I take advantage of a painting that I now have at the Paris' exhibition. 3 orphan girls who are sewing in an interior room. I have sold [it] there fo… - Jozef Israëls

..when I heard that he would come next day [his regular art-seller Buffa, who had sent him a large frame including canvas because Israel had promised him a large painting], I put the canvas on an easel, eager to see for myself what would occur, I did already a sketch of something after nature what would just fit very well in that [large] size, but the most significant element was still wanting.. ..the lines of the sketch indicated a woman, walking along the road.. .I thought however, once more another woman with a child? I already had two on the plate [waiting already in the studio, probably], it was a road along a canal during the Evening hour and a meadow, enclose by a small tree. I then put the figures in it but I didn't like the result. That moment the Rotterdam' writer Brusse walked in with me.. ..he was looking attentive how I repainted the woman into a man on horseback.. .,but soon already I didn't like that either and I repainted it into an image of two Lovers. Mr. Brusse and I saw many beautiful things in it, although one could hardly see what was really presented. In the meantime I got teased by turmoil about this composition, and during my walk next morning I thought it was too sentimental, that Evening (hour) or those Lovers.. .I then imagined myself an old gentleman walking back home at Evening hour, I painted that image on the canvas and added a few tiny trees, and that was it. his painting 'Levens-avond / Evening of Life', 1904 ] (translation from the original Dutch: Fons Heijnsbroek)

Too literary. (translation from the original Dutch: Fons Heijnsbroek)

version in Dutch (citaat van Jozef Israëls, in het Nederlands): Te literair.