He [the painter J.A. Kruseman in Amsterdam] is very amicable with his students without exposing his mastery to disdain. I sometimes see him painting … - Jozef Israëls

As I hear, you are the possessors of one of my favorite paintings 'The children on the beach' and I can tell you that few pictures by me, have so much figures, busy in the subject. Therefore I mean that this picture is an unicum and I hope you will give it a good light and place in your gallery.

There he Rembrandt stood, when everything was on the canvas [of the 'Night Watch'], but then he shook his head.. ..In his opinion the two men [in the center of the painting: Frans Banning Cocq and Willem van Ruytenburch did not yet come forward into the foreground. Then he [Rembrandt] took up his large palette again, dicked his thickest brushes deep into the paint, and once again took on these two front figures with powerful strokes; here more depth, there more light. In this way he put everything to the test, in order to give an even more powerful relief to what needed to stand out. Then he saw that it was good, and that is how he left it. (translation from the original Dutch: Fons Heijnsbroek)

version in original Dutch (citaat van Jozef Israëls's brief, in het Nederlands): Ik wil in den beschouwer mijne aandoeningen overbrengen, - ik wil hem laten boeijen door het tafereel, dat ik niet enkel met mijn bloot oog gezien hebben, maar dat ik diep in mij heb zien bewegen.