Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, Nick Steagner's Tender 1900 Notebook/Sketchpad, Wayne County, PA antique pencil box and the interior is black

and the interior is black lacquer

especially across the nose and chin of his very marvelous face

gives a sense of  forward motion to the whole scene

it's impossible to communicate its presence--and very surprising heft

and then the boy a few months later

Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, Nick Steagner's Tender 1900 Notebook/Sketchpad, Wayne County, PA antique pencil box and the interior is blackThis little notebook reveals itself as a very very tender one, quietly telling a story of a young man's artistic aspirations and what one presumes was his first trip from farm in Pennsylvania to New York City. I purchased it from a Pennsylvania based dealer who had several other sketchbooks by the same Nice Steagner (this one dated 1900) those others filled with drawing after drawing of cows, more cows, and more cows, occasionally horse or sheep, too.