I was trying to find online images of Van Gogh’s small sketchbooks (the supposed “moleskines”) when I found the images below. The notebook pictured did not belong to Van Gogh, but was rather a sort of logbook kept at a cafe in Arles that Van Gogh visited. The notebook has been cited as evidence for the authenticity of a portfolio of Van Gogh drawings that were discovered a year or two ago (the Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam claim the drawings are just imitations of his style). The focus of the story is mainly on the drawings but I’d love to get a better look at that notebook! It definitely looks like the sort of notebook the Moleskine brand was modeled after, pocket sized, with squared pages.
Source: VIDEO. Polémique Van Gogh: l’auteur de la découverte présente les dessins – Monaco-Matin
Nice! Have you ever talked about original 1800s Moleskine notebooks here? Were they blank, squared o lined?