Artists’ sketchbooks always fascinate me, and this one has a particularly poignant story:

Bella Chagall, the great love of Marc Chagall, began to write in a small hardcover sketchbook in 1942, the year after the couple arrived in New York. On the first eight pages, she translated Yiddish poetry into French as a means of relating to her past — since both France, which she had just fled, and her native Belarus were now out of reach. In a gesture of connection with Bella, following her death in New York in 1944, the artist appropriated the book for his own use.

Courtesy of Sotheby’s

Painter as Bovine? Bella poses for Marc, who paints himself as a blue calf.

Like many artists, Chagall derived much of his inspiration from his own life. His most profound personal experiences crowded his head before erupting onto canvas. But rarely has there been the opportunity to enter an artist’s personal realm in such an intimate manner as we can with this unique sketchbook, on display at Sotheby’s New York until its auction on June 17.