Ravensberg, who kept a detailed diary of the tour. Among other things, he writes about the drive by horse and carriage between Eide and Voss on Thursday, 1 July: "We had a wonderful drive. M was in good spirits the whole time and made a lot of brilliant remarks. He wanted to show me a number of things and demonstrated them with drawings, all of which were excellent, because, said M, this is how art was originally … created."

Apparently, they visited several churches on this trip, as we find sketches of church interiors, even detailed studies of ceiling constructions and portals. However, perhaps most interesting in this sketchbook are a number of watercolour landscapes depicting waterfalls, high mountains, and rapids along their route. Watercolour is not a particularly handy medium when you are on the move; you need a paint box, brushes, mixing bowls, and water, and somewhere to put them. Of course Munch may have applied the colour later in his hotel room, or after he was back in Kragerø, for that matter. But if so, this kind of addition to sketches is also quite unusual. On two of the pencil sketches from this tour he has noted indications of colour for possible working-up later. Perhaps he used watercolour to reproduce the colours more precisely than ‘light green’ and ‘deep blue’? Whatever the case may be, none of these sketches appear later as paintings, and the watercolours remain between the canvas covers as well-kept secrets.

The last part of the sketchbook seems to have been completed within a rather short period of time after Munch's return to Kragerø. (MB)