Portraits of Willem Kloos and Isaac Israels

Joseph Jessurun de Mesquita was the odd man out in the group of artists and writers that came together in Amsterdam in the late 1880s. He wrote a guide for amateur photographers and was engaged to take photographs by the Leiden National Museum of Antiquities. Above all, however, he re-invented photography. He portrayed his good friends, including Breitner, Israels, Kloos, Gorter, and the composer Diepenbrock very directly and close up.