Drawings Not in Benesch

DRAWINGS NOT IN BENESCH – WORK IN PROGRESS
(DRAWINGS NOT PUBLISHED IN BENESCH’S CATALOGUE, “THE DRAWINGS OF REMBRANDT” or only as attributed works)
Please see the disclaimer on the ‘Home’ page.

ALL POSTED MARCH 2013 UNLESS OTHERWISE STATED

Many of the attributions on this page, which describes 82 drawings (in chronological order but with landscapes and retouched drawings at the end), are tentative. 55 I believe are by Rembrandt but 26 of them, ranged to the right margin, I reject or would describe as ‘attributed to’ Rembrandt. The page includes not only drawings that were unknown to, or omitted by, Otto Benesch from his catalogue raisonné of 1954-57, but also a few works that he himself described as “attributed to Rembrandt” (his ‘A’ numbers) or as “copies after Rembrandt” (his ‘C’ numbers). They are arranged more-or-less chronologically, though with the landscapes at the end, followed by a few drawings by followers of Rembranft that may have been retouched by him. This page, even more than the rest of this site, represents ‘work in progress’ and most of the texts will only be expanded at a later date.

Some drawings included here with images and brief notes are works that many readers might expect to find here, as they are accepted by other recent writers, though not by me. They are therefore also aligned to the right and may eventually find their place in an ‘attributed to Rembrandt’ section (unless I become persuaded that they are by Rembrandt himself). A few drawings included here are new attributions to Rembrandt, drawings that nobody else has considered to be by him – or at least not for a very long time.

Fuller discussions of all these drawings will eventually be posted on this site and perhaps written up elsewhere as well, but I thought it would be useful to list them now (March 2013), at an early stage in the overall project, rather than waiting until the catalogue of the many drawings that Benesch did know was complete.

I have left some gaps or spaces on this page to allow for future additions, and I feel sure that I must have forgotten one or two drawings that I have studied over the last 30 years or more.

For an explanation of the use of question marks in the captions, please see under the ‘About’ tab.

NB The illustrations are almost all taken from readily available online resources. They must not be used for commercial purposes.

Not in Benesch
Rembrandt*, Two Studies of the Head of an Old Man 1626?
Pen and brown ink, with some white bodycolour.
90 x 150. The sheet torn into three sections and rejoined with 5mm overlaps.
A documentary drawing, related to the painting of 1626 in Moscow.
[Addition made 23 March 2020]: The head used in the painting may show the same model as an early etching, in my view by Rembrandt (Bartsch 296), which may date from around the same time. [2]
USA Los Angeles, J. Paul Getty Museum (inv. 83.GA.264)
LITERATURE/FURTHER REMARKS: Malibu, 1988, no. 113, repr.; Royalton-Kisch and Schatborn, 2011, no.1, repr. fig.77 (documentary drawing); This Catalogue online, March 2013; Exh. New York, 2016, p.64, n.29 (Bevers suspects the attribution and the connection with the painting may be wrong; compares Lievens, as in the Head of a Woman in Profile from the Abrams collection, Sumowski 1639x); Exh. Greenwich, 2011, no.15); Schatborn, 2019, p.17 and no.182, repr. (c.1626; influence of Lastman); Exh. Leiden-Oxford, 2019-20, pp.59 and 60, repr. fig.68, and under no.57 (c.1626; Rembrandt’s earliest drawing).
PROVENANCE: sale, Amsterdam, Christie’s, 16 November, 1981, lot 32 (attributed to Rembrandt);[1] art market, Boston, where acquired by present repository.
[1] At the sale the drawing was given to Rembrandt by Sumowski and to Jan Lievens by Schatborn.
[2] The etching was rejected by Hind, 1912/23 and all the literature since. Erik Hinterding agrees that it is by Rembrandt feels it likely to date from c.1629 (email to the compiler, 23 March 2020). Ernst van de Wetering similarly agreed with the attribution to Rembrandt (email 26 March 2020).

Fig.a. Rembrandt: Christ and the Money-Changers 1626. Oil on panel, 431 x 320mm. R Moscow, Pushkin Museum (inv. 1900)

Fig.b. Here re-attributed to Rembrandt, Head of an Old Man Looking Down, c.1626-27? Etching 46 x 46mm, Bartsch 296 i/ii (enlarged image below). NL Amsterdam, Rijksmuseum (inv. RP-P-OB-647). See: http://hdl.handle.net/10934/RM0001.COLLECT.39180

Not in Benesch
Rembrandt, A Horse Lying Down 1626?
Red and black chalk, touched with white, on paper prepared with orange-yellow wash.
153 x 206
See London, 2010 (online), no.73.
GB London, British Museum (inv. Ff,4.121)
Further Literature/Remarks: London, 2010 (online), no.73, repr. (attributed to Rembrandt); Royalton-Kisch, 2011, p.100 (Rembrandt; opinion shared by Schatborn); this website, March 2013; Schatborn, 2019, p.285 and no.459, repr. (c.1626; probably made in relation to Baptism of Eunuch painting).

COMPARATIVE illustration.
Rembrandt, The Baptism of the Eunuch (detail) 1626. NL Utrecht, Museum Het Catharijneconvent

Not in Benesch
Rembrandt
Bust of an Old Man, turned to left 1626?
Red chalk with black chalk on paper prepared with pale yellow wash.
137 x 116 (added patch lower right)
Although most commentators maintain an attribution to Jan Lievens, the drawing style has always seemed incompatible to my eye with the signed Lievens Head of a Young, Bearded Man in the British Museum (see right, and London, 2010 [online], no.2, as Jan Lievens). The attribution to Rembrandt seems consistent if the Horse lying down in the British Museum is accepted as Rembrandt, as the two works appear to be by the same hand (see London, 2010 (online) no.73 (as “attributed to Rembrandt”). Further support for the attribution, as an early drawing, is provided by the relationship between the drawing and the X-radiograph image of the figure underneath the paint surface of the Bust of a Man in Gorget and Cap of c.1626-29 (see Corpus, I, 1982, p.125, fig.2). Very early – as well as very late – works are often the most contentious in any catalogue raisonné.
COLLECTION: NL The Hague, Private Collection
Further literature/remarks: Bauch, 1960, pp.176-77, repr. fig.161 (by Rembrandt); Exh. Amsterdam and Washington, 1981-82, p.50, repr. fig.1; Exh. Amsterdam, 1988-89, no.12, repr. (as Lievens); Royalton-Kisch, 1990, p.134; Royalton-Kisch, 1991.III, pp.413-14, repr. fig.5; Exh. Leiden, 1991-92, p.66, repr. fig.20; Exh. Kassel-Amsterdam, 2001-2002, pp.176-77, no.18 (Lievens); Exh. Washington-Milwaukee-Amsterdam, 2008-2009, under no.95, n.5; Royalton-Kisch, 2009, pp.509-10, repr. fig.2 (attributed to Rembrandt); Exh. Los Angeles, 2009-10, no.1.2, repr. and verso repr.fig.1c (Rembrandt, also attributed to Jan Lievens, arguing the case for Lievens, c.1629-30); London, 2010 (online), under no.73 (attributed to Rembrandt); Royalton-Kisch, 2011, p.99, repr. fig.25 (Rembrandt? c.1626-27); Seifert, 2011, p.229, repr. fig.252 (as Rembrandt or Jan Lievens; the verso especially close to Lastman and might even be Lastman’s work); This Catalogue online, March 2013; [Not in Schatborn, 2019]

COMPARATIVE illustration. Jan Lievens, Head of a Young, Bearded Man (Not by the same hand as the drawing to the left). GB London, British Museum

Not in Benesch, Detail of VERSO of the above. Rembrandt? Drapery Sketch 1626?
Red chalk on paper prepared with pale yellow wash. 116 x 137 ( measurements of the sheet turned as here; added patch upper left).
NL The Hague, Private Collection

Not in Benesch
Govert Flinck? Rembrandt?
Seated Old Man, half-length, to left 1628?
Verso: Laid down
Red chalk with brown and grey wash, touched with white, monogrammed and dated in red chalk, top right: “RHL . 1628” (apparently very closely copied from a signature by Rembrandt, as detailed comparisons with Rembrandt’s own monograms and dates reveal. The chalk is identical to the chalk in the drawing itself, which is of a slightly unusual hue).
200 x 160.
Relates to a painting in Turin of 1631 by Jan Lievens (the attribution made by B. Schnackenburg; see Sumowski, Gemälde, no.1124, repr, as Salomon Koninck). The style of the drawing, which may be compared with Benesch 0015, also of c.1628, is nevertheless unusual for Rembrandt and for Lievens, and were it not for the monogram, the drawing might not be included here. Yet the inscription looks stilted and the form of the “8” is curious – more like a capital “S” and with no link between the lower left and upper right. Compare for style the drawing by Govert Flinck of “Isaac Blessing Jacob” in Rotterdam, which has many points in common in the handling of the red chalk, not least in the peripheral shading.[1] The motif with drapery over the back of a chair resembles a drawing by Ferdinand Bol at Windsor (Sumowski 134*); also Benesch 266, Benesch 0293, and the drawing by Rembrandt of a Seated Old Man, of c.1637, illustrated on this webpage and from the Lugt Collection, Fondation Custodia, Paris., inv.4502)


COLLECTION: D Mettingen, Draiflessen Collection (formerly Hilversum, Liberna Collection; inv.78).
Further literature/remarks: Sumowski, 1979 etc., no.1528 (Salomon Koninck, for his painting in Turin); Bolten and Folmer-van Oven, 1989, no.83, repr. (S. Koninck; monogram forged); Exh. Mettingen, 2012, no. 105, repr. (as Rembrandt, published by B. Schnackenburg); this website, March 2013; Exh. Amsterdam, 2014, under no.32, repr. fig. 32b (Rembrandt, follows Exh. Mettingen, 2012-13); Schatborn, 2019, p.435, no.657, repr. (c.1631; earliest known study after another artist; important also for the Lugt drawing [mentioned in main text above]).
PROVENANCE: William Roscoe; his sale, Liverpool, Winstanley, 23 September, 1816, lot 493 (as Rembrandt); G. Danyau (L.720); Earl of Derby; his sale, London, Christie’s, 19 October, 1953, lot 6 (as “Rembrandt”), where acquired by the present collection.
[1] Inv.R73, Sumowski 862, Rotterdam, 1988, no.71, repr..

Not in Benesch
Rembrandt
An Old Man seated in a Chair, full-length, to left 1629-30?
Black chalk. 148 x 111
Collection: Private Collection.*
LITERATURE/FURTHER REMARKS: Naumann, 1978, p.19, note 11 (not by Dou); Sumowski , 1979, etc.,

no.538**, repr. (as attributed to Gerrit Dou); This Catalogue online, March 2013; Schatborn, 2019, no.197, repr. (c.1630).
PROVENANCE: ?The Hon. John Spencer (d.1746); ?his son, George John, 1st Earl Spencer (d.1783): his son, George John Spencer, 2nd Earl Spencer (L.1530); his sale, London, T. Philipe (“the entire collection of a nobleman, formed with refined taste and judgment about the middle of the last century”), 10-18 June, 1811, lot 657 (Rembrandt: ‘An old man sitting on a chair, a masterly design in black chalk’), bt Wortley, 13s; sale, London, Christie’s, 19 March, 1975, lot 102, as by Gerrit Dou (£750) and again 5 July, 2005, lot 140, as Rembrandt (£232,000); private collection; another private collection.
*With thanks to Peter Schatborn and Stijn Alsteens on the recent provenance; the latter also informed me of the 1811 sale, the mention in Naumann, 1978, and the ‘recent’ sale of the drawing from one private collection to another (e-mail to the compiler, 3 May 2020).

image description

Not in Benesch
Subject: Standing Shepherd with a Long Stick, full-length, profile to left
Verso: Some lines in black chalk
Medium: Pen and brown ink on paper prepared yellow-brown; some traces of white, e.g. near the pouch.
139 x 81. Watermark: fragment of a crowned shield; chain lines: horizontal (distance apart uncertain).
COMMENTS: The drawing has recently re-emerged from the estate of Professor Werner Sumowski (1931-2015), having been exhibited only once during his own lifetime.[1] In subject and style it has clear correlations with the Callot-inspired beggars of Rembrandt’s Leiden period, especially those from around 1630. But is the figure a beggar? From the vehemently squeezed hands of his prayerful gesture (reminiscent of Judas in Rembrandt’s painting of Judas Returning the 30 Pieces of Silver),[2] and from the exceptional length of his staff resting against his shoulder (Rembrandt’s beggars hold sticks that usually come no higher than the chest), while he might be an indigent receiving or begging for alms, he could equally or more probably be an idea for a shepherd in an Adoration of the Shepherds.
Unfortunately, the effect of the drawing is undermined by its condition (see Fig.a): a patchwork of six additions has been added around the perimeter of the sheet, and although most of the penwork is original, some of it has been made up – not unskilfully – to blend in. New are the back of the figure’s legs; a small section at his backside; and the lower portion of his stick. An area near the top of the cranium is also interrupted by a section of the repair; almost worst of all, some retouching by a later hand, in pen and black rather than brown ink, has marred the profile of the face and the eye, which spoils the figure’s characterisation (see the enlarged detail).
One might especially point to three drawings for comparison: 1. Benesch 0022 (Fig.b; as noted by Sumowski – see n.1), including the fine lines in the shoulder, the sharp lower profiles of the drapery (seen also in Benesch 0027, another drawing compared by Sumowski), the fingers and the treatment of the shoes; 2. Benesch 0023a, for the incipient shadow in the same position as here; 3. the drawing, Not in Benesch (see above on this “Not in Benesch” tab), of Two Studies of the Head of an Old Man in the J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles of c.1626,[3] which contains comparable heads, treated with similar hatching and precision of line. Compare also such drawings as Benesch 0010, Benesch 0029 and Benesch 0035.
Further comparisons may be made for style with some of Rembrandt’s many etchings of beggars from the same period (c.1630), including the Old Beggar Woman with a Gourd (Bartsch 168; NH 40), the Beggar Leaning on a Stick, facing left (Bartsch 163; NH 46), the Beggar Man and Beggar Woman Conversing (see the detail repr. in reverse as Fig.c; note especially the similar loop of drapery by the nearer knee ; Bartsch 164; NH 45), and the Beggar Seated Warming his Hands (repr. in reverse, Fig.d; Bartsch 174; NH 44). Despite the thinner, more even line of the etching needle, these show similar pockets of shading and outlines of drapery and shoes.
Despite the damage to parts of the drawing, the style of the original penwork fits well with Rembrandt’s style c.1630. It has been objected that there is “too much hatching, rather too irregular, and also the profile, hands and underarm too hesitantly drawn and represented in somewhat too much detail”.[4] But, bolstered by the fact that the face is retouched and by the analogies we have enumerated here, the drawing seems rather convincingly to be by Rembrandt himself.[5]
Condition: See the comparative illustration: a patchwork of six additions completes the sheet, but most of the penwork is original; exceptions are the back of the figure’s legs, a small section at his backside and the lower portion of his stick; an area near the top of the cranium is interrupted by a section of the repair; some retouching by a later hand, in pen and black ink, has occurred in the face (nose, chin and eye); the additions have been toned with yellowish and other pigments to blend in with the original paper. The drawing was restored prior to the exhibitions in 1999 and (lightly) in 2019.
Summary attribution: Rembrandt.
Date: c.1629-30.
COLLECTION: Private Collection.
FURTHER LITERATURE/REMARKS: Bauch, 1960, pp.159 and 161, repr. fig.126 (copy after lost Rembrandt of c.1630); Sumowski, 1962, p.206; Exh. Stuttgart, 1999, pp.24 and 265, no.164, repr. fig.15 (Rembrandt); Exh. Aalen (Germany), 2019-20, no.34, repr. (Rembrandt, c.1628-29).
PROVENANCE: Sale, Munich, Karl und Faber, 25 November, 1983, lot 83 (as Dutch, 17th Century), acquired by W. Sumowski, by whom bequeathed to a friend.
[1] See Literature above, Exh. Stuttgart, 1999. In November 2019, Peter Schatborn was contacted by Prof. Sumowski’s friend, Jürgen Rothfuss, and kindly passed the information and photographs that the latter had provided on to me (e-mail to the compiler, 20 November 2019). I am grateful to both of them. The catalogue entry is indebted to Sumowski’s, first published in the 1999 exhibition catalogue (see Literature). The drawing came to notice too late for consideration for Schatborn, 2019; but Peter Schatborn informs me (2019 and again in 2020) that he doubts that the drawing is by Rembrandt.
[2] Not In Bredius; Wetering 28.
[3] See the “Not in Benesch” tab; Royalton-Kisch and Schatborn, 2011, no.1, repr.
[4] From an e-mail from Peter Schatborn to Holm Bevers and forwarded by the former to me (4 December 2019): “Mein erster Eindruck war nein, nicht Rembrandt. Bei näherer Betrachtung fand ich die wohl zu vielen Schraffuren etwas zu unregelmässig und auch das Profil und die Hande und Unterarm zu zögernd gezeichnet und etwas zu ausführlich dargestellt. Ich habe wohl an Flinck gedacht, der immer viele Schraffuren zeichnet in verschiedenen Richtungen (siehe Sumowski, vol. 4, 948, 948a, 976a, 979). Aber diese Zuschreibung ist wohl schwierig zu akzeptieren. Ich kann jedenfalls die Zeichnung in Stuttgart nicht mit Überzeugung Rembrandt zuschreiben.”
[5] Schatborn, loc. cit., further mentions in general terms the name of Govert Flinck but agrees that an attribution to him is not really acceptable.

First posted 6 January 2020.

Fig.a The same drawing marked to indicate
the six later additions to the sheet.

Fig.b. Rembrandt, Detail of Benesch 22,
showing similar shading, loops in the
lower drapery, hands/fingers, etc..

image description

Above: Detail, enlarged, showing additions
in the face in a darker ink

Fig.c. Rembrandt, Detail of Beggar Man
and Beggar Woman Conversing, 1630.
Etching, repr. in reverse. Compare, for
example, the loop of lit drapery above
the nearer knee. Bartsch 164; NH 45
GB London, British Museum (inv. F,5.111)

Fig.d. Rembrandt, Beggar Seated
Warming his Hands, Etching, here
enlarged and reversed, 78 x 47.
Bartsch 174; NH 44. GB London,
British Museum (inv. F,5.125)

Not in Benesch
School of Rembrandt
Subject: The Raising of the Cross
Verso: Laid down
Medium: Pen and brown ink with brown and (later?) grey wash.
Inscribed on the old mat, in graphite, below: “Crucifixion” and “Collection of the Rt. Hon R. Pole Carew”:
186 x 153.
COMMENTS: Compare Benesch 0006 recto. Although believed to be by Rembrandt by Haverkamp-Begemann (2005), the somewhat even and also caricatural style of the present sheet (note the legs of the figure hauling up the cross) suggests the drawing is a copy or variant after a lost Rembrandt sketch for his painting of the subject of 1633 in Munich, part of his Passion series for the Stadholder (Bredius 548; Wetering 106).[1] The stylistic gulf between this and Benesch 0006 recto and Benesch 0009 verso is troubling. Compare also Benesch 0083.
Condition: Generally good; light foxing, mostly near the edges.
Summary attribution: Copy after Rembrandt
Date: after and original of c.1632-33?
COLLECTION: USA Boston, Museum of Fine Arts (inv.48.1110).
FURTHER LITERATURE/REMARKS: Sumowski, 1956-57, p.200; Haverkamp-Begemann, 1961, p.19 (school drawing recording a ‘lost stage’ in the development of the painting in Munich between Rotterdam drawing and the painting; related to Benesch 0083); Sumowski, 1964,

p.234, repr. fig. 2; Munich, 1967, p.61; Broos, 1970, pp.101-2, n.6 (as Haverkamp-Begemann, 1967); Kai Sass, 1971, p.78, n.61 (copy after a lost Rembrandt drawing, c.1629); Corpus, 2, 1986, under no.A69, repr. p.317, fig.6 (inclined to believe authentic; otherwise as Haverkamp-Begemann, 1961); Exh. Rotterdam, 1988, p.36, repr. fig. b, under no. 2 (copy); Haverkamp-Begemann, 2005, pp.38-46, repr. fig.1 (pace ibid., 1961, the drawing an original sketch by
Rembrandt of c.1628-29, when he was already
occupied with the painting in Munich); This Catalogue online, March 2013; [Not in Schatborn, 2019]
PROVENANCE: Pole Carew (see L.439 and 485); his sale,
London, Wheatley’s, 13-15 May, 1835, lot 247, bt Palser,
£2-5s-0d; Andrew J. Elliot, Canada by whom presented to
the present repository, 1948.
[1] For the series, see under Benesch 0382, n.4.
First posted 21 May 2019.

Not in Benesch
Rembrandt*, Self-Portrait in a Soft Hat and Patterned Cloak, 1633-34 [the etched head 1631]
Etching, Bartsch 7, 4th state, touched in black chalk in 1633-34
144 x 99.
See the note to Benesch 57; like that sheet, this is a reworked impression of Rembrandt’s etching of 1631 (B. 7.IV), this time of the fourth state, with his age similarly adjusted.

Benesch A20 Recto
Rembrandt??
Three Studies of an Archer 1633-34??
Pen and brown ink. Inscribed in pen and brown ink by a later hand, lower right: ‘Rembrant’; verso inscribed by Rembrandt with prices in black chalk: “.. lderij 2-0-[0]/3 [perhaps altered to “5”]-0-0″)
170 x 124 mm.
Related to Rembrandt’s grisaille painting of St John the Baptist Preaching (Bredius 555, Corpus A106); but the free, liquid style resembles Rembrandt at a later date, c.1640-45, rather than Benesch 0140-42 and Benesch 0336, so the drawing might be a derivation by a pupil – see further the verso, which again looks to be the work of a pupil, and compare for style Benesch 0094 and Benesch A34, which Sumowski ascribes to Nicolaes Maes (his no.2007**). The recto inscription may be by the same hand as the one on Cottage with a White Paling, Benesch C41 (also illustrated on this page, and also aligned to the right) and Benesch 1233 (on the verso). It may be associated with the early collector’s mark, here at the top right, thought to be that of a late seventeenth-century collector, Dr Johannes Fabritius.
S Stockholm, Nationalmuseum (inv. A2/2004)
Further literature/remarks: Corpus, 3, 1989, pp.84 and 86, repr. fig.19 (dubious attribution but perhaps a studio copy of a sketch by Rembrandt related to the grisaille); Exh. Berlin-Amsterdam, 1991-92, under no.7; Exh. Stockholm, 1992, no.135; This Catalogue online, March 2013; Exh. Washington-Paris, 2016-17, p.166, repr. fig.9; Schatborn, 2019, p.17 and no.28, repr. (c.1635; example of a drawing made during the search for the final composition).

Benesch A20 Verso
School of Rembrandt (Willem Drost?)
Sketch of a Man, half length, to right, c.1652
Pen and brown ink.
170 x 124 mm.
The numbers may be in Rembrandt’s handwriting (the ‘2’ is entirely characteristic) but the style of the verso sketch resembles drawings by later pupils, including Willem Drost, and does not seem to be by Rembrandt at all. This undermines the status of the recto (q.v.).
S Stockholm, Nationalmuseum (inv. A2/2004)

FURTHER LITERATURE/REMARKS: Exh. London, 1992, under no.8a, repr. fig.c; Broos, 1983.I, p.10 (on date change in inscription); Broos, 1984.I, p.38 (adjusted inscription confirms year of Rembrandt’s birth); Exh. Amsterdam-London, 2000-2001, under no.13, repr. fig.4; London, 2010 (online), under no.7.I; This Catalogue online, March 2013; Exh. Denver, 2018-19, no.23, repr.; [Not in Schatborn, 2019]; Exh.Leiden-Oxford, 2019-20, pp.63 and 69, repr. fig.87.
Paris, Bibliothèque Nationale (Réserve Cb-13 a boîte écu.)

Not in Benesch (original of Benesch 0124)
Subject: Study of a Prophet or Apostle (St Peter?)
Verso: Some scored lines, perhaps from an exercise in perspective
Medium: Pen and dark brown ink with brown wash; verso in stylus point.
Inscribed on verso of an old backing sheet, in a 17th-18th century hand, in pen and brown ink: “…[illegible] Rembrandt” [the ‘d’ not fully legible and now resembling an ‘e’]
210 x 130 (at highest and widest points); torn irregularly. Chain lines: horizontal, perhaps 17-18mm apart.
COMMENTS: The drawing, brought to my attention in November 2018, is clearly the original on which Benesch 0124 is based. The sheet is in poor condition, which hampers any assessment of it, but the marked fluency of line throughout indicates that it is not another copy. It is notable that the drapery study at the lower right of the copy, Benesch 0124, appears here at the top left.
Whether the drawing is by Rembrandt or not may prove contentious. Perhaps the fact that it was copied at all implies that it might be. In style it is reminiscent of works by Govert Flinck; yet the latter’s Rembrandtesque drawings generally have a more hesitant or fragmented style, less fluid and confident than the approach here (cf. Benesch 0061-62 and Benesch 0079-80, as well as his Musketeer in Copenhagen, Sumowski 953x and Benesch 0656). Furthermore, there are analogies with Rembrandt’s own works, especially with the documentary drawing of 1634 in the Burchard Grossmann album, Benesch 0257: the zigzag hatching to the right of the figure’s feet resembles that in the right background of Benesch 0257; similarly, the hatching in the figure’s drapery is generally a close match between the two drawings (see the comparative detail illustrations, those from the newly discovered work on the left and and those from Benesch 0257 on the right). The effect of the shading is subtler and less harsh than the shading in Flinck’s drawings in Rembrandt’s manner (cf. Benesch 0002, Benesch 0048 and Benesch 0111-12). The hooked line around the back of the collar that runs over the nearer shoulder also resembles Rembrandt’s touch in the nearer sleeve of the Grossmann album drawing.
The latter also employs an unusual ‘blocking out’ of the facial features with bold touches of the pen, which is not unlike the approach in the present drawing, although in Benesch 0257 the light rakes across the face, highlighting the features clearly, whereas here the light comes from behind the head, casting the face as a whole into shadow. This dark chiaroscuro, with the face almost in darkness, is a bold experiment; and the similarly inky-black shadows in the shoulder and in the nearer, right sleeve also have their counterparts in Benesch 0257, in the nearer sleeve and in both edges of the collar. A comparable effect occurs in Benesch 0049. In the present drawing, the contrasts appear stronger – blotchier, even – perhaps because of the darkened overall condition of the paper as well as the use of a darker shade of ink. On close inspection, the artist has left some glimmer of light in the nearer eye, on the further brow, and in the tip of the nose (see the detail illustrated).
The drapery sketch at the top left should be compared with Rembrandt’s collar in Benesch 0432, which exhibits a similar approach with untouched areas firmly ‘closed’ by strong and clear penlines (though the chiaroscuro is lessened here because of the drawing’s condition).
In sum, the attribution of the present drawing to Rembrandt rather than Flinck appears to be more than adequately supported by the stylistic evidence.[1]
The sketch of drapery at the top left (see detail illustration) is not obviously connected with the same figure or composition. In the copy (Benesch 0124), shadow was added that alters the form. In the original, it seems as if drapery is hanging over a frame or support of some kind, with two deep triangles of shadow separated by a ‘strutt’, in the manner of a saddle, perhaps. The motif has a general resemblance to the collar on the left of the Self-Portrait, Benesch 0432, and to the drapery at the extreme right of Benesch 0154, although the medium there is oil.
For the iconography, the similarity of St Peter on the left in Benesch 0111 suggests that he may be represented. It is possible that, like Benesch 0124, Benesch 0111 may depend to some degree on a lost work by Rembrandt, who of course treated the subject in his etching of c.1629-30 (Bartsch 95; NH 15 – see under Benesch 0012).
The scored and ruled lines made with a stylus point on the verso may have been connected with a perspective exercise (see illustrations).
Condition: Poor: as well as being torn and with internal tears, which contain concentrations of dirt, the sheet has been subjected to water and is greatly stained, grubby and discoloured. There are also folds and scrapes.
Summary attribution: Rembrandt.
Date: 1634?
COLLECTION: USA, Private Collection.
FURTHER LITERATURE/REMARKS: None. [Not in

DETAILS, Enlarged, of the Head and the Drapery Sketch upper left

Fig.a Benesch 257 (the main part of the image only)

Figs b-c. Details of drapery and hatching from:
On the left: Not in Benesch, Study of a Prophet or Apostle
On the right: from Benesch 257

Figs d and e. Details of shading/hatching from:
Above: Not in Benesch, Study of a Prophet or Apostle
On the right: from Benesch 257. Note the spikey zigzags.

The Verso (above)

Schatborn, 2019]
PROVENANCE: From a ‘barn sale’ (‘vide-greniers’) in Plestin-Les-Grèves, Brittany, France, c.2016, where purchased by a dealer from Versailles; sold online by him (as “tmou6362”) on Ebay to the present owner, 24 September, 2018.
[1] I should stress that I have not seen the original drawing. In e-mail correspondence with the compiler concerning images of the drawing (15-18 November 2018), Peter Schatborn acknowledged that there were some good arguments for an attribution to Rembrandt but remained non-committal.
First posted 19 November 2018.

ENLARGED Illustration of the above

Not in Benesch
A Man in a Tall Hat Resting his Head on his Hand, almost half-length, with a long beard,
Verso: : Two Figures, One Reclining, the Other with a Knife (?)
Medium: Pen and brown ink; the verso in red chalk; ruled framing lines in a lighter brown ink.
Inscribed on verso, in pen and dark brown ink: “No….” ; on backing sheet, in pencil (a typical inscription for drawings in the Cavendish album): “Rembrandt”
104 x 90 . Watermark: none; chain lines: 28v
COMMENTS: The drawing on the recto, which iconographically belongs loosely to the melancholic scholar type,[1] is stylistically close to Rembrandt’s work of c.1634-5 (compare especially Benesch 0327). The characterisation of a half-length figure on a small scale is comparable to Rembrandt’s sketches in the ‘Sheet of Studies’ in Birmingham (Benesch 0340) and the similar drawing now in the Fogg Art Museum (Benesch 0339). The head may be compared with the ‘Study of an Elder’ in the Pierpont Morgan Library (Benesch 0336), a work of c.1633-34 and related to Rembrandt’s ‘St John the Baptist preaching’ in Berlin. Yet the lines in the present work are considerably less fluent; the pen is handled throughout in a more tentative and fragmentary manner that cannot be paralleled in drawings that may be securely given to Rembrandt himself.
The subject of the sketch on the verso is uncertain,[2] but stylistically it provides similar cause for doubting Rembrandt’s authorship. His own sketch in Washington of comparable figures, also in red chalk (Benesch 437 verso), exhibits greater incisiveness. The quality of draughtsmanship in the arms and legs further undermines an attribution to Rembrandt. Hitherto the figures have been regarded as reclining but it could be that the boy-like figure is being supported by another, with both figures upright.
In some respects the drawing is reminiscent of Govert Flinck (cf. Benesch 0079 and 0080) and it may be that he was the artist responsible.
A painting of a similar figure, probably by a Rembrandt pupil, was formerly in the Nicholson, Sedelmeyer and Schloss collections, bearing a Rembrandt signature and the date 1643.[3] In it, the figure wears a cap and casts his gaze towards the lower left of the composition.
Condition: Generally good; some surface dirt.
Summary attribution: School of Rembrandt – Govert Flinck??
Date: c.1634-35.
COLLECTION: GB London, British Museum (inv. 1952,0121.34 in Cavendish album, shelfmark 202.d.1)

Verso

FURTHER LITERATURE/REMARKS: Chatsworth, 2002, III, p.400, no.1469, repr. (quoting the draft text of London, 2010); London, 2010 (online) no.116 (anonymous Rembrandt School, c.1634-35); This Catalogue online, April 2018; [Not in Schatborn, 2019]
PROVENANCE: From an album (the
‘Cavendish Album’, folio 33) probably compiled by or for Lord James Cavendish (d.1741; he was the second son of the 2nd Duke of Devonshire, and may have been given the drawings in the album by him; some bear the mark of Nicolaes Anthonis Flinck, whose collection was purchased by the 2nd Duke in 1723/4);[4] presumably by descent at Chatsworth House, Derbyshire; the album believed to have been in the library of Charles Cavendish, 1st Lord Chesham; L. Colling-Mudge, from whom purchased for the British Museum in 1952, with the assistance of the National Art-Collections Fund.
[1] Many examples of this iconographic type appear in the work of Rembrandt and his circle, some of them discussed by Lütke Notarp, 1998, pp.217ff.
[2] Possibilities might include two Old Testament subjects, the ‘Sacrifice of Isaac’ (cf. Benesch 0090) or ‘Jael and Sisera’.
[3] Bode and Hofstede de Groot, IV, no.506, repr.
[4] See L.959.
First posted 2 April 2018.

Not in Benesch
Rembrandt?? An Orator (Recto and Verso) 1634-35?
Pen and brown ink.
68 x 64.
The drawing is close to Rembrandt’s sketches for his St John the Baptist preaching, such as Benesch 140, but the style is less energetic with an uncharacteristic tendency towards the decorative. The pose might have been inspired by Benesch 0142A.
USA Boston, Private Collection (Maida and George Abrams)
Further literature/remarks: Exh. Greenwich (Conn.), 2011-12, no.5, repr. (Rembrandt); This Catalogue online, March 2013; [Not in Schatborn, 2019]

Not in Benesch
Rembrandt? Bust of a Man, Head Resting on his Hand c.1634-35?
Pen and brown ink.
62 x 54.
The analogies with Rembrandt’s drawings for the grisaille of St John the Baptist are considerable (cf. Benesch 142 recto and 336), though the lines have a somewhat more decorative quality here. When sold in 1983 it was accepted by E. Haverkamp-Begemann and dated c.1633.
LITERATURE AND FURTHER REMARKS: This Catalogue online, March 2013; [Not in Schatborn, 2019]
PROVENANCE: Sale, Amsterdam, Christie’s, 15 November, 1983, lot 37; Michael Currier; with











Richard Day (dealer;
catalogue Basket and
Day, 1988, no.24, repr.).


Benesch A025
Rembrandt?? A Seated (African?) Woman, to left 1635?
Pen and brown ink.
54 x 51.
Minor sketches of this type are especially hard to judge but Benesch’s doubts concerning this drawing seem reasonable. Comparisons with the documentary drawings are not persuasive; cf. Benesch 0227.
COLLECTION: USA Chapel Hill, Ackland Art Museum, The University of North

Carolina at Chapel Hill (The Peck
Collection; inv.2017.1.62).
Further literature/remarks: Exh. Boston, 2003, no.2, repr. (Rembrandt, c.1635); This Catalogue online, March 2013;
[Not in Schatborn, 2019].

Not in Benesch
Rembrandt? A Pregnant Woman, half-length to right c.1635-40
Pen and brown ink.
66 x 43.
Not easy to assess; there seem to be hints of the liquidity of Rembrandt’s style in the 1640s. The costume may be 16th century, in which case the drawing may copy a prototype from the circle of Dürer or Holbein rather than being from life.
COLLECTION: USA Boston, Private Collection (Peck Collection)
LITERATURE/FURTHER REMARKS: This Catalogue online, March 2013; [Not in Schatborn, 2019]

Not in Benesch
Rembrandt, after Holbein
Subject: An English Woman (after Holbein)
Verso: Inscriptions only.
Medium: Pen and brown ink (the tones vary according to the pressure applied or the charge of ink on the pen), touched with white (in nearer shoulder); ruled framing lines in a similar ink. Inscribed verso in pen and brown ink, lower left, perhaps in an early eighteenth century hand: “Rhin” [?] and in graphite with the inventory number.
192 x 126; no watermark; chain lines 25/26h. Mat: modern only.
COMMENTS: There seems to be no reason, from the point of view of style, to doubt this drawing’s authenticity, though it is highly unusual to find Rembrandt copying a figure by Holbein. The latter’s original drawing is now in the Ashmolean Museum, Oxford. The figure apparently inspired that on the

COMPARATIVE illustration. Hans Holbein the Younger, An English Woman. Pen and black ink with grey and watercolour washes, the outlines indented with stylus. GB Oxford, Ashmolean Museum (inv. WA1863.423)

left in Benesch A36 in the British Museum.
Condition: good.
Summary attribution: Rembrandt.
Date: 1637-40?
COLLECTION: N Oslo, Nasjonalgalleriet (inv.NG.K&H.B.15589)
FURTHER LITERATURE/REMARKS: Further literature/remarks: Van Regteren Altena, 1967, p.377, repr. fig.3; Exh. Oslo, 1976, no.41; Exh. New York, 1988, no.32, repr. (c.1640); Exh. Oslo, 1995; Manuth, 1998.I, pp.323-36, repr. fig.2; Exh. Oslo, 2001; De Winkel, 2006, p.249, repr. fig.129; this website, March 2013; Schatborn, 2019, no.665, repr. (c.1639).
PROVENANCE: unknown.

Not in Benesch
Rembrandt?
The Holy Family in the Carpenter’s Workshop
1635-38?
Pen and brown ink.
96 x 133.
The style, to my eye, links the drawing with Benesch 0095. As discussed under that drawing, the attribution to Rembrandt is not very secure. Compare also the wrestling boys and, for the Virgin, the Pancake Woman, in Benesch 0409. It also reminds me of HdG 807 (here Fig.a). Peter Schatborn (email to compiler, 15 December 2017) suggests a comparison with a drawing of card-players in the Peck collection (Not in Benesch – included below). In the vertical striations of shading (perhaps for curtains) behind the Virgin, the diagonal shading behind her right leg and in the horizontal shading to the right of St Joseph’s work-bench, there are some links with Benesch 0390.

Compare also the Tobit and Anna in the Victoria and Albert Museum (Fig.b).[1]
COLLECTION: USA Boston, Private Collection (Maida
and George Abrams)
Further literature/remarks: Exh. Greenwich (Conn.),
2011-12, no.4, repr. (Rembrandt, early 1640s or
1645); This Catalogue online, 2013; Giltaij, 2015,
p.457, repr. fig.2 (follows the present publication
when in an early form online [24 April 2015],
comparing HdG 807 and suggesting Bol for both);
[Not in Schatborn, 2019]
[1] Benesch C15; London, 2014, no.163, repr..

Fig.a. School of Rembrandt (Ferdinand Bol??), An Artist in his Studio, pen and brown ink. NL Amsterdam, Private Collection

Fig.b. Benesch C15: School of Rembrandt (Ferdinand Bol?),
Tobit and Anna, pen and brown ink.
GB London, Victoria and Albert Museum
(inv. DYCE.433)

Not in Benesch
Rembrandt?
Subject: A Group of Card-Players and a Smoker
Medium: Pen and brown ink, rubbed with the finger; touches of later black ink
in the hilt and point of the sword, right. Inscribed by a later hand in pen and
brown ink, lower right: “Rembrandt”:
154 x 204. Watermark: none; chain lines: 24-25h.
COMMENTS: The drawing appears to be by the same hand as the Holy Family,
now in the Abrams Collection (qv; Not in Benesch). The style is energetic and
vigorous, and has links with Benesch 100 verso, for example; but the
elongation of the central figure and some of the patches of hatching (e.g. in
the calf of the smoker, where it tends to flatten the form) and a certain
looseness in the modelling (especially in the same figure, on the right) have
given rise to doubts in the past. For these reasons the drawing is included
here as “attributed to Rembrandt”, although it has to be said that parallels
with drawings by Rembrandt’s pupils are hard to find – as with the Abrams
drawing, the closest may be Ferdinand Bol. But the sheer vigour of the
penwork and the deftness of the characterisations all speak for Rembrandt
himself.
For the subject (and to some degree, also the style) compare Benesch 418B.[1]
Condition: Somewhat stained around the edges, otherwise generally good,
although some of the lines have become paler – perhaps through a chemical
reaction; some small retouches (see under Medium).
Summary attribution: Rembrandt [?]
Date: 1635-40?
COLLECTION: USA, Chapel Hill, Ackland Art Museum, The University of North
Carolina at Chapel Hill, The Peck Collection (2017.1.63).
FURTHER LITERATURE/REMARKS: Valentiner, II, 1934, no.768; Benesch, 1964,
p.118 (Collected Writings, 1970, p.254); Exh. Cambridge (Mass.), 1980, no.16;
Exh. Cambridge (Mass.), 1983, n.p.; Exh. Boston, 2003, no.4, repr.; This Catalogue
online, March 2013; [Not in Schatborn, 2019.]
PROVENANCE: John Percival, 1st Earl of Egmont (1683-1748); R.P. Roupell
(L.2234); his sale, London, Christie’s, 13 July, 1887, lot 1048; Victor Koch;
Heinrich Eisenmann; Stefan Zweig; Alfred Zweig; his sale, New York, Sotheby
Parke Bernet, 30 May, 1979, lot 80, where acquired by Sheldon and Leena Peck,
Boston; presented by them to the present repository, 2017.
[1] The present catalogue entry is much indebted to Exh. Boston, 2003 (see
Literature above). It is there recorded that Sumowski planned to describe the
drawing as an anonymous school work (his no.2675), but he never reached the
end of his catalogue.

Not in Benesch
Rembrandt*
Portrait of Johannes Uytenbogaert 1635
Black chalk over etching and engraving.
250 x 187.
A ‘documentary’ drawing, although strictly speaking a touched proof of a print: an impression of Rembrandt’s etching (Bartsch 279,ii) reworked in black chalk by him to prepare the following states of the print.
GB London, British Museum (inv. 1855,0414.271).
Further literature/remarks: Bartsch 279,ii; Exh. Amsterdam-London, 2000–2001, no. 26, repr; Royalton-Kisch and Schatborn, 2011, no.34, repr. fig.108 (documentary drawing); This Catalogue online, 2013; [Not in Schatborn, 2019]

Not in Benesch
Rembrandt
Study of a Seated Dog 1635-37?
Black chalk; ruled framing line in pen and black ink. Inscribed above the drawing in pen on the old backing from a 1772 album (see below): “Roos” [Johann Melchior Roos]
82 x 99. Watermark: none.
COMMENTS: First published in 2016, with an attribution to Rembrandt, the drawing had traditionally been attributed to the German artist, Johann Melchior Roos (1663-1731) and kept in an album of his work.
Though a small sketch, it impresses through its many exceptional qualities: the firmness and confidence of the lines; the secure and compact pose and composition; the variety of touch, from the lightly sketched outlines on the dog’s back to the almost painterly dark patch on the crown of the head, with medium-tone shadows in between (e.g. the dog’s stomach and the shadow below); the successful description of details, from the eyes and nose to the spiked collar; and above all the animal’s characterisation, a sadly abused-looking creature, down-at-heel, laid low by wretched experience, hardly able to lift its head, and probably flea-bitten and wounded.
All these factors speak for Rembrandt himself as the draughtsman. The only problems with the attribution – apart from its odd provenance – arise if one attempts to date it or to compare it with the documentary drawings, of which the Vienna Elephant of 1637 is perhaps the closest in motif, style and technique (Benesch 0457). The Vienna drawing, though a work of greater ambition, does produce common qualities in its fluent and varying outlines and in the emphasis granted the feet – not enough, perhaps to secure

Enlarged

the attribution and date but sufficiently analogous to give the dog a foothold in Rembrandt’s oeuvre. A perhaps surprising feature of the Seated Dog is its similarities to much earlier black chalk drawings by Rembrandt, so that he would barely look out of place had he accompanied the figures in Benesch 12 or Benesch 30-32, even on the same sheet. On balance and pro tem, I am inclined to agree with Döring not only that the drawing is by Rembrandt, but that it dates from around the middle of the 1630s. A comparison with the Kneeling Man from the Abrams collection (Benesch 0058) further supports this assessment to some degree.
Condition: Apart from minor nicks to the upper left margin and a near-vertical scratch left of centre in the upper part of the sheet, apparently good (I know the drawing only through reproductions). The ink has run or smudged in the framing-line, lower right side.
Summary attribution: Rembrandt.
Date: c.1635-37.
COLLECTION: D Braunschweig, Herzog Anton Ulrich-Museum (inv.Z 719)
FURTHER LITERATURE/REMARKS: Döring, 2016, pp.369-78, repr. fig.1 (Rembrandt, c.1635); This Catalogue online, 23 October 2016; Exh. Braunschweig, 2017, no.47, repr. (c.1637); Schatborn, 2019, no.466a, repr. (c.1637).
PROVENANCE: From an album (Sammelband 13, folio 29) of “German drawings” first assembled in 1772 and inventoried in 1785. It had been acquired for Karl I, Duke of Braunschweig-Wolfenbüttel (1713-1796), possibly from Lieutenant von Schauroth.
First posted 23 October 2016.


Benesch A18
Rembrandt?
The Slaughter of an Ox 1635?
Pen and brown ink, rubbed with the finger and touched with white, on two conjoined pieces of paper; retouched by a later hand, especially below and in the right leg of the figure with the axe.
117 x 150
The zig-zag hatching (e.g. in the figure to the right) is very similar to Gerbrand van den Eeckhout (cf. Benesch 317, given to Eeckhout by Bevers, 2010, pp.60-61). Yet there are also links with Benesch 95. The butcher wielding the axe resembles the executioner in Benesch 0478, Benesch 0479, Benesch 0480 and Benesch 0482 recto and verso.


COLLECTION: D Munich, Staatliche Graphische Sammlung (inv.1441)
Further literature/remarks: Valentiner 763; Benesch A018; Munich, 1973, no.1109, repr. pl.305 (on two pieces of paper); Schatborn, 1978, p.134 (by Rembrandt); Exh. Munich-Amsterdam, 2001-2, no.31, repr. (Rembrandt, c.1635-40); This
Catalogue online, March 2013; Schatborn, 2019,
p.143, no.246, repr. (c.1636; cf. later drawing,
Benesch 1160).

Benesch A009
Rembrandt, Saskia seated by a Window 1635-37?
Pen and brown ink with brown wash with some black chalk; inscribed in graphite lower left: ‘Rembrant’
164 x 125.
Possibly retouched here and there by a later hand (e.g. warmer ink in the parallel hatching of the shadows to right of the feet; the ‘lines’ on the open pages; and there is also some black chalk). For style compare Benesch 313.
H Budapest, Szépmüvézeti Múzeum (inv. 1582)
Further literature/remarks: Groningen, 1967, under no.57 (Rembrandt); Budapest, 2005, no.201, repr. (as Rembrandt, with further literature); Exh. Budapest, 2006, p.26 and no.33, repr. p.25 (c.1635-36); This Catalogue online, March 2013; Schatborn, 2019, no.299, repr. (c.1637).

Not in Benesch
Rembrandt
Recto: Seated Old Man, to right
Verso: Standing Woman
Pen and brown ink with (recto only) brown wash and white heightening and some lines drawn into the wet ink with the blunt end of a brush or a dry pen; ruled framing lines in graphite (on three sides only) and in pen and brown ink (below). 164 x 129mm. Watermark: none; chain lines: 25h.
COMMENTS: A characteristic work of c.1638-39, but with a complicated relationship with a painting in Turin (formerly attributed to Salomon Koninck and more recently to Jan Lievens,[1] and with the drawing in the Draiflessen collection (not in Benesch; vide supra). The connections and attributions of the other two works remain open to discussion (vide supra again) but the Paris drawing seems to be the last of the three. Lugt recorded that it had been attributed to J.G. van Vliet (c.1605-1668) but like many previous owners and auctioneers believed it was by Salomon Koninck (1609-1656).
The verso might represent an actor, and conceivably the recto as well.
Date: 1638-39?
COLLECTION: F Paris, Fondation Custodia, Frits Lugt Collection (inv.4502).
FURTHER LITERATURE/REMARKS: Benesch, 1954/73, I, under no.73 (as S. Koninck); Exh. New York-Boston-Chicago, 1972-73, no.56 (recto; as S. Koninck); Exh. Amsterdam, 1973, no.56 (recto attributed to S. Koninck); Sumowski, 1979 etc., nos.1529-30 and under no.1528 (S. Koninck); Sumowski, Gemälde, 1983, under no.1124 (S. Koninck); Exh. Berlin-Amsterdam, 1991-92, under no.17; Haverkamp-Begemann, 1992, p.460 (not Rembrandt); Schatborn, 1995, pp.221-23 and p.400 (Rembrandt); Exh. Paris-Haarlem, 1997-98, no.4, repr. p.xiii;

Verso


Royalton-Kisch, 1998, p.619 (Rembrandt); Logan, 1999, p.68 (not Rembrandt); Exh. Boston-Chicago, 2003-2004, no.32 and pp.96-97 and 314 (exh. in Boston only); Paris, 2010, no.8, repr.; Exh. New York, 2011, p.89, repr. (late 1630s); Exh. Paris, 2011, no.12; Exh. Paris, 2011.1, pp. 6-7, repr.; Meijer, 3, 2011, under no.486; Exh. Mettingen, 2012-13, under no.105; This Catalogue online, March 2013; Exh. Amsterdam, 2014, no.32, repr. (compares Benesch 757 and 441 – the latter also for the verso); Schnackenburg, 2016, p.97; D. de Witt in Wheelock and Yeager-Cresselt, 2017, repr. fig. 3 at: https://www.theleidencollection.com/artwork/a-portrait-of-a-rabbi/ [accessed 14 August 2022]; Schatborn, 2019, p.435 and nos 335-36, both repr. (c.1639; depends on Lievens, as copied by Rembrandt earlier in Liberna/Draiflessen drawing); Fondation Custodia online at: https://collectiononline.fondationcustodia.fr/bronnen/drawings/detail/227ca087-e1ff-14d1-0bab-77d66ade48df/media/1c1b138d-19ad-ca08-8264-8f38a5928f18?mode=detail&view=horizontal&q=rembrandt%20Benesch&rows=1&page=28&sort=order_s_preferred_artist%20asc (last updated March 2021; accessed 13 August 2022).
PROVENANCE: Chevalier I. J. de Claussin; his sale, Paris, Batignolles, Dumesnil and Schroth, 2 December 1844, lot 42, as S. Koninck, bt Guicherdot, Fr.10; L. F. J. van den Zande, Paris; his sale Paris, Guichardot, Guerin, Delbergue-Cormont, 30 April 1855 and following days, lot 2998, as S. Koninck, Fr.11; E. Norblin; his sale, Paris, Delbergue-Cormont (expert: Blaisot), Hôtel Drouôt, 16-17 March 1860, lot 37, as S. Koninck, Fr.3; W. Nijman (as J. van Vliet); Richard Ederheimer, New York; Savile Gallery, London, where acquired by Frits Lugt, 28 May 1930.
[1] See under the Liberna/Draiflessen drawing above; Turin, Galleria Sabauda, inv.753 or 394; Sumowski, Gemälde, 3, 1983, no.1124, repr..
First posted March 2013.

Benesch A010
Rembrandt
Three Studies of a Child and a Profile Head of a Woman
1636-39?
Pen and brown ink with brown wash, heightened with white. Inscribed verso in graphite: “from the collection of Thomas Dimsdale, 1758-1823/6/yox zx[subscript]”
216 x 162. Chain lines 26v. Watermark: post horn in crowned shield, with the no. “4” and letters “WR” below; related to Laurentius 621 (1637) and 622 (1644) and Heawood 2715 (Amsterdam, 1668)[1]
COMMENTS: The drawing was strangely undervalued by Benesch but has been retained as by Rembrandt by most other writers. The top right head in profile may portray Margarethe de Geer (cf. Benesch 0757).[2] But the woman has also been identified as Aeltje Schouten, a godmother at Titus van Rijn’s baptism in 1641, and the child as Antje van Loo, daughter of Saskia’s former guardian, Gerrit van Loo.[3]

Watermark:

COLLECTION: USA Cambridge (Mass.), Fogg Art Museum (inv. 1949.4)
FURTHER LITERATURE/REMARKS: See the harvardartmuseums.org website for full details; Van Regteren Altena, 1955 (by Rembrandt); Hoetink, 1969, pp.150-51, repr. fig.1 (by Rembrandt and portrays M. de Geer); Exh. Washington-Denver-Fort Worth, 1977, no.302, repr.; Exh. Edinburgh-London, 2001, no.96, repr. (c.1640-45); Broos, 2009, p.14, repr. fig.7 (child could be Antje van Loo and the old woman Aeltje Schouten); This Catalogue online, March 2013; Alsteens, 2015, p.532, repr. fig.1; Robinson and Anderson, 2016, p.15 and cat. 69, pp.234-236, repr. p.235; watermark repr. p.380) Schatborn, 2019, no.363, repr. (c.1640).[3]
Provenance: Thomas Dimsdale (L.2426); Duveen; M.J Perry; Paul J Sachs.
[1] See Hoetink, 1969, pp.150-51 for the reference to Heawood.
[2] Broos, 2009, p.14.
[3] See also https://hvrd.art/o/303699

Not in Benesch
Rembrandt, Sketch for Joseph Interpreting the Dreams of the Butler and Baker 1638-39?
Pen and brown (iron-gall) ink on paper prepared with brown wash.
200 x 187. On two conjoined pieces of paper.
COMMENTS: Closely related to the documentary drawing, Benesch 423 verso, the recto of which is related to the etching

of the Artist and his Model, of c.1639 (Bartsch 192; NH 176).
USA Los Angeles, J. Paul Getty Museum (inv.95.GA.18)
Further literature/remarks: London, 1992, p.82, under no.27 (Rembrandt); Malibu, 2001, no.48, repr.; Exh. Los Angeles, 2009-2010, under no.7, repr. fig.7d (develops further the ideas in the London version, Benesch 423); London, 2010 (online) under no.24; This Catalogue online, March 2013; Schatborn, 2019, no.53, repr. (c.1638).

Not in Benesch
Subject: Sketch-Sheet with a Warrior with a Shield, Two Heads and a Frog
Verso: A Sketch of a Helmeted Head and a Warrior with a Shield
See below

Fig.a. Detail of the above (top row, second from the left), with details from Joseph in Prison, Getty Museum (top left; Not in Benesch – the drawing is discussed on this page), from Benesch 219 (two details, upper right) from the Portrait of Willem Ruyter (lower left; Not in Benesch – the drawing is discussed on this page) and Benesch 168 (lower right)

Fig.b. Details, top row: two from the drawing under discussion; centre row: details from drawings now given to Rembrandt’s school – left to right: Benesch 0222; Benesch 0239a and Benesch 0238a; below: from drawings by Rembrandt himself – Benesch 0391 verso, Benesch 0387 verso, and from Not in Benesch – the drawing is discussed on this page, below

Fig.c. Top left: two details from the drawing under discussion, with further to the right (arranged left to right) details of Benesch 0425 verso and Benesch 0097; below: detail of Benesch 0093

Not in Benesch
Subject: Sketch-Sheet with a Warrior with a Shield, Two Heads and a Frog
Verso: A Sketch of a Helmeted Head and a Warrior with a Shield; some offsetting from the wet ink of another adjacent sheet
Medium: Pen and brown (iron-gall) ink with brown wash on pale brown paper. Inscribed recto, lower left, with Esdaile’s monogram in pen brown ink: “WE” (L.2617); verso, lower right, in pen and brown ink: “6” and by Esdaile below: “1836 WE Rembrandt”; in the centre, in graphite: “924” with an indecipherable further graphite touch nearby.
96 x 135. Watermark: a fragment of the base of a mark with the letters “WR”;[1] chain lines: c.15/cm.
COMMENTS: Only two scholars have hitherto considered the drawing (see Literature and Provenance) and both felt minded to attribute it to Ferdinand Bol. Yet the comparisons they made with drawings by Bol are far from persuasive; those with Rembrandt are closer, but whether an attribution to him is admissible is likely to remain a contentious issue.
There is no doubt that Rembrandt’s own drawings resemble the sketches on this curious and varied sheet more closely than anything securely attributable to any of his pupils. In style, the different motifs conform essentially to three types: 1. the highly finished and detailed head at the base of the recto, perhaps depicting an official; 2. the somewhat looser two studies of heads, one at the top left of the recto, the other at the top left of the verso (with the diminutive frog lying stylistically perhaps closer to group 1 than 2); and 3. the thin-lined warriors, one on each side of the sheet, both at the upper right.[2] They may be Asian fighters, the one on the verso – partly obscured by heavy offsetting from another drawing and by Esdaile’s inscription – appearing potentially Samurai. Perhaps the very variety of the motifs and the exotic inclusion of Asian warriors all on one sheet might be taken by some as evidence that Rembrandt is the drawing’s most likely creator. One possibility is that the sketches were (mostly) made from actors during a performance (see under Benesch 0120).
Before attempting to examine comparative material from among Rembrandt’s own drawings for each stylistic type, it is worth remarking that three of the four studies on the recto – all except the warrior – appear wooden, as if the artist’s models had been sculpted or in ceramic. Whether or not this was the case – and it is probably unlikely – this quality is certainly unusual for Rembrandt. Also worth emphasising is the fact that the drawing is made in iron-gall ink on pale brown paper, like many others of the period around 1638-39 (see under Benesch 0157). Finally, that two drawings in the same medium and also with the same or a similar watermark (at least, including the letters “WR” – see n.1) have been attributed to Gerbrand van den Eeckhout: Benesch 0319-20, while others in different media that bear the mark include a number by Rembrandt himself as well as by Van den Eeckhout: Benesch 0267 (here as Gerbrand van den Eeckhout?); Benesch 0289 (Rembrandt); Benesch 0294 (Gerbrand van den Eeckhout?); Benesch 0312 (Gerbrand van den Eeckhout?); Benesch 0319-20 (both as Gerbrand van den Eeckhout?); Benesch 0324 (Gerbrand van den Eeckhout?), Benesch 0373 (Rembrandt; the watermark in this case certainly a post horn), Benesch 0380 (School of Rembrandt – Ferdinand Bol?); and Benesch 0464 (Rembrandt).
The association of the majority of these drawings with Van den Eeckhout requires comment, but can be rapidly dismissed: his early and most Rembrandtesque drawings have been usefully brought together,[3] and they include no sheets of sketches of the type under discussion here and his style appears remote from our drawing – perhaps the closest are Benesch 0071, Benesch 0074 and Benesch 0319.
Limiting our comparisons to iron-gall ink drawings by Rembrandt himself, the analogies are certainly closer, but perhaps not sufficiently convincing to secure an unqualified attribution to him. The most highly finished head (our stylistic group no.1) is blocked out in an unusual geometric structure, although the style may be compared with that of the baker in the drawing of Joseph in Prison in the J. Paul Getty Museum (see the detail at the top left of Fig.a). The latter drawing, however, shows that Rembrandt’s style usually has a more openwork quality, while in the sketch-sheet, the official – if that is what he is – appears more rigid in style, with dense hatching in many places. Nonetheless, the small parallel and near-vertical touches in the headgear of both drawings are similar, as is the description of the main facial features, especially the nose and eyes. Comparable qualities are also found in the divided and rejoined sketch-sheet in Berlin, Benesch 0219, from which two heads are

excerpted and illustrated here for comparison (see to the upper right of Fig.a). These have a hint of the more rigid modelling seen in the present sketch, with forceful hatching producing an analogous hardness. Finally, for the fine, vertical hatching on the cheek of our official, one might compare the underlying shading on the cheek of Willem Ruyter in the drawing of him in the Rijksmuseum (a detail reproduced in Fig.a, below left; Not in Benesch, c.1638-39); his nose, eyes and mouth also resemble the head of the supposed official. The tightly-curled hair resembles a figure in the documentary drawing, Benesch 0168 (see the detail at lower right of Fig.a).
Given the cumulative effect of these comparisons, there can be no doubt that our drawing comes at least in contention as an authentic Rembrandt, even if the more sceptical among us might still harbour doubts.
Unfortunately, their misgivings are not fully dissolved by the comparisons available for our second stylistic group, comprising the two heads at the top left corners of the recto and verso, as well as the frog (for which one might compare the firm touch in the Birds of Paradise, Benesch 0456 – not a close stylistic resemblance). The two subsidiary heads are closer to drawings that were formerly but are no longer attributed to Rembrandt (see Fig.b: two details from our drawing are at the top, with heads from drawings no longer given to Rembrandt in the second row and heads by Rembrandt himself in the third). In general the somewhat unyielding penmanship of the drawings now ascribed to Rembrandt’s school seem closer than the heads still widely given to Rembrandt himself, which have a more delicate touch. While this divergence may not prove that the drawing is not by Rembrandt, it does make an attribution to him more problematic.
Finally we have the two warriors to consider, with their generally spindly lines and lively movement and expressions (see Fig.c, top row, first and second from the left). Here the most worthwhile comparison is perhaps the outline sketch of an actor on the verso of Benesch 425, also shown in Fig.c (top row, third from the left). In so far as it goes, the lively, dancing outlines are certainly analogous; but there is no hatching to compare; nor is there shading in the details illustrated here of two further drawings that otherwise also approximate in style: Benesch 0093 (Fig.c, below) and Benesch 0097 (Fig.c, top right). The comparisons are not without merit, but once again fall short of being wholly persuasive for Rembrandt’s authorship of our sketch-sheet. However, it is worth remarking that the eyes of the verso figure, despite this being a hasty sketch, are drawn as minuscule circles, a common habit of Rembrandt himself in the years around 1640 (cf., for example, Benesch 0479, the head of Jupiter in Benesch 0540, Benesch 541, and Benesch 0606.
Taking all these affinities into consideration, some will doubtless believe that the drawing is unquestionably by Rembrandt (perhaps primarily inspired by Fig.a above); at the very least it must be conceded that he emerges as the most likely candidate, even if the various comparisons and arguments are not fully convincing. On balance, the present writer thinks that, despite some weaknesses, it is probably by him, but can fully understand why others will be more hesitant. For this reason the drawing is here designated as attributed to Rembrandt – i.e. “Rembrandt?”.
Condition: Not pristine: light-struck and somewhat faded, and the wider lines have “burnt” into the paper as iron-gall ink so often does.
Summary attribution: Rembrandt?
Date: 1638-39?
COLLECTION: USA Sale, New York, Sotheby’s, 25 January 2023, lot 63, sold for $50,400.[4]
FURTHER LITERATURE/REMARKS: Sumowski, Drawings, 1, 1979, no.225x, recto repr. (by Ferdinand Bol; compares a drawing formerly in the M. Kappel collection, Berlin, Sumowski 224x); [Not in Schatborn, 2019.]
PROVENANCE: Thomas Lawrence (L.2445);[5] William Esdaile (L.2617); his sale, London, Christie’s, 17 June, 1840, lot 7, bt Woodburn, 7s; Anon. sale, London, Christie’s, 29 November, 1977, lot 157, repr., as Rembrandt, 1635 (but with note by Haverkamp-Begemann suggesting Bol); sale, New York, Sotheby’s, 25 January, 2023, lot 63, sold for $50,400.
[1] These letters appear in similar form mainly on watermarks with a fleur-de-lys, sometimes with a post horn, and occasionally a Strasbourg bend.
[2] The drawings are upside down to each other if the recto is turned like the page of a book.
[3] Bevers, 2010 (which includes a few attributions that remain contentious).
[4] I am grateful to Gregory Rubinstein of Sotheby’s for showing me the drawing in London on 20 December 2022 in transit to New York, and giving me a copy of his draft notes on it.
[5] The impression made by Lawrence mark at the lower left of the recto shows through the white paper tab on the verso (at the top left), so the tab must predate the moment when Lawrence’s executors stamped the sheet.
First posted 22 December 2022

Not in Benesch
Rembrandt? Man Seated at a Desk Holding a Pen 1635?
Pen and brown ink.
Watermark: none visible through backing.
64 x 74.
The rather fragmented lines than run less fluently than usual cause some reason to doubt the attribution. A related drawing, in my opinion by Govert Flinck (Fig.a), shows a similarly-posed figure (also with his pen in his left hand) that might depict St John the Evangelist, as there appears to be an eagle by his right shoulder, its wings stretched out behind the figure’s head. In which case the present drawing may also have been made with this iconography in mind.
USA Boston, Private Collection (Sheldon and Leena Peck Collection)
Further literature/remarks: Exh. Boston, 2003, no.1, repr. (c.1632-33; perhaps a self-portrait); This Catalogue online, March 2013; Schatborn, 2019, no.240, repr. (c.1635).
PROVENANCE: Jonathan Richardson, sen. (L.2184); Joshua Reynolds (L.2364); William Esdaile (L.2617); Daigremont sale, Paris, Drouot, 3-7 April, 1866, lot 611; Ch. Rouillard; his sale, Paris, Drouot, 1-3 March, 1869, lot 454; Georges Danyau, Paris (L.720); sale, London, Christie’s, 4 July, 1984, lot 130, repr..
First posted March 2013 (with text concerning Fig.a added 26 June 2020)

Not in Benesch
Rembrandt??
A Doctor Attending a Woman, with a Standing Man 1638-39?
Pen and brown (iron-gall) ink with brown wash and some later grey wash.
121 x 136.
One could imagine that this was a sketch made by Rembrandt around the time he included comparable motifs in his 1639 etching of the Death of the Virgin (Bartsch 99). The style resembles Rembrandt’s iron-gall ink sketches of this period, albeit with some unusual weaknesses here, both in the general conception, the interrelationship of the figures and the details. Probably to be described as “attributed to Rembrandt”.
COLLECTION: Private Collection
LITERATURE/FURTHER REMARKS: This Catalogue online, March 2013; [Not in Schatborn, 2019]

Fig.a. Govert Flinck, St John the Evangelist, c.1635? Pen and brown ink, 120 x 147. The attribution is the author’s, based largely on Sumowski 948b (Exh. Los Angeles, 2009-10, no.7.2, repr.) and also Exh. Cleves, 2015, no.33. Provenance: sale, Toronto, 25 June 2020, lot 99, repr. (as attributed to an 18th Century Baroque Master, French). Private Collection.

Not in Benesch
Rembrandt, Bust of a Youth in a Turban, to left 1637-38?
Pen and brown ink on paper prepared with brown wash
82 x 70
COLLECTION: GB London, Art Market (Thomas Williams Fine Art)
Further literature/remarks: Sumowski, 1971, p.127, repr. fig.3 (Rembrandt).; Amsterdam, 1981, under no.15, repr. fig.b (compares Benesch 714 verso); This Catalogue online, March 2013; Schatborn, 2019, no.315, repr. (c. 1638).

Benesch A003
Rembrandt
Saskia? A Woman Sitting by a Window, dressed as a kitchen maid
1638-39?
Pen and wash in brown ink, brush in white
on paper prepared light brown.
175 x 134. Chain lines: 22-24h. No watermark.
NL Amsterdam, Rijksmuseum (inv. RP-T-1930-51)
Provenance: T. Humphrey Ward; P. & D. Colnaghi;
Cornelis Hofstede de Groot; gift to the
Riksmuseum, 1906, transferred, 1930.
Further literature/remarks: Amsterdam, 1985,
no.14, repr.; Exh. Amsterdam, 2006, pp.39-40, repr. fig.34 (c.1638; dressed as a kitchen maid – if Saskia, then dressed in this role); Exh. Edinburgh-London, 2001, no.76, repr. (c.1638; exh. only in London); Müller-Schirmer, 2008, p. 63; This Catalogue
online, March 2013; Schatborn, 2019, no.309, repr. (c.1638).

Not in Benesch
Gerbrand van den Eeckhout?
King David and Retinue? 1639?
Pen and brown (iron-gall) ink, touched
with brown wash and white bodycolour.
167 x 102; an added strip of the same
paper down the left side.
Compare Benesch 0074, by Gerbrand van
den Eeckhout. Like that drawing, the style
and technique is especially close to
Rembrandt’s own in c.1637-39, warranting
the drawing’s inclusion in an “attributed
to Rembrandt” section. The subject is
uncertain.
COLLECTION: Private Collection.
LITERATURE/FURTHER REMARKS: This
Catalogue online, March 2013; [Not in
Schatborn, 2019]

Not in Benesch
Rembrandt
Subject: Portrait of a Seated Elderly Man,
wearing a broad-brimmed hat
Verso: laid down on a mat made of blue card (see Inscriptions below).
Medium: Pen and brown (iron-gall) ink with brown wash, heightened with white, on paper perhaps toned very pale brown. Ruled framing lines in pen and brown ink and in grey-brown ink. Inscribed on verso of mat in pen and
brown ink (c.1810?): “paul Rembrant
[underlined later in a paler brown ink] Van Ryn./ Ces deux Dessins ont orné/ les cabinets, Crozat, Noury / et en dernier lieu Celui / du president Audri, d’Orleans”; [1] and top left in graphite: “No.91.”
126 x 126. Watermark: none visible; chain
lines: 24v (? not entirely clear as laid down).
COMMENTS: The composition is inspired by Raphael’s Portrait of Baldassare castiglione, which Rembrandt saw in Amsterdam and copied in a drawing dated 1639 (Benesch 0451); the present drawing would probably date from around that year. The man portrayed probably came from the Jewish community in Amsterdam,
as is suggested by the tassels (tzitziyot) attached to his clothing.[2] Perhaps the same person is represented in a pupil’s drawing of this period (at
the upper left of Benesch 0339A).
The drawing is remarkable for a number of reasons, not least because of its overall high quality, including the confident mise-en-page and the profound characterisation of the sitter, qualities that make the drawing stand apart from almost all the works of Rembrandt’s pupils. Yet the attribution to Rembrandt is not entirely straightforward, as some of its stylistic features are not commonly encountered in Rembrandt’s own work: the sleeves, for example, are drawn in separate geometric segments, one above the other, mostly with rather bold lines of even breadth. In the further sleeve (on spectator’s left, the figure’s right), the effect is almost cubistic. Rembrandt usually introduced greater variety into the thickness of his pen lines, especially his outlines. The white heightening, in the beard and below it as well as under the hat and in the nearer ear, is apparently employed somewhat casually.
The ‘geometric’ quality is, however, encountered to some degree in the above-mentioned Portrait of Castiglione (Benesch 0451), the attribution to Rembrandt of which has never been questioned, not least because it is covered in his handwriting. The folds cascade down Castiglione’s right arm in a comparable manner, though the effect is diminished by the thickly brushed lines on the main part of the body. The underlying, thinner pen lines in the body are also similar and split into pairs, probably by pressure exerted on the nib, an effect that also appears in the Seated Elderly Man. The way the facial features are drawn is much the same – the nose with its heavier touch near the nostrils, the eyes with their emphatic dots for the irises and pupils, the near-vertical, minuscule lines of hatching either side of the nearer eye, the small spots of ink and dashes that key in the lie of the surface – these are all analogous (for all these features cf. also the Ahasuerus on his Throne, Benesch 0085).[3] So, too, is the rather casual use of white bodycolour near Castiglione’s hands and behind his neck. Furthermore, the lower lip is suggested by a, for Rembrandt, entirely characteristic short horizontal dash. This and other features again occur in the documentary Portrait of a Woman (Maria Trip?), also probably of c.1639 (Benesch 0442; British Museum), which is related to Rembrandt’s painting of that year now on loan to the Rijksmuseum (see Corpus, III, 131 and VI, 184b): the delineation of the hair, the wedge-shaped hand and in the somewhat unspecific use of white heightening are all encountered again.
Further comparisons may be made with other generally accepted drawings, including the Youth Walking Carrying a Pole, now in the Rijksmuseum (not in Benesch; Amsterdam, 1985, no.13; inv.RP-T-1984-119). This again exhibits evenly-outlined geometric shapes, especially – but not only – in the trousers and down the figure’s back, and a somewhat generalised application of white heightening. The uniform outlines also occur in a few other ink drawings of the period, such as the Study of Women with Children, now in a private collection (Peck Collection; Benesch 300), a work with other stylistic connections with the Seated Elderly Man, and there are also signs of the geometrical approach with broad outlines in the lower sketch of a Seated Beggar Woman, now in the Louvre (Benesch 0197).
Other comparisons are equally suggestive of Rembrandt’s authorship: the Sleeping Dog, also of c.1639 (Benesch 0455; Boston Museum of Fine Arts), includes shapes below that closely resemble the books under the hands of the Portrait of a Seated Elderly Man. The indefinite, slack pen and brush lines in the right background also resemble those seen here. The shadows at the back of the kennel almost conceal some parallel, horizontal lines that appear to have been drawn into the wet ink with a dry, sharp implement, to create a sense of refracted light as well as to hint at texture and perspective, and this series of striations resembles the technique of shading under the brim of the hat of the Portrait of a Seated Elderly Man.
It is certainly possible to compare the Seated Elderly Man with other drawings by Rembrandt that it resembles less closely than one might wish, such as the Portrait of Willem Ruyter, now in the Rijksmuseum (not in Benesch; inv. RP-T-1996-6); but there are nevertheless some similarities in, for example, the delineation of the facial features. But as described above, sufficient similarities exist even with two of Rembrandt’s documentary drawings to render the attribution of the Seated Elderly Man to Rembrandt highly likely. While this conclusion is not entirely straightforward, and one might wish for yet stronger stylistic connections, there are no works by his pupils that come nearly so close. Rembrandt’s work is not always ‘predictable’, as we know from drawings such as the Portrait of Burchard Grossmann (Royal Library, The Hague, Benesch 0257), which though signed and dated 1634, has such a unique stylistic character that it is practically never referred to as a point of

Verso of mat

comparison to sustain the attribution of other drawings to Rembrandt. If it had survived without its related inscriptions, its attribution would have proven contentious.
But if Rembrandt can produce the stylistically unexpected in a signed drawing, there is no reason why he should not occasionally also do so in an unsigned work. As an arthistorian trained to focus on differences, it is extremely important to remember this fact and to understand that variations in style do not necessarily mean that different artists were responsible for a given work of art, the more so with such an experimental and inventive artist as Rembrandt. If the drawing is not by Rembrandt, then it would become hard to sustain the attribution to Rembrandt of some of the drawings mentioned above – the Rijksmuseum’s Youth Walking Carrying a Pole and also Benesch 0300, which seems improbable as, like the Portrait of Castiglione mentioned above, it is inscribed by Rembrandt himself.
A copy of the drawing, in reverse and in black chalk with grey wash, heightened with white on brownish-grey paper, and squared for transfer, which bears the mark of Thomas Hudson (L.2432), was in 2018 in a private collection (information and an image kindly sent by Peter Schatborn, 17/11/ 2019).
Condition: somewhat foxed, otherwise generally good. The acidic iron-gall ink has not ‘bitten’ into the paper significantly although the effect of the wash may be slightly flattened.
Summary attribution: Rembrandt.
Date: 1639?
COLLECTION: Private Collection.
FURTHER LITERATURE/REMARKS: E. Davoust, Le comte de Bizemont, artiste-amateur orléanais, son œuvre et ses collections, Orléans, 1891, p.142, n°561; see also under Provenance, 2016; This Catalogue online, March 2016; [Not in Schatborn, 2019]
PROVENANCE: Pierre Crozat (according to inscription on verso of mat);[4] Jean-Baptiste-François Nourri (1697-1784);[5] his sale, Paris, Folliot and Delalande, onzième vacation, 8 March, 1785, the second drawing in lot 771 (“Deux têtes, l’une de Philosophe coëffé d’un bonnet fourré, & tenant un livre à la main, l’autre un Vieillard à barbe, la tête coëffée d’un grand chapeau ; à la plume et lavé au bistre”) bt Tavernier with lot 772 (“Deux Paysages, l’un à la plume, enrichi de ruines & de plusieurs figures, et l’autre lavé au bistre”), 33 livres; François-Pascal Haudry (1718-1800; according to inscription on verso of mat; see n.1 below); Comte de Bizemont- Prunelé (1752-1837) [L.128; see under Literature above and n.1 below]; sale, Paris, Artcurial, 31 March, 2016, lot 10 (as “attributed to Rembrandt”, with statements by the compiler, supporting the attribution [based on an early version of the present text] and by Peter Schatborn, rejecting it) sold for 217,500 euros.
[1] The modern orthography would of course be ‘Audry’, as Matthieu Fournier of Artcurial, Paris, correctly surmised (oral communication 5 January 2016). But as “président Haudry”, as discovered by Patrick de Bayser from a descendant of the Comte de Bizemont-Prunelé, Pierre de Bizemont, he is mentioned in the foreword by Luis Jarry to the book by Davoust noted under Literature above, p.VIII, as a collector who was closely linked with the Comte de Bizemont- Prunelé. Davoust himself on p.9 of his introduction emphasises this link (email to the compiler of 19 January 2016). Haudry is also mentioned with the dates 1718-1800 by G. Scherf, in T. Gaehtgens et al. (eds), L’art et les normes sociales au XVIIIe siècle, Paris, 2001, p.160, as well as in a number of sale catalogues. An ‘Audry’ was a buyer at the Nourri sale which the present drawing passed through in 1785 (e.g. of lots 768 – a drawing by Rembrandt – 882 and 918). As “Président Audry” he is mentioned in Jean-Baptiste Pierre Lebrun, Galerie des peintres flamands, hollandais et allemands, Paris, 1792, pp.20 and 33, as an Orléans collector of note who owned a painting each by Jacob Jordaens and Pieter Van Mol; these turn up in the Cardinal Fesch sale catalogue, Rome, 1844, pp.108 and 157, in which Audry is mentioned as their former owner. The inscription might possibly have been written either by A.G.P. Bizemont or by his son, according to Pierre de Bizemont. I am grateful to Raphaëlle Drouhin of the Musée des Beaux-Arts in Orléans for further information about Haudry. He was ‘président du bureau des finances d’Orléans’, hence his unusual title. For further information she points to M. L’abbé Desnoyers, Les Collectionneurs Orléanais, Orléans, 1880, especially pp.6-7; and E. Moinet and I. Klink Ballesteros, Le Musée des Beaux-Arts d’Orléans, Paris, 2006, especially pp.25, 65 and 114.
[2] Peter Schatborn compared the clothes to those in an illustration of Jews at the end of the sixteenth century in Germany, in the Basel “Stammbuch” of 1612 (as illustrated in the Jewish Encyclopedia, 1901 – I have not located the original source) [email to the present writer, 15 October 2015]. The figure on the right of the “Stammbuch” illustration closely resembles that in a print from the circle of Crispijn de Passe, undescribed in Hollstein, an impression of which is in the British Museum (1873,0614.101) and also the figure in the centre of a broadside of 1633 in the same institution (1873,0712.139). Tassels, as seen here, were commonly (and still are, in a different form) attached to Jewish prayer shawls. The broad-brimmed hat, however, is reminiscent of old quaker and parsons’ hats.
[3] Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam, inv.RP-T-1930-38. The underlying lines are much obscured by wash, but the face, including the ‘tramlines’ down the nose, is very close to the Seated Elderly Man. It is now usually dated c.1638-39 (see Amsterdam, 1985, no.10).
[4] One might have expected to see the number usually written in the lower right corner of Crozat’s drawings by P.J. Mariette, who catalogued them for the 1741 Crozat sale, but this might have been subsequently trimmed away. Crozat’s 391 Rembrandt drawings were said by Mariette, in the catalogue, to have mostly come from the collection of Roger de Piles, who had purchased them in the Netherlands. Unfortunately the Crozat sale catalogue does not generally describe individual sheets. See further on Crozat’s Rembrandt drawings Schatborn, 1981, especially pp.41-46. See also n.5 below.
[5] Nourri was a major purchaser of drawings at the Crozat sale (see L. Bicart-Sée, ‘Some Archival References for Jean-Baptiste-François Nourri’, Master Drawings, xlv, 2007, pp.87-90).
* I am grateful to Patrick de Bayser and Matthieu Fournier for showing me the original drawing on 5th January 2016.
First posted 14 January 2015

Not in Benesch
Rembrandt
A Youth Walking with a Pole 1638-39?
Pen and brown (iron-gall) ink, touched with white heightening, on paper prepared with brown wash. 140 x 107. Watermark: fragment only visible: flail within a chaplet, similar to Churchill 544 (1640) and Voorn 26 (1641); chain lines: 23/24h.
COMMENTS: For the watermark, see Benesch 0226.
NL Amsterdam, Rijksmuseum (inv. RP-T-1984-119)
Further literature/remarks: Amsterdam, 1985, no.13, repr.; Schapelhouman, Rijksbull, 2001, pp.285-86, repr.; Exh. Amsterdam, 2006, p.54 (possibly a black or, more probably, a leper with warning stick); Royalton-Kisch, 2010 (online), under no.25, n.2; This Catalogue online, March 2013; Exh. Amsterdam, 2014, no.33, repr. (Rembrandt; white bodycolour on the thigh; wrongly states that the figure appears in Bartsch 37, NH 167; compares Benesch 0242 in British Museum; the stick not straight); Schatborn, 2019, no.338, repr. (c.1639).

Not in Benesch
Rembrandt? A Sledge on the Ice 1639?
Pen and brown (iron-gall) ink with (mostly later) brown wash on brownish paper.
168 x 196. Chain lines: 24v, with fine laid lines.
The drawing is sadly reworked, especially in the horse, and the signature is false; but the date it suggests, 1639, accords well with Rembrandt’s own use of iron-gall ink, and the style melds seemlessly with Benesch 300. Compare also the Youth Walking with a Pole in the Rijksmuseum (inv.RP-T-1984-119; not in Benesch), as well as the drawing of Two Couples on Horseback, also discussed here (Not in Benesch). Against the attribution speaks the Young Couple of Horseback, now in






















Berlin, although the characterisations there are more rudimentary and the forms more crude and less securely proportioned.
D Munich, Staatliche Graphische Sammlung (inv. 1400)
Further literature/remarks: HdG 495; Munich, 1973, no.1133, repr. pl.318; Exh. Munich-Amsterdam, 2001-2002, no.28 (Rembrandt school, c.1640); This Catalogue online, March 2013; Berlin, 2018, under no.72 (C. Fabritius? relates to Berlin drawing, Couple on Horseback, KdZ. 3112); [Not in Schatborn, 2019]
[1] See under Benesch 0500, n.1; Berlin, KdZ. 3112; Berlin 2018, no.72, repr. as by Carel Fabritius.
Last sentence and fn. added 5 August 2021.

Not in Benesch
Rembrandt?? Two Couples on Horseback 1639?
Pen and brown (iron-gall) ink with brown wash and red chalk, with white heightening, on brownish paper. Inscribed verso (apparently by Rembrandt): ‘park linden / pot met hoonich’
203 x 163. Chain lines 25h, laid lines c.16/cm.
The drawing is very considerably reworked, in red chalk as well as pen and wash; the foliage in the fore- and background is all added later; but like the Sledge in the same collection (inv. 1400, qv), the style of the original work in the figures accords well with Rembrandt’s own use of iron-gall ink in c.1639 and parts of the drawing meld seemlessly with Benesch 300. The inscription on the verso also looks to be in Rembrandt’s own handwriting.
D Munich, Staatliche Graphische Sammlung (inv. 1405)
Further literature/remarks: Lugt, 1931, p.63 (conceivably by Carel Fabritius); Exh. Munich, 1966-67, no.131, repr. (uncertain attribution); This Catalogue online, March 2013; Berlin, 2018, under no.72, repr. fig.a (attributed to C. Fabritius, c.1640-45; relates to Berlin drawing, Couple on Horseback, KdZ. 3112 [Berlin, 1930, p.244]); [Not in Schatborn, 2019].

Not in Benesch
Rembrandt? Man at a Window 1638-39?
Pen and brown (iron-gall) ink with brown
wash and later grey wash, touched with red
chalk, on paper prepared with brown wash.
116 x 116
The poor condition of the drawing, combined
with the later grey wash, undermines the
drawing’s appeal, as does the unsatisfactory
delineation of the juncture between the right
shoulder and arm (for which compare the
drawing of Willem Ruyter, also Not in Benesch).
But the typical use of iron-gall ink on paper
prepared brown for a drawing of the late
1630s, and the high quality of the rendering of
the characterful face, make an attribution to
Rembrandt likely, if somewhat insecure,
although the incipient head at the lower right
also looks typical for him. Sumowski’s
comparison with Bol’s drawing of Minerva in


Berlin (Sumowski 166x) is not entirely
persuasive, as the structure and form is there
(typically for Bol) less secure.
For the use of the tip of the brush at the top, cf., for example, the figure at the lower left of Benesch 0339.
Further literature/remarks: Sumowski 167x (Ferdinand Bol, late 1630s; compares Minerva, Berlin, Sumowski 166x); Exh. Indiana, Notre Dame (Selections of [… Dutch Art from the Collection of Dr A.C.R. Dreesmann), 1982, no.17; This Catalogue online, March 2013; [Not in Schatborn, 2019]
Provenance: Sale, London, Sotheby’s, 21 March, 1973, lot 40 as Ferdinand Bol, purchased for Anton C.R. Dreesmann; his sale, London, Christie’s, 11 April, 2002, lot 652 (as “attributed to Rembrandt”) [£47,000]; New York art market, 2007; sale, London, Sotheby’s, 4 July, 2007, lot 72; New York art Market (Collins), 2007; sale, New York, Christie’s, 26 January, 2011, lot 281; sale, New York, Sotheby’s, 29 January, 2014, lot 141 ($75,000)

Not in Benesch
Rembrandt??
Recto: Sketch of Saskia (?) 1638-39?
Verso: Bust of a Woman, to left, holding a child (?)
Pen and brown (iron-gall) ink, with (on recto only) brown wash and white heightening, on paper prepared with brown wash.
70 x 64. Chain lines horizontal; distance apart uncertain.
Although I am inclined to discount an attribution to Rembrandt, when I first studied the drawing in 1984, I thought it might be at least partly his work. The possibility that it is a very rapid study remains conceivable, and some pen lines exhibit the necessary style and verve (e.g. in Saskia’s cap; compare Benesch 255); but the many poorly drawn lines (e.g. in the nearer shoulder and arm) and the fact that the recto was worked up with wash and white heightening, yet rather incoherently, speak against it. Nonetheless I feel the drawing merits

a place in the “attributed to Rembrandt” section.
COLLECTION: USA Cambridge (Mass.), Fogg Art Museum, Harvard University (inv.1970.23).
Further literature/remarks: Hofstede de Groot, 1906, no.1239 (she has knitting needle in her mouth); Slive, 1978, p.455, repr. figs. 9 (recto) and 10 (verso); This Catalogue online, March 2013; [Not in Schatborn, 2019]
Provenance: Six Collection (according to Valentiner, 1934); sale, Amsterdam, Frederik Muller & Co., 16 October 1928, lot 66 bt Alex Cantacuzène, The Hague; New York art market (Coe Kerr Gallery, Inc.), from whom purchased by the Fogg Art Museum, 1970.

Not in Benesch
Rembrandt, Willem Ruyter as an Inn-Keeper 1638-39?
Pen and brown ink with brown wash, heightened with white, on paper prepared with brown wash.
139 x 175.
A highly characteristic iron-gall ink drawing of c.1638-39. For the sitter, see under Benesch 0120. Compare Benesch 0235, which shows Ruyter again.
NL Amsterdam, Rijksmuseum (inv.RP-T-1996-6)
Further literature/remarks: Burl Mag Acquisitions, 1996, repr. (c.1639); Schatborn and de Winkel, 1996 (shows Willem Ruyter (1587-1639) in a peasant role, as also in V&A sheet Benesch 0235, he also appears in

Benesch 0120 in Chatsworth as St Augustine and also in V&A sheet Benesch 0235, he also appears in Benesch 0120 in Chatsworth as St Augustine and in Benesch 0085 in the Rijksmuseum, the Oriental Prince; from memory he also appears in Benesch 0141; Ruyter was paid for the last time on 16 March 1639 and was buried on 22 April 1639); Exh. Melbourne-Canberra, 1997, p.329; Van Weele, 2001, pp.283-85; Chatsworth, 2002, III, under no.1463; Exh. Vienna, 2004, no.42; Exh. Amsterdam, 2006, pp.38-39, repr. fig.32 (c.1638); Exh. Los Angeles, 2009-2010, p.75; Broos, 2012, pp.76-78; this website, March 2013; Exh. Amsterdam, 2014, no.31, repr.; Schatborn, 2019, p.143, no.634, repr. (c.1638).

Not in Benesch
Rembrandt*
Johannes Wtenbogaert ‘The Goldweigher’ 1639
Counterproof of etching (Bartsch 281,i) touched with black chalk.
250 x 204.
Though strictly speaking a touched proof, this counts as a documentary drawing, the face being drawn in by Rembrandt in black chalk.
Baltimore, Baltimore Museum of Art, Garrett collection (inv. 1946.112.7730).
PROVENANCE: possibly Pieter de Haan sale, 1767, part of lot 503: ‘Dezelve [The Goldweigher] met de afgemaakte Tronie, mede fray van druk, benevens de overdruk. N.B. Is nog met kleine Correctie door Rembrand zelve ingetekent…’; sale (N. Smith?), London, T. Philipe, 16 etc. March 1801, lot 276 (£3-3-0);[1] George Hibbert (L.2849); Abraham Hume (according to Buccleuch sale cat.); Duke of Buccleuch (L.402); his, sale London, Christie’s, 19 April, 1887,

Detail, enlarged

lot 2022 (‘A counterproof of the first state; the face is drawn upon. From the Hume and Hibbert Collections), £4. Further literature/remarks: Middleton, 1887, pp.119-21; Ackley,1995, 25-27, repr.; Exh. Amsterdam-London, 2000–2001, under no.35, repr. fig. b; Royalton-Kisch and Schatborn, 2011, no.43, repr. fig.118 and 118a; Schatborn, 2019, p.403 (proof retouched to create the portrait from life).
[1] I am grateful to Paul Sternberg for this reference (e-mail 3/3/2015). For the catalogue, see:
http://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/bpt6k990308z/f19.image.r=8%20AND%20YD%20AND%2036%20AND%20277%20.langFR (accessed 4/3/2015) .

Not in Benesch
Rembrandt
Isaac blessing Jacob 1641?
Black chalk, heightened with white
182 x 126.
Compare Benesch 13.
D Munich, Staatliche Graphische Sammlung (inv. 1424)
Further literature/remarks: Munich, 1973, no.1113; Schatborn, 1978, p.134; Sumowski 1753xx (Lievens); Exh. Munich-Amsterdam, 2001-2002, no.54, repr. and under no.49 (Rembrandt, c.1640); Berlin, 2006, under no.25, n.6; This Catalogue online, March 2013; Exh. Amsterdam, 2017-18, p.38, repr. fig.37 (inspired Flinck’s version of the subject in the Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam, but in reverse [inv. SK-A-110]); Schatborn, 2019, no.65, repr. (c.1641).

Not in Benesch
Rembrandt, Sketch of a Lioness, to left c.1640
Charcoal (?) and grey wash, heightened with white on brown prepared paper; ruled framing lines visible here and there in brown ink.
115 x 150.
Compare the drawings in the British Museum, Benesch 774-75.
COLLECTION: USA New York, private collection (the Leiden Gallery).
LITERATURE/FURTHER REMARKS: This Catalogue online, March 2013; Schatborn, 2019, pp.19, 305 and 286 and no.475, repr. (c.1637-31; perhaps made at the time of the Concord of State; similar medium as Benesch 813).
PROVENANCE: J.-J. de Boissieu; Robert Lebel (by 1968); art market, London and New York, from 2000 (Hazlitt, Gooden & Fox with Artemis Fine Art; Hazlitt, Gooden & Fox, New York, 2005; Otto Naumann Ltd., New York, 2005). Acquired from the latter by the present owner.

Not in Benesch
Rembrandt (?)
The Adoration of the Magi, 1641
Red chalk. Signed and dated below in the same red chalk: ‘Rembrandt f 1641’
128 x 125.
This unusual drawing resembles in composition
Rembrandt’s etching of the Baptism of the Eunuch, also of 1641 (Bartsch 98; see also Benesch 13, now also thought to date from this period). It seems to be a rapidly-sketched demonstration of a pyramid design, affording
an interesting insight into the practice of
creating the overall balance of a composition. On balance the compiler is inclined to accept the drawing as by Rembrandt.
The elephant suggests that the subject is the Adoration of the Magi, as in Benesch 0382 verso (qv).
As with the Liberna drawing above, of 1628, the drawing’s inclusion here is


rendered mandatory by the apparently autograph signature and date,[1] but the attribution is likely to prove controversial. The date is suggestive for the elephant study, Benesch 0459 (qv).
D Munich, Staatliche Graphische Sammlung (inv.1668)
Further literature/ remarks: Vosmaer, 1877, pp., 558(?) and 606; Munich, 1973, no.1293, repr. pl.349 (Rembrandt school); This Catalogue online, March 2013; [Not in Schatborn, 2019]
[1] The only slightly unusual feature is the linkage of the ‘m’ to the ‘b’, yet this is also found in the signature on Benesch 815 of 1644. In every respect, whether from the point of view of the individual letters, their spacing and links/interruptions, there seems to be no reason to doubt its authenticity.



















Benesch A035a
Rembrandt, A Satire on Art Criticism 1644?
Pen and brown ink. Watermark: Strasburg Lily in a crowned shield. Inscribed, recto, in pen and brown ink by Rembrandt, on the fictive painting, below (the inscription at the top of it being illegible but veering towards “om y haest / bewerden” [the long tail by the first letter is separate and probably not a part of it]): ‘Houdloos'[followed by another word, perhaps also ending…”oos”, but covered in bodycolour] / windt dat” [?] (hatless gains it? or “vindt dat”, finds it?); and to the left: “dees […episcope?] van de kunst / is jootich [? “y ootich”] gunst” [?] (this [bishop? guardian?]…of [the] art is […??] favour); and below: “den tijt 1644”; by another hand, in pen and brown ink, lower left: ‘Rembrant.'[1]
156 x 200.
The inscriptions (see the details), though frustratingly difficult to read, are in Rembrandt’s handwriting (apart from his name, lower left). The general consensus is now in disagreement with Benesch’s doubts about the drawing. Compare the handwriting of the date on the drawing with that written on the Landscape of the same year in the same collection, Benesch 0815. The iconography, while clearly a satire on critics of art, and probably partly inspired on the Calumny of Apelles by Mantegna (see Benesch 1207), has eluded a definitive interpretation. The man on the left with ass’ ears and a snake around his arm, and with spectacles below him, is clearly the main butt of the joke. He is seated on a symbolically empty barrel (the bung-hole is open), criticising a portrait lying flat in the ground. The three figures on the far right could be artists (the one on the right may even hold brushes in his left hand), discussing another picture, while the crouching figure is clearly expressing his displeasure, cleaning himself with the pages of a (sketch-?)book. The central four figures, one of whom holds up a canvas, all listen to the idiocies of the seated man on the left; they do not appear to express an opinion but three of them wear strange headgear – are they just dullards (or dunces) with no opinions to express? The man seated on the step in a pensive pose resembles his counterpart in the Hundred Guilder Print; the man wearing a chain might represent an official body.[1]
So, might Rembrandt, essentially, have been declaring that only artists were capable of judging art?[2] Apart from the “artist”, wiping his behind with sheets from what might be a sketchbook, the other central figures attend to the opinions of the “ass” on the left as he criticises the portrait lying on the ground.

COLLECTION: USA New York, Metropolitan Museum of Art (Lehman collection, inv.1975.I.799)
FURTHER LITERATURE/REMARKS: Benesch, 4, 1955/73, no.A35a, repr. (‘attrib. to Rembrandt’); Emmens, 1964/1968, pp.150-54 and 101, repr. fig.28 (satire on Junius’s Painting of the Ancients, the “judge” a portrait of Junius); Logan, 1980, p.58; Schwartz, 1985, p.228; Van de Wetering, 1995 (c.1644; book might be Junius); Exh. Washington, 1995-96, under no.70, n.11 (comparing Benesch 0527); Binstock, 1999, pp.140-42, repr. fig.2; New York, 1999, no.70, repr.; Exh. Greenwich (Conn.), 2005, p.11, repr.; Plomp. 2006.I, p.20, repr. fig.28; Slive, 2009, pp.222-25, repr. figs 16.1 and 16.2 (1644); Corpus, 5, 2011, pp.137-38, repr. fig.145, and p.243 (the drawing suggests that, like Dürer, Rembrandt believed only a master was fit to judge art; a personal statement); Schatborn and Dudok van Heel, 2011, p.350, no.X, repr. fig.160 (inscribed by Rembrandt); Crenshaw, 2013, passim, repr. fig.1 (1644, responding to publication of C. Huyghens’s epithets concerning Rembrandt’s portrait of Jacques de Gheyn III in his ‘Momenta Desultoria’, 1644, Epigram. Lib.I, pp.81-82; sees portrait of Huygens in the seated figure [which I do not]); This Catalogue online, March 2013; Sluijter, 2015, p.90, repr. fig.115 (1644; the artist defecates and uses a book, symbol of learnedness, to clean himself; quotes Van de Wetering, 1995; does not see Huygens’ portrait, pace Crenshaw, 2013 – Michel Le Blon equally or even more possible); Exh. Paris, 2017, p.14, repr. fig.3 (defecating figure shows up the moral and social superiority of the élites); Exh. Dresden, 2019, p.51, repr. (quoting Emmens, 1968); Schatborn, 2019, no.314, repr. (c.1638).
[1] As noted by Haverkamp-Begemann in New York, 1999, no.70, an inscription by the same hand occurs on a drawing by in Berlin, inv. KdZ 4236; Sumowski 980xx (as attributed to Flinck); Berlin, 2018, no.11, repr. (as Bol). Both drawings formerly belonged to Baron Vivant Denon.
[2] Perhaps a mayor? In 1644, the mayor (burgemeester) of Amsterdam was Albert Burgh (1593-1647), but he somewhat resembled, when young, the ass on the left rather than the figure with the chain of office, and he would have been 51 in 1644 – too old for the former. Haverkamp-Begemann (in New York, 1999) suggested a figure representing the artists’ Guild of St Luke.
[3] As suggested by Corpus, 5, 2011, p.137.

Details of inscriptions on Benesch A35a

Not In Benesch
Rembrandt?
Studio with a Couple Having their Portrait Painted 1645?
Pen and brown ink with brown wash, on two conjoined pieces of paper (divided vertically approximately down the centre).
175 x 232.
Analogies with drawings such as the signed Star of the Kings (Benesch 736) and the Allegory of Art Criticism (Benesch A35a) as well as Benesch 670 make it necessary to include this controversial drawing in the ‘attributed’ section. The seated painter is especially comparable in style to the defecating man in the Allegory. In some areas, especially in the right background, the penwork appears stilted, as if it had been partly added or strengthened by a later hand (see F. Lugt in Paris, 1933) and the wash is also uncharacteristic for Rembrandt. A sketchier version of the scene is in Munich (inv.1509; Sumowski 1132a, also as Van Hoogstraten) and three copies are known.[1]
COLLECTION: F. Paris, Musée du Louvre (inv. RF 690; L.1886a).

Benesch A43

FURTHER LITERATURE/REMARKS: Paris, 1933, no.1181, repr. pl.45 (see above; left section possibly Rembrandt); Sumowski, 1979 etc., no.1167a (attributed to Samuel van Hoogstraten); Exh. Paris, 1988-89, no.107, repr. (as Sumowski); Exh. Munich-Amsterdam, 2001-2, pp.59-60, under no.2; London, 2010 (online) under no.89 (Rembrandt?); Exh. Los Angeles, 2009-10, p.4, repr. fig.i (attributed to Van Hoogstraten); This Catalogue online, March 2013; Exh. Paris, 2017, no.16, repr. (S. van Hoogstraten); [Not in Schatborn, 2019]
Provenance: A.C.H. His de la Salle (L.1333), by whom presented to the present repository in 1878.
[1] One other also in the Louvre (inv. RF 4750; Paris, 1933, no.1321, repr. Sumowski, 1979, etc., V, p.2850, fig.75c); one in the British Museum (inv. 1860,0616.128; London, 2010 (online), no.89) and the third in Copenhagen (inv.Tu 82c, no.9 / 6649; repr. Sumowski, 1979, etc., V, p.2848, fig. 75a.)

Fig.a Left and right: Benesch A43 and A43a, enlarged, with (centre) copy after Rembrandt, The Circumcision, 1646, oil on canvas 97.8 x 72 cm. D Braunschweig, Herzog Anton Ulrich-Museum.

Fig.b. Details: centre, Benesch 382 verso (with enhanced contrasts to clarify) with left and right, details of Benesch A43 and A43a

Not in Benesch (Benesch A043)
Subject: The Circumcision (Luke, 2, 21)
Medium: Graphite. Inscribed in red chalk, verso: “1613” and in graphite: “215”
83 x 69. Watermark: none.
COMMENTS: This and the following, equally diminutive drawing (Benesch A043a) are related to a painting by Rembrandt for which he was paid in 1646, but which is now only known through a faithful copy in Braunschweig (see Fig.a; Not in Bredius; Wetering 211b). The original was part of the series of paintings of Christ’s Passion painted for the Prince of Orange. [1]
As was pointed out by Benesch, there is a logic between the drawings and the painting that suggests they are indeed preliminary sketches for it, including the indications of an arched top. The composition in both drawings is more symmetrical, with a full-length standing figure anchoring the design at the lower left, and the main group near the centre, whereas in the painting there is a strong, diagonal movement between the reduced and now kneeling figures on the left and the High Priest performing the ceremony, placed higher up and more to the right. A calligraphic loop in Benesch A043 suggests the drapery behind the latter falling over his throne; this is clarified in Benesch A043a, suggesting that the latter drawing is the later of the two, despite its more tentative touch.[2] The same conclusion is suggested by the clarification in Benesch A043a of a kneeling figure immediately below the High Priest, which in the painting is joined by many more. In addition, the overall proportions of the composition are approximated more closely to the painting in Benesch A043a.
For style, while Benesch 0578-79 provide many comparisons, closer still is Benesch 0382 verso (see Fig.b). The same stenographic approach and variety of touch is visible in all three, and they all give the strong impression that they are preliminary sketches rather than derivations by a pupil, whether from the painting or from a now lost drawing by Rembrandt. Compare also the now widely-accepted drawing, also in Munich, of Isaac Blessing Jacob (Not in Benesch, here dated 1641?; Schatborn, 2019, no.65 as c.1641). The use of graphite rather than black chalk, though it could be used as an argument against the attribution, seems a minor factor, and may simply have been the most readily available tool as Rembrandt made these quick, thumbnail sketches (the two drawings under discussion are remarkably small). Other drawings in (or partly in) graphite include Benesch 0084 and Benesch 0812 (which may be of around the same date as Benesch A043 and A043a).

It has been suggested that because of the less bold style of Benesch A043a, it is by a different hand to Benesch A043 (and that both are later imitations).[3] But the correspondences with genuine Rembrandt drawings noted above, as well as the similarity between them in the execution of the peripheral framing as well as in the shadows indicated at the lower right, behind the cloak, greatly outweigh these concerns. See further Benesch 0578-79, which are also stylistically comparable, not least the diagonal shading above in Benesch A43a, which links it also with the documentary drawing, Benesch 0749 recto. As noted in the introduction, consistency of style does not always exist between Rembrandt’s drawings, which is perhaps especially the case with experimental sketches of this nature. They are also rare survivals of their type. No one would claim that they are masterpieces, only that they are compatible with Rembrandt’s style and nobody else’s. Compare also Benesch A042 (catalogued alongside under the Not in Benesch tab).
Condition: Generally good; some staining at the corners.
Summary attribution: Rembrandt.
Date: 1644-46?
COLLECTION: Elector (Kurfürst) Carl Theodor (1724-1799), Munich (L.620; L.2723; inv.1613 [older inventory number unknown]).
FURTHER LITERATURE/REMARKS: Benesch, 3, 1955, under no.581 and vol. 4, 1955, no.A43, repr. (for 1646 painting [on which see above], related to but before Benesch 0581); Exh. Munich, 1957, no.53; Rosenberg, 1959, p.116 (doubtful); Van Gelder, 1961, p.151, n.16 (notes contradiction in Benesch’s positive assessment with the drawing’s placement in the “attributed to” section of his catalogue); Haverkamp-Begemann, 1961, p.29 (imitation); Sumowski, 1961, p.25 (school); Munich, 1973, no.1140, repr. pl.320 (doubtful); Ketelsen, 2003, p.102 (not necessarily by a follower of Rembrandt); Corpus, 5, 2011, pp.364 and 431 repr. p.433, fig.7 (after Rembrandt; “fairly uncontrolled, chaotic draughtsmanship”); [Not in Schatborn, 2019.].
PROVENANCE: Elector (Kurfürst) Carl Theodor (1724-1799), Munich (L.620; as Rembrandt).
[1] For the Passion series, see under Benesch 0382, n.4
[2] For this motif compare the two earlier drawings, also under the “Not in Benesch”, dated to 1628 and c.1638.
[3] Exh. Munich, Amsterdam, 2001-2, nos.59-60. The drawings are there dated c.1700 but no comparative evidence is brought to bear to sustain the idea.
First posted 7 September 2021.

Not in Benesch (Benesch A43a)

Not in Benesch (Benesch A43a)
Subject: The Circumcision (Luke, 2, 21)
Medium: Graphite. Inscribed in pen and dark brown ink, lower right: “2084”; inscribed verso: “Inv. Nr. 1615” and “213”
89 x 68. Watermark: lower part of a Foolscap.
COMMENTS: See under the adjacent drawing above (Benesch A043).
Condition: Some spotting and with stains near the edges, especially on the right.
Summary attribution: Rembrandt.
Date: 1644-46?
COLLECTION: D Munich, Staatliche Graphische Sammlung (L.2674; inv.1615; formerly inv.5084, as Rembrandt).
FURTHER LITERATURE/REMARKS: Benesch, 3, 1955/73, under no.581 and 4, 1955/73, no.A43a, repr. (for 1646 painting [on which see above]); Exh. Munich, 1957, no.54; Rosenberg, 1959, p.116 (doubtful); Van Gelder, 1961, p.25, n.16 (notes contradiction in Benesch’s positive assessment with the drawing’s placement in the “attributed to” section of his catalogue); Haverkamp-Begemann, 1961, p.29 (later imitation); Sumowski, 1961, p.25 (school work); Munich, 1973, no.1141, repr. pl.320 (doubtful); Exh. Munich-Amsterdam, 2001-2, no.60, repr. (follower, c.1700; Benesch A043 by another hand); Ketelsen, 2003, p.102 (not necessarily by a follower of Rembrandt); Corpus, 5, 2011, pp.364 and 431 repr. p.433, fig.8 (after Rembrandt; “fairly uncontrolled, chaotic draughtsmanship”); [Not in Schatborn, 2019.]
PROVENANCE: Elector (Kurfürst) Carl Theodor (1724-1799), Munich (L.620; old inv.2084, as Rembrandt).
First posted 7 September 2022.

Not in Benesch (Benesch A42)

Fig.a. Left: Benesch A42, enlarged, with (right) Rembrandt, Christ and the Woman Taken in Adultery, 1644. Oil on panel, 83.8 x 65.4 cm (Bredius 72; Wetering 196). GB London, National Gallery

Fig. b. Left to right: Benesch 578, 579, A42, A43 and A43a

Fig.c. Above: Benesch A42 with detail below centre; lower left: detail of Benesch 717; lower right: detail of Benesch 579

Not in Benesch (Benesch A42)
Subject: Christ and the Woman Taken in Adultery (John, 8, 2-11)
Medium: Black chalk. Inscribed by a later hand in pen and black ink, lower left: “5088”
122 x 91 (top corners trimmed away).
COMMENTS: This thumbnail drawing is related to Rembrandt’s painting of the same subject, now in London, of 1644 (see Fig.a; Bredius 566; Wetering 196). There are many minor differences and omissions of detail but the overall composition, including the arched top, remains broadly the same.
The drawing is usually discussed in the context of Benesch 0578-79 (qqv) and the two drawings catalogued alongside this one under the Not in Benesch tab (Benesch A043 and Benesch A043a, qqv). They share the same early provenance and, as is argued in the present catalogue, the five drawings, despite the many objections voiced in the past, are very likely to be autograph.
If any one of the sketches in the group are accepted, it is difficult to dismiss any of them individually (see Fig.b). While it has to be admitted that the present drawing is less crisp in touch (and for this reason we place a question-mark in brackets after it), there

are nevertheless points of detail that appear inseparable, especially with Benesch 0579 as well as with another drawing the authenticity of which it seems unreasonable to doubt, Benesch 0717 (see the details from these two drawings in Fig.c).[1]
For the subject, cf. Benesch 0532-34, Benesch 0964, Benesch 1038 and Benesch 1046-47 (as well as Rembrandt’s etchings of the scene).
Condition: Some foxmarks.
Summary attribution: Rembrandt (?)
Date: 1644?
COLLECTION: D Munich, Staatliche Graphische Sammlung (inv.617)
FURTHER LITERATURE/REMARKS: Benesch, IV, 1955, no.A042, repr. (“attributed” but accepted as a study for the 1644 London painting [on which see above]); Van Gelder, 1961, p.151, n.16 (notes contradiction in Benesch’s positive assessment with the drawing’s placement in the “attributed to” section of his catalogue); Munich, 1973, no.1145 (doubtful); Ketelsen, 2003, p.102 (after Rembrandt); Corpus, 5, 2010, p.364, repr. fig.9 (after Rembrandt; “fairly uncontrolled, chaotic draughtsmanship”); [Not in Schatborn, 2019.]
PROVENANCE: Elector (Kurfürst) Carl Theodor (1724-1799), Munich (L.620; old inv.5088, as Rembrandt).
[1] Benesch 0717 was omitted by Schatborn, 2019.
First posted 8 September 2022.

Benesch A059a
Rembrandt, A Sleeping Child
1645?
Black chalk.
93 x 92
COMMENTS: Compare Benesch 0570.
COLLECTION: A Vienna, Albertina
(inv. 8851)
Further literature/remarks: HdG 1450;
Benesch,IV, 1957/73, no.A59A, repr.;
Robinson, 1998, pp.39-40, repr. fig.6;
This Catalogue online, March 2013;
Schatborn, 2019, no.370, repr. (c. 1645).

Not in Benesch
Not Rembrandt (Carel Fabritius?)
Half-Length Sketch of a Man, perhaps playing cards
Black chalk
127 x 102
SEE CAPTION TO CRYING BOY, BELOW
COLLECTION: USA New York, Private Collection (‘The Leiden Collection’)
Further literature/remarks: Sumowski, 1971, p.132, repr. fig.9 (Rembrandt); Exh. Paris-Philadelphia-Detroit, 2011–12, no. 32 (lent by the present owner); This Catalogue, March 2013; Exh. Amsterdam, 2014, under no.37, repr. fig.37a (Rembrandt, c.1648; ; shows same man as Amsterdam private collection version; model as in paintings of head of Christ, dated in Exh. Paris-Philadelphia-Detroit, 2011-12, 1648 and 1656); Schatborn, 2017, repr. (c.1647; compares sheet [here immediately below and as already written in this catalogue] in a private collection, Benesch 0700 and also Benesch 0590 and Benesch 1076; relates to paintings as Exh. Paris, 2011-12 [no mention of the present catalogue or the Crying Boy below]); Schatborn, 2019, no.375, repr. (c.1645).



Provenance: J.P. Heseltine, London, 1910
(as by Gerard ter Borch); sale, New York, Christie’s, 10 January 1990, lot 182, as
attributed to Rembrandt; sale, New York,
Christie’s, 24 January, 2008, lot 144 as
Rembrandt, bt O. Naumann (dealer) from
whom acquired by the present owner.

Not in Benesch
Not Rembrandt (Carel Fabritius?) Full-Length Sketch of a Man, perhaps playing cards or stuffing his pipe
Black chalk; ruled framing lines in pen and brown ink, on thin paper.
135 x 96. Watermark: fragment, the tip of a crescent and small cross. Chain lines 20/24/33v.
Small repair lower left
SEE CAPTION TO CRYING BOY, BELOW
NL Amsterdam, Private Collection
Further Literature/Remarks: Exh. Paris-Philadephia-Detroit, 2011-12, p.242, no.33, p.126; Schatborn, 2012 Habolt, no.39, repr.; This Catalogue online, March 2013; Exh. Amsterdam, 2014, no.37, repr. (Rembrandt c.1648; shows same man as New York ‘Leiden Gallery’ version; model as in paintings of head of Christ, which are dated in Exh. Paris-Philadephia-Detroit, 2011-12, between 1648 and 1656); Schatborn, 2019, no.374, repr. (c.1645).

Provenance: private collection, France;
sale, London, Christie’s, July 2003 lot 100,
bt Habolt.

Not in Benesch
School of Rembrandt (Carel Fabritius?)
A Crying Boy 1645-50?
Black chalk.
238 x 171
The drawing was first shown to me in late 2009, and comparisons with Rembrandt’s many black chalk drawings soon convinced me that this must be a pupil’s work (an assessment with which Peter Schatborn agreed soon afterwards). The forms are too blocked out, often with an uncharacturistic angularity not found it Rembrandt sketches in this vein, which are more gntly and subtly sketched out. In a lecture at the J. Paul Getty Museum in Feb. 2010, I argued that the drawing (a) cannot be by Rembrandt (b) is apparently by the same artist as the two drawings of seated men (New York ‘Leiden Gallery’ and Private Collection, Amsterdam) illustrated here, and Benesch 1076 and (c) that the artist might be Carel Fabritius. The hands in this and the squarer of the two New York drawings resemble those in the relief in Fabritius’s painting of a Sentry, dated 1654, which Schatborn (beginning in Amsterdam, 1985) has righty seen as providing a possible clue to Fabritius’s drawing style. See further under Benesch 0500. As the drawing can be connected with Rembrandt’s black chalk drawings of the later 1640s as well as with a painting of 1654, a date c.1645-50 is here suggested.
COLLECTION: F Private Collection
LITERATURE/FURTHER REMARKS: This Catalogue online, March 2013; [Not in Schatborn, 2019]

Not in Benesch
Attributed to Rembrandt (Rembrandt?)
A Figure Seated in a Chair, with a
Child 1647-52?
Black chalk.
88 x 92
This drawing appeared in 2005. Its
extreme faintness and slightness
make a definitive opinion difficult to
form. The draughtsmanship closely
resembles the Blind Beggar with a Boy
and Dog (illustrated below on this
page). The initially oddly shaped
further (right) arm of the seated figure
is configured like the hind leg of the dog!
This was subsequently ‘corrected’ with a
darker line which, along with the straight,

similarly darker line in the other arm, seems to have been drawn with a ruler, and thus to be a later addition. A few other touches are also in this darker toned chalk (by the nearer hand and the child’s left hand). Also unusual is the echo of the semi-circular shape around the shoulders in the back of the chair. But on balance it seems reasonable to accept the drawing under the ‘Attributed to’ rubric – there are links with Benesch 0717-0718 in London and with Benesch 0743 and 0746 in Munich, which are, however, not always accepted in the modern literature. Compare also the Woman Bending over a Child by a Chair which is also illustrated on this page, further below.
LITERATURE/FURTHER REMARKS: This Catalogue, March 2013; [Not in Schatborn, 2019]
PROVENANCE: Sale, Paris, Christie’s, 16 December, 2005, lot 201, as ‘Attributed to Rembrandt’; sale, Sotheby’s, New York, 28 January, 2016, lot 235, ‘Attributed to Rembandt’, sold for $17,500.

Not in Benesch
Rembrandt, Blind Beggar with a Boy
and a Dog 1647
Black chalk; inscribed in pen and
brown ink, lower right (eighteenth
century?): ‘rembrant’; verso: ‘c..3.D.L7 /
no.2 HVIII’
131 x 84. Chain lines 22v. No
watermark.
The original of a drawing in Berlin
(inv. KdZ.5790) that was published
as by Rembrandt until this version
reappeared at Christie’s, London, from a Scottish private collection, in 2012.[1]
Condition: when sold, the drawing had a circular coffee-cup stain, traces of which are still visible.
Private Collection, Los Angeles (London, Christie’s, 3 July, 2012, lot 50 [£121,250]).
FURTHER LITERATURE/REMARKS: This Catalogue online, March 2013 (original of copy in Berlin); Exh. Amsterdam, 2014, pp.21-2, repr. fig.18 [the copy in Berlin repr. fig.17] and no.38 (Rembrandt, c.1647; relates to Benesch 0749 recto) and no.39 (the Berlin copy), both repr.; Berlin, 2018, no.2, repr. (original of copy in Berlin); Schatborn, 2019, p.19 and no.396, repr. (c.1647).

COMPARATIVE Illustration
The Berlin Copy
Black chalk on oriental paper
127 x 78.


Provenance: pseudo Crozat (L.474); probably General Auguste-Charles-Joseph de Flahaut de La Billarderie (1785-1870) and his wife Margaret Mercer Elphinstone (1788-1867); by descent. Scotland, private collection;
[1] The Berlin sheet was accepted in HdG 148, catalogued as ‘uncertain’ in Berlin, 1930, p.235, inv.5790 and omitted by Benesch; but accepted by Schatborn in Amsterdam, 1985, p.65, n.5, Robinson, 1998, p.40, repr. fig.8, by Bevers in Berlin, 2006, no.31, repr. (though with hesitation) and Exh. Paris-Amsterdam, 2007, no.31. My own notes reveal (mercifully!) that I had always questioned the Berlin drawing since first seeing it in 1987. But the idea that a copyist would trouble to make such an exact replica of such a minor sketch still surprises me.

Not in Benesch
Rembrandt
Recto: Two Men Seated in Conversation
1647?
Verso: Three Sketches of the Heads of
Men wearing Hats 1647?
Black chalk.
118 x 98.
Berlin, Staatliche Museen Berlin,
Kupferstichkabinett (inv. KdZ.1148)
Further Literature/Remarks: Robinson, 1998, p.40; Berlin, 2006, no.32, repr.;

Verso

Exh. Paris, 2007 [Berlin dgs],
no.32; Exh. Amsterdam, 2007
[Berlin dgs], no.32; This Catalogue
online, March 2013; Exh.
Amsterdam, 2014, no.36, repr. (Probably
shows Ashkenazy jews); Royalton-Kisch,
2015, pp.452-53, repr. figs 3 and 4
(1640s); Exh. Dresden, 2019, p.188, n.35 (compares as another double-sided sheet, Benesch 0720 [which there dated c.1647]); Schatborn, 2019, p.19 and nos.
404 and 405, repr. (c.1647).

Not in Benesch
Rembrandt
Subject: Three Standing Men in Conversation
Verso: Two Figures in Greeting, one raising his hat (The Return of the Prodigal Son?)
Medium: Black chalk, with later brown wash; ruled framing lines in pen and brown ink. Inscribed lower right in pen and brown ink by a later hand: “siet d’ander s[…] / Van Rembran[t?]”
153 x 118. WM: uncertain (probably none); chain lines: 25v; 16 laid lines /cm.
COMMENTS: Previously unpublished before its inclusion here (on 27 March 2014), the drawing is not easy to judge because of the later wash and the generally worn condition. In style it seems inseparable from the Berlin drawing KdZ.1148, recto and verso, which is also not in Benesch (see above) and like that drawing belongs with Rembrandt’s many black chalk studies of the later 1640s.
The composition of the verso could have been intended to represent the Return of the Prodigal Son (cf., in very general terms, Rembrandt’s celebrated late painting of c.1666-1669 in St Petersburg, Bredius 598, Wetering 320 [as 1660-65]).
Summary attribution: Rembrandt.[1]
Date: 1648-50?
COLLECTION: London art market (2013-14)
FURTHER LITERATURE/REMARKS: This Catalogue online, 27 March 2014; Royalton-Kisch, 2015, passim, repr. figs.2-3 (late 1640s); Schatborn, 2019, nos 420b-c, repr. (c.1647)..
PROVENANCE: Delius Gallery (F. Delius Giese), New York, 1931;[2] Victor Koch, Vienna; his sale, London, Sotheby’s, 29 June, 1949, lot 95 (as Rembrandt), bt Clifford Duits; thence by descent.
[1] In an e-mail to the compiler of 27 April 2014, Peter Schatborn stated that he now also agrees with the attribution of this drawing to Rembrandt, which had previously troubled him.
[2] I am grateful to the late Erik Löffler, who added this New York provenance item from the photographic documentation in the Rijksbureau voor Kunsthistorische Documentatie (e-mail to the compiler, 4 March 2016).
First posted 27 March 2014. [See n.2]

Verso

Not in Benesch
Rembrandt? Four Standing Men Wearing Hats 1647-52?
Black chalk with some white heightening on thin paper; framing lines in pen and light brown ink and over them in grey ink.
153 x 103.
To be compared with the drawings grouped around the Crying Boy, above. It seems a little ‘clunky’ and rectilinear for Rembrandt.
NL Amsterdam, Rijksmuseum (inv. RP-T-1930-55)
Further literature/remarks: Amsterdam, 1985, no.28, repr.; Robinson, 1998, p.37, repr. fig.1; Robinson, 2000, p.303; Exh. Amsterdam, 2006, p.52, repr. fig.49; Exh. Paris, 2007, under no.118; This Catalogue online, March 2013; Exh. Amsterdam, 2014, no.35, repr. (Ten Kate inv. refers to the drawing as a Soldier with three ‘Smousen’, i.e. Ashkenazy jews; in Zomer’s collection, portfolio Q, no.38 these types of drawings were described in an album; relates to Amsterdam Museum Benesch 749 recto of core group, to date c.1647; copy in Bayonne, inv. NI 1462 (1475), here fig.35a); Schatborn, 2019, p.19, no.402, repr. (c.1647).

Not in Benesch
Rembrandt
An Old Woman with a Stick 1647?
Black chalk. 120 x 74
A Vienna, Albertina (inv. 8840).
Further literature/remarks: HdG 1447; Robinson, 1998, p.38, repr. fig.2; This Catalogue
online, March 2013; Schatborn, 2019, p.19 and no.411, repr. (c.1647).

Not in Benesch
(HdG 1439)
Rembrandt
A Standing Old
Man with a Soft
Hat and a Stick
1647?
Black chalk.
78 x 48

COLLECTION: A Vienna, Albertina
(inv. 8842).
Further literature/remarks:
HdG 1439; Haverkamp-Begemann, 1961, p.14 (Rembrandt); Robinson, 1998, pp.38-40, repr. fig.4 (Rembrandt); This Catalogue online, March 2013; Schattborn, 2019, p.19 and no. 412, repr. (c.1647).

Not in Benesch
Rembrandt
Bearded Man in
a High Hat with
a Stick 1647?
Black chalk.
81 x 40.
A Vienna, Albertina (inv. 8843).

Further literature/remarks:
HdG 1438; Haverkamp-
Begemann, 1961, p.14 (Rembrandt); Sumowski,
1971, pp.127 and 129, repr.
fig.5; Robinson, 1998, p.40,
repr. fig.5 (Rembrandt); This Catalogue online, March
2013; Schatborn, 2019, p.19
and no. 413, repr. (c.1647).

Not in Benesch
Rembrandt? A Group of Jews in Discussion 1647?
Black chalk.
95 x 141.
From the Lawrence and Esdaile collections. Though a minor, thumbnail sketch, the style accords with drawings such as Benesch 595

(with a similar seated figure),
671-72, 714, 717, 720 and 725.
COLLECTION: Private Collection.
LITERATURE/FURTHER REMARKS:
This Catalogue online, March
2013. [Not in Schatborn, 2019]

Detail of the adjacent illustration,
Enlarged

Not in Benesch
Rembrandt??
An Old Peasant Couple Walking, full-length, to right 1647?
Black chalk.
137 x 95.
The discovery of the Blind Beggar with Boy and Dog (see above) makes the attribution of the present drawing uncertain: it resembles in style and quality the copy of that drawing in Berlin, also reproduced here (see also Berlin, 2006, no.31, repr.). All the hands,
for example, seem deficient, the
simplified nearer hand being especially similar to those of the main figure in the Berlin drawing. Yet the hatching seems more fluent than the outlines, which resemble those of the drawings in the Crying Boy group discussed above. Even allowing for the indifferent condition of the sheet, the drawing seems problematic enough to merit two question marks.

FURTHER LITERATURE/REMARKS: Vosmaer, 1887, p.600; Robinson, 2000, pp.303-4, repr. fig.2; Exh. London-Paris-Cambridge, 2002–3, p.120, repr. fig.2; This Catalogue online, March 2013; [Not in Schatborn, 2019]
PROVENANCE: C. Ploos van Amstel (cf. L. 3002-3004), with his inscription ‘Rembrandt f. b
5 1/2 1 3½’ (verso); Jacob de Vos Jbsz.; his sale, Amsterdam, Roos, Frederick Muller & Co., 22-24 May, 1883, lot 416; possibly K.E. Maison, Berlin, 1931; Dr Arthur Feldmann, Brno; His (anonymous) sale, Gilhofer & Ranschburg, Lausanne, 28 June 1934, lot 226 (unsold);
Victor and Hilda Haida, New York, before 1938, and by descent; their sale, New York, Christie’s, 26 January, 2011, lot 283, sold for $458,500.

Not in Benesch
Rembrandt, Three Orientals in Discussion
1647-52
Black chalk, touched with white; ruled framing lines in pen and black ink.
182 x 150
GB London, British Museum (inv. 1986,1213.2)
Further Literature: London, 2010 (online), no.44, repr.; This Catalogue online, March 2013; Schatborn, 2019, p.19 and no.408, repr. (c. 1647).

Not in Benesch
Rembrandt, A Woman Bending over a Child by a Chair 1647-52?
Black chalk on oriental paper; ruled framing lines in pen and dark
brown ink.
COMMENTS: Known to Sumowski only from a photograph in the RKD, the drawing resurfaced in 2012 and seems to be genuine.
80 x 70

Enlarged


NL Amsterdam, Private Collection
Further literature/remarks: Sumowski, 1971, p.129, repr. fig.6; This Catalogue online, March 2013; Schatborn, 2019, no.274, repr. (c.1635).

Not in Benesch
School of Rembrandt
The Holy Family in an Interior 1660?
Pen and brown ink with brown wash; ruled framing lines in pen and brown ink.
112 x 147.
Included here as an example of the difficulty some drawings can produce: the head of Joseph looks like Rembrandt (cf. Benesch 885, 1064) and the shadow cast on the wall described in wash is highly effective; yet the remainder of the drawing speaks loudly for a school work of the later period – compare works ascribed (or that might be ascribed) to Willem Drost, like Benesch 1028 and the Standing Man (Amsterdam, Rijksmuseum, Sumowski 1977*; Schatborn, 1985, p.103, repr. fig.22).[1]
COLLECTION: USA Art Market, sold New York, Sotheby’s, 23 January, 2008, lot 170 ($16,250).
Further literature/remarks: Valentiner 327; This Catalogue online, March 2013; [Not in Schatborn, 2019]
[1] The latter comparison noted in the 2008 Sotheby’s catalogue.



Benesch A 105A (image somewhat reduced)
Rembrandt??
The Entombment of Christ, after Mantegna
Pen and brown ink over red chalk, with brown and grey wash, heightened with white.
262 x 389; on three pieces of paper (the main rectangular section, the arched top, the left part of which is again separate; the upper right section may be oriental paper). No watermark visible.
The attribution was not fully accepted by Benesch and in general Rembrandt’s authorship seems unlikely from a stylistic point of view. His copies are usually more vigorous and varied in touch. The combination of media is also unusual. The differences between this and Mantegna’s engraving (Bartsch 3) suggest that the present drawing may have been based on a lost preparatory drawing for it by Mantegna (which Rembrandt may well have owned – the inventory of his possessions of 1656 lists a book or album of works by Mantegna).
COLLECTION: USA New York, Metropolitan Museum of Art (inv.1972.118.285), bequest of Walter C. Baker.
Further literature/remarks: Benesch, VI, no.A105a, repr.; Mules, 1985, pp.16-17; Corpus, 3, 1989, p.98 (studio of Rembrandt copy of Mantegna’s engraving; the figure of a woman wringing her hands on the right of Rembrandt’s grisaille in London [Bredius 565; Wetering 113] probably inspired by Mantegna’s design); Royalton-Kisch and Ekserdjian, 2000, pp.52-56, repr. fig.1; (associate of Rembrandt); Exh. Glasgow, 2012, p.93, repr. fig.54 and cat. no.25; This Catalogue online, March 2013; [Not in Schatborn, 2019]

Fig.a. With Benesch 0860 (right)

Not in Benesch
Rembrandt? A Woman Stealing from a Drunken Man’s Pocket 1652-58?
Medium: Pen and brown ink, heightened with white bodycolour; ruled framing lines in pen and brown ink.
101 x 136. Watermark: none; chain lines: 25v.
COMMENTS: Rather more loosely handled than usual for Rembrandt; nonetheless there are analogies with his works of the 1650s, including Benesch 0860 (see Fig.a).[1] However, some caution is required for lack of analogies with Rembrandt’s documentary drawings, and the handling, somewhat less fluent than Benesch 0860, also resembles that of drawings ascribed to Willem Drost.
COLLECTION: F Paris, Fondation Custodia, Frits Lugt Collection (inv.5993)

FURTHER LITERATURE/REMARKS: Lippmann, IV, 50B; Valentiner 774; Paris, 2010, no.19, repr. (Rembrandt; compares Benesch 0860); Exh. New York, 2011, p.90, repr. (c.1650); Exh. Paris, 2011, no.23; This Catalogue online, March 2013; Exh. Amsterdam, 2014, under no.7, repr. fig.7a (Rembrandt, at time Drost was a pupil; hatching subordinated to composition, which is not usually the case with Drost); Schatborn, 2019, no.421, repr. (c.1650); Fondation Custodia online, 2022 https://collectiononline.fondationcustodia.fr/bronnen/drawings/detail/79b8ca45-963a-0a97-aadc-0b0cb93bcb7e/media/bb4c6f89-610c-13a6-bcb5-667183e933f6?mode=detail&view=horizontal&q=rembrandt%20Benesch&rows=1&page=18&sort=order_s_preferred_artist%20asc [accessed 7 August 2022].
PROVENANCE: Henri Vever; his (anonymous) sale, Paris, Drouot, 28 May, 1948, lot 13 (as ‘attributed to Rembrandt’), bt Gobin for Frits Lugt.
[1] As pointed out by Schatborn in Paris, 2010, no.19.

Not in Benesch
Rembrandt, The Sacrifice of Isaac 1655
Pen and brown ink, touched with white.
165 x 144
Comments: Related, in reverse, to the 1655 etching, Bartsch 35 (Fig.a). Although the style resembles that of Willem Drost, the attribution to Rembrandt seems more plausible, given its free, exploratory handling and the differences of detail with the etching (especially Abraham’s right and the angel’s left arms). Some of these changes are reflected in a pupil’s painting of the subject now in a private collection (Fig.b).[1]
The style of the drawing accords well enough with the documentary study, Benesch 1175.
F Compiègne, Musée Vivenel (INV. L.88)
Further literature/remarks: Sumowski, 1971, p.136, repr. fig.15 (Rembrandt, c.1655); Sumowski, Gemälde, IV, 1983, under no.1976 (Rembrandt); (Rembrandt c.1655); Bruyn, 1990, p.716, repr. fig.42 (by the pupil , perhaps Titus van Rijn, responsible for the privately-owned painting); Bruyn, 1995, p.111, n.21 (assistant of Rembrandt, perhaps Titus van Rijn); Exh. Amsterdam-London, 2000-2001, p.315, repr. fig.b (as ‘Rembrandt?); Exh. Dijon, 2003, cat..45, repr.; London, 2010 (online), under no.10, n.4; This Catalogue online, March 2013; [Not in Schatborn, 2019].
[1] Discussed by Bruyn, 1990.

Fig.b (right). Rembrandt studio, The Sacrifice of Isaac. Oil on canvas, 178 x 145 cm.
GB Private Collection

Fig.a. Rembrandt, The Sacrifice of Isaac, 1655. Etching, Bartsch 35, counterproof (to show the composition in the same direction as the drawing in Compiègne) 157 x 131. GB London, British Museum inv. 1843,0513.241)

Not in Benesch
Rembrandt?? Medallion Portrait of an Indian Nobleman, possibly Muhammad Adil Shah of Bijapur (after a Mughal miniature)
1656-1661?
Pen and brown ink on oriental paper.
97 x 76.
As stated in my British Museum catalogue (London, 2010 [online]), I am far from convinced that the series of drawings after Mughal miniatures is by Rembrandt. An attribution to Aert de Gelder, who had a special interest in oriental costumes, seems more convincing (compare Sumowski 1052, inspired by these miniatures, as well as many of his painted and drawn compositions; De Gelder’s drawing of the Last Supper after Leonardo, now in Berlin, seems especially close, e.g. to Benesch 1188 and Benesch 1192).[2]
USA San Francisco, De Young/Legion of Honor Fine Art Museums of San Francisco, Achenbach Collection (inv.2000.70).
Further literature/remarks: Robinson, 1988, p.585, repr. fig.4a; Exh. London, 1992, under cat. no.65, fig.65a (c.1656-61); Exh. San Francisco, 1998, Interaction of Cultures: Indian and Western Painting

1780-1910, The Ehrenfeld Collection, no. 10; Exh. San Francisco, 2007, Rembrandt to Thiebaud, A Decade of Collecting Works on Paper, p.15; London, 2010 (online), under no.56, n.10; Exh. San Francisco, 2013, pp.44-45, repr. fig.41; This Catalogue online, March 2013; Schatborn, 2019, no.693, repr. (1656-1661).
Provenance: Jonathan Richardson, senior (L.2184); his sale, London, Cock’s, 18th night, 11 February 1747 (1746 old style), part of lot 70, ‘a book of Indian drawings by Rembrandt 25 in number’; Sir Joshua Reynolds (L.2364); anonymous French collection, sold Paris, Drouot, 24 April 1984, lot 6, repr.; Mrs. Christian Aall, New York; Dr. William K. Ehrenfeld, Marin; purchased by the present repository in 2000, Dorothy Spreckels Munn Bequest Fund and Partial Gift of Dr. William K. Ehrenfeld.
[1] I am grateful to William W. Robinson for referring me to the De Young/Legion of Honor collection and their website at:
http://art.famsf.org/rembrandt-harmensz-van-rijn/medallion-portrait-muhammad-adil-shah-bijapur-200070 (consulted 20 May 2014).
[2] Berlin inv. KdZ 1369, Berlin, 1918, no.85, repr..

Not in Benesch
Rembrandt?? Two Heads of Women after Indian/Mughal models
1656-62?
Verso: laid down on Richardson mat
Pen and brown ink with brown wash on Japanese paper; no framing lines. Inscribed on front of mat, in pen: “Rembrandt” and in graphite: “Colln. E. Utterson” and on verso of mat in pen and brown ink: “10.” and “this is one of those which a / called Rembrants Indian figur” (cut – mat must have been a little larger); in graphite: “Bt at Cosways (RA) Sale”; and “true/ A. Pond”
70 x 94
A slight but pretty – and not entirely typical – example of the copies after oriental miniatures (on which see further above). Of the series, it is

one of the least convincingly attributed to Rembrandt.
Condition: good, though a fragment and not fresh; slightly rubbed and spotted.
F Paris, Private Collection.
Further literature/remarks: Exh. Paris-Antwerp-London-New York, 1979-80, under no.75; London, 2010 (online), under no.56, n.10; This Catalogue online, March 2013; Exh. Los Angeles, 2018, repr. pl. 41; Schatborn, 2019, no.700, repr. (1656-1661).
Provenance: Jonathan Richardson, sen. (L.2184); Richard Cosway; E. Utterson; Anonymous collector (19th? century; blindstamp ‘NB’ lower on drawing, not in Lugt); Anonymous collector (19th? century; stamped ‘C.B.’ in a rectangle in blue, on the back of the Richardson mat; not in Lugt); Mme F. Lepage.

Enlarged

Benesch A080a
Rembrandt?? Portrait of a Man in a Wide-Brimmed Hat 1660?
Reed pen and brown ink with black chalk and white heightening; ruled framing lines in pen and brown ink.
187 x 158 chain lines 25v.
I have always harboured doubts about this drawing, as did Benesch. It should resemble the drawings for the Syndics more closely (Benesch 1178-80). Despite its alluring vigour and boldness, the overall effect seems too messy and incoherent compared with authentic drawings by Rembrandt.
USA Cambridge (Mass.), Fogg Art Museum (inv.1953.28)
LITERATURE/FURTHER REMARKS: This Catalogue online, March 2013; [Not in Schatborn, 2019]
Provenance: Franz Koenigs; D.G. van Beuningen; Lukas H. Peterich; C. Albert de Burlet.

Benesch A071a
Rembrandt?? The Disobedient Prophet attacked by a Lion (I Kings XIII, 23-24)
Pen and brown ink, with some white heightening; inscribed with false ‘signature’, lower right: ‘Rembrant’ ; numbered ‘100’ by Mariette; inscribed by Crozat below: ‘Un prophete que St Jerome nomme Addon / est tué par un lion pour avoir desobei à Dieu quoyque par la supercherie d’un autre prophete Roys L. 3. c 19.’.
182 x 210
Benesch was, on balance, inclined to reject the drawing and I think he was probably right. The lack of a coherent structure is too evident in all parts except possibly the head and arms of the prophet. The many repeated outlines seem overdone compared with Rembrandt – one might say “a lot of lines for nothing” – and the mule looks almost as wooden as if it had come from a carousel. The highly suspect ‘signature’ may be in the same ink as the drawing itself; it seems to be written by the same hand as that on Benesch C41 (on which see below).
Date: 1660-65??
CH Private Collection, Geneva (Bonna)
Further literature/remarks: Exh. Basel 1948, no.25; Starcky, 1993, p.218, n.11



(inscribed by Mariette and presumably from Crozat’s collection); This Catalogue online, March 2013; [Not in Schatborn, 2019].
Provenance: P. Crozat (?); E. Habich (NL??), his sale, Amsterdam, Muller, 1910; Dr Bernhard Hartmann (Basel-Riehen); by descent until sale, London, Christie’s, 7 July, 2015, lot 39; acquired after the sale by the present owner.

Not in Benesch
Rembrandt?? Head of a Woman 1660?
Pen and brown ink .
43 x 27.
In style close enough to the Self-Portrait drawings in Rotterdam and Vienna of c.1660 to merit inclusion in the ‘attributed to Rembrandt’ section (see Benesch 1176-77). My own view is that is probably is not by Rembrandt but by a late pupil, perhaps Aert de Gelder.
GB London, Courtauld Gallery (inv.D.1978.PG.189).
LITERATURE/FURTHER REMARKS: This Catalogue online, March 2013; [Not in Schatborn, 2019]
Provenance: Count Antoine Seilern, Princes Gate; bequeathed by him to the present repository in 1978.

Enlarged

Benesch Ad 1061
Follower of Rembrandt?
The Conspiracy of Julius Civilis
Pen and brown ink with brown and grey wash; the colour of the washes is difficult to discern because of the condition, but a purplish tone is evident.
178 x 147 Watermark: Foolscap, with rather large horn-like embellishments to the top of the cap.
As pointed out by Eva Benesch, the style is close to that of a pupil’s drawing in Munich, Benesch Ad1045a (Sumowski 814** as Van den Eeckhout), but it may reflect a lost drawing by Rembrandt.
GB Edinburgh, National Gallery of Scotland (inv. D 2862)
Further literature/remarks: Wegner, Kunstchronik, xxiii, 1970, p.31 (reporting Haverkamp-Begemann’s discovery of the drawing, announced in a lecture in Chicago in October, 1969); Haverkamp-Begemann, in Simson and Kelch, 1973, pp.31-43 (Rembrandt); Exh. Berlin-Amsterdam, 1991-92, p.130 (not Rembrandt); Haverkamp-Begemann, 1992, p.461 (Rembrandt); Exh. Munich-Amsterdam, 1991-92, p.160 (school); This Catalogue online, March 2013; [Not in Schatborn, 2019].
Provenance: Thomas Lawrence (L.2445).

NOT IN BENESCH – LANDSCAPES

Not in Benesch
Rembrandt, Ideal Landscape with Bridge, River and Mountains, 1642
Black chalk, touched with white in various places; some charcoal, mostly lower left; ruled framing lines in pen an brown ink. Signed, lower left: ‘Rembrandt f 1642’.
D Frankfurt, Staedel Museum (inv.3085 [N. 17])
For comments see below.

Enlarged details of the above

Fig.a. Benesch 0811 (left, with detail centre) with a detail from the Frankfurt
drawing (right)

Fig.b. Benesch 812 (left, with detail centre) with a detail of the Frankfurt drawing (right)

Fig.c. Benesch 1255 (left, with detail centre) with a detail of the Frankfurt drawing (right)

Fig. d. Benesch 1256 (left, with detail centre) with a detail of the Frankfurt drawing (right)

Fig.e. Benesch 1277 (left, with detail centre) with a detail of the Frankfurt drawing (right)

Fig.f. Lambert Doomer, Ideal Landscape with Bridge, River and Mountains (after Rembrandt), c.1663. Pen and brown ink with brown and grey wash, over graphite. 240 x 372 (Sumowski 481; London, 2010 [online], Doomer no.14). GB London, British Museum (inv. 1946,0713.978). NB Image somewhat reduced.

Not in Benesch
Rembrandt, Ideal Landscape with Bridge, River and Mountains, 1642
Black chalk, touched with white in various places; some charcoal, mostly lower left; ruled framing lines in pen an brown ink. Signed, lower left: ‘Rembrandt f 1642’.
154 x 277. Watermark: Basel staff in crowned shield with letters CHM below (similar to Laurentius and Laurentius 302 [used in The Hague 1642]); chain lines 26h (laid lines 15/cm).
The drawing has not been published (except by me in passing) as an authentic Rembrandt before (this text went online in March 2013), although I have considered it to be by him since studying the original in 1991. The signature seems entirely reliable[1] and the date, 1642, accords with the style and with Rembrandt’s use of charcoal (e.g. in Benesch 0813). The watermark is also one found in Rembrandt’s work of the 1640s (see Benesch 0183) and in a document of the same year, 1642 (see above). Some details of the drawing are illustrated here to exhibit its extraordinary quality, though the photographic images are unflattering. The style accords completely with Rembrandt’s informal sketches from nature in black chalk – compare the trees with those in Benesch 0811-12 (Figs.a-b), and Benesch 1255-56 (see Figs.c-d), for example, and the foreground with Benesch 1277 (Fig.e). A copy was made by Lambert Doomer (Fig.f). The Frankfurt original includes many details that Doomer omitted or carried over imprecisely, including the tiny figures and animals climbing the mountain at the upper left. This proves that the Doomer drawing, which in any case looks dry in handling, cannot have provided the template for the present drawing, as is usually supposed (which seems unlikely from every point of view of quality anyway).
Most of Rembrandt’s surviving landscape drawings were apparently made from nature; yet in his paintings and etchings it is clear that he was also interested in the ‘Ideal Landscape’, and there seems to be no reason to doubt that this drawing also reveals his interest in the genre. Indeed, it forms one of the most important – and earliest – examples of Rembrandt and the ‘Ideal Landscape’ with pastoral elements (especially in the centre) and no clear subject-matter. The attribution will prove controversial – for most of its recent history, it has been regarded as a late forgery – and the newly discovered Röver provenance renders this widely-held idea yet more difficult to sustain (though as always, any cogently-argued alternative ideas would be welcomed by the compiler). Of Rembrandt’s pupils, only Ferdinand Bol seems to have made set-piece landscapes in black chalk (just two are known, Sumowski 280-81) but he never approaches the quality of detail seen here.
D Frankfurt, Staedel Museum (inv.3085 [N. 17])
Further literature/remarks: Hind in London, 1931, p.xiii (18th century forgery); Keyes, 1977, p.61, under no.109; Sumowski, under no.481*, repr. fig.36 (publishing Doomer’s copy as perhaps based on a lost painting by Rembrandt, and as the inspiration for the present sheet, regarded as a forgery); Dumas and Plomp, 1998, pp.21-22, n.22 (as Sumowski); London, 2010 (online), under Doomer no.14 (Rembrandt); This Catalogue online, March 2013; [Not in Schatborn, 2019]; Exh. Frankfurt, Staedel, 2021 (without catalogue; as Rembrandt).
Provenance: Valerius Röver (Goll number in red denotes ex-Röver; perhaps Röver inv.8/26, ‘Een landschap met zwart krijt van Dezelve’ [i.e. Rembrandt; see Schatborn, 1981, p.38]); J. Goll van Franckenstein (his no.2929).
[1] Compare, for example, the signatures on Benesch 0433 and Benesch 0758, and on the etching, Bartsch 118 (which prints in reverse and therefore would have been written in the right direction).

Not in Benesch (HdG 811)
Rembrandt? A Windmill and Outhouses 1650?
Pen and brown ink with brown wash; framing-lines in a different pen and brown ink; extra framing lines in yet another pen and brown ink on the top corner additions; inscribed verso in graphite, lower right : ‘A9’
109 x 187; top corners cut. Watermark: fragment of the top of a Strasbourg lily . Chain lines: 28-30v.
The risk to the attribution of this drawing to Rembrandt is formed by the possibility that it is by Pieter de With, to whom Benesch 1250 has been attributed by Peter Schatborn (Paris, 2010, no.163). However, the comparisons with De With’s signed drawings are not convincing – his lines are broader and the details less refined. In the present work, the secure delineation of the structures and individual features (such as the sails of the windmill), the calligraphy of the foreground touches, the delicacy of the wash and the subtle treatment of aerial perspective and recession seem more like Rembrandt.
Condition: Good; some spotting and minor creasing have been removed since the 2002 sale.
COLLECTION: NL Amsterdam, Private Collection.
Further literature/remarks: HdG 811; Exh Paris, 1908, no.466; Exh. New York Met 1974-75, ‘The Grand Gallery’, no.110; Benesch, I, 1973, in the introduction by E. Benesch, p. xii (as one of four recently published drawings that ‘deserve mention’ and that Frits Lugt dated the drawing to the 1640s); This Catalogue online, March 2013; [Not in Schatborn, 2019]
Provenance: Paul Mathey; Ludwig Vogelstein Foundation; their sale, London, Christie’s, 27 November, 1973, lot 343, repr.; Schickman (dealer); sale. New York, Sotheby’s, 25 January, 2002, lot 49, repr..

Not in Benesch
Rembrandt
Landscape with Cottages, Meadows and a Distant Windmill 1650?
Pen and brown ink with brown wash on paper prepared with pale greyish-brown wash; framing lines in pen and brown ink.
98 x 212.
For a discussion of this drawing, the attribution of which is controversial, see London, 2010 (online), no.64.
Literature/further remarks: Royalton-Kisch, 2000, pp.158-59, repr. fig.32; London, 2010 (online), no.64; This Catalogue online, March 2013; [Not in Schatborn, 2019]
GB London, British Museum (1895,0915.1257)

Not in Benesch
Rembrandt
Landscape with a Cottage and Two Haybarns 1650?
Pen and brown ink, with grey and coloured washes in green, blue and brown, touched of white (partly discoloured to pink).
125 x 210
The attribution of this drawing to Rembrandt has proven highly controversial, but I stick with it! For a summary of the arguments and further literature, see the British Museum website (London, 2010 [online], no.66). The arguments proposed in 1991 (see Literature) have never been adequately refuted.
GB London, British Museum (inv. 1895,0915.1282).


GB London, British Museum (inv. 1895,0915.1282).
FURTHER LITERATURE/REMARKS: Sumowski, 1979 etc., no.2316xx, repr. (Ruisscher?); Royalton-Kisch, 1991, pp.10-19, repr. in colour, pl.IV (entirely by Rembrandt); This Catalogue online, March 2013; Exh. Amsterdam, 2014, p.22, repr. and under no.42 (as ‘Attributed to Ruisscher’; compares Washington inv.1954.12.114 and Lugt Benesch A35b ‘Ruisscher’ landscapes); [Not in Schatborn, 2019].

Not in Benesch
Copy after Rembrandt?
The Omval seen from the Amsteldijk 1652/1670?
Pen and brown ink with brown wash
38 x 184
The tame and rather timid lines suggest that the drawing is a copy, perhaps based on a lost Rembrandt – the style is close to Benesch 1321, Rembrandt’s own view of the same scene. But the mill in the centre of Benesch 1321, which is missing here, burnt down by 1671 – something of which the copyist must have been aware.


COLLECTION: USA Private Collection?
Further literature/remarks: Exh. Washington, 1990, p.199, n.1 (not Rembrandt); Exh. Amsterdam-Paris 1998-99, p.270, repr. fíg. 6 (Rembrandt[?]); Chatsworth, 2002, III, p.429, under no.1496 (Rembrandt); This Catalogue online, March 2013; [Not in Schatborn, 2019].
Provenance: Sale, Amsterdam, Christie’s, 15 November, 1983, lot 39 (called Rembrandt by E. Haverkamp-Begemann); sale, London, Sotheby’s, 6 July, 2005, lot 164, £18,000 (Rembrandt School).

Benesch C41
Van Renesse? Rembrandt??
Cottage with a White Paling 1652?
Pen and brown ink with brown wash heightened with white (with some later additions in purplish ink)
170 x 255. An added strip of paper below (not quite in its original position, but was in the present position when the purplish additions were made). No watermark.
Long before publishing a number of comparable landscape drawings as the work of Constantijn Daniël van Renesse (Royalton-Kisch, 2000.1) I had been concerned that the style of this drawing, even after allowing for the later additions, was removed from Rembrandt. The connection with Rembrandt’s etching of 1648 (Bartsch 232) is not convincing: the style here is later (and even the trees have grown, as may be judged by their relationship to the chimney on the cottage). The resemblance to Van Renesse’s drawings, such as Benesch 1352, is inescapable. The ‘signature’ does not appear to be autograph. (See Royalton-Kisch, 2012, p.469 under no.181.) It seems to be written by the same hand as that on Benesch A71a, also illustrated on this page.
Peter Schatborn has informed me (again in an e-mail of 15 June 2015) that the handwriting can be associated with the ‘Greek characters’ collector’s marks (L.2942-44). He believes such a mark may have been cut away from the top of the present sheet.
COLLECTION: NL Amsterdam, Rijksmuseum (inv. RP-T-1981-1).
LITERATURE/FURTHER REMARKS: White, 1968, p.390, repr. fig.32 (pace Benesch, by Rembrandt and for the etching); Amsterdam, 1985, no.30, repr. (as White, 1968); Slive, 2009, pp.132, repr. fig.11.6; This Catalogue online, March 2013; Schatborn, 2019, pp.19 and 305, and no.527, repr. (c.1648; only drawing made as a direct preliminary study for a landscape etching).

Not in Benesch
Rembrandt
Farmhouse between Trees 1650-1652?
Pen and brown ink and brown wash (and later grey wash), on paper prepared light greyish-brown; ruled framing-lines in pen and brown ink.
108 x 176.
Compare the motif of Benesch 1249. Despite some weaknesses in the perspective and the unusual treatment

of the tree foliage to the right, there seem to be sufficient reasons to accept the attribution to Rembrandt.
D Cologne, Private collection.
FURTHER LITERATURE/REMARKS: This Catalogue online, March 2013; Schatborn, 2019, no.556, repr. (c.1650-1652).
PROVENANCE: Marquis of Lansdowne; his sale, Amsterdam, Christie’s, 14 November, 1994, lot 101 [f.345,000])

Not in Benesch
Rembrandt??
The Amstelveenseweg with a Gateway on the left 1650-52?
Pen and brown ink.
I do not remember having seen this drawing, but it depicts the same view as Benesch 1242-1243. Thus it could in theory be the work of a pupil seated next to Rembrandt, or possibly by Rembrandt himself, having moved his position a few yards. More probably, it is a copy based on Benesch 1242. An odd feature, or miscomprehension, is that the second post, in the centre of the drawing, has been shifted into the middle of the road where it would have blocked any wheeled traffic.
COLLECTION: NL Amsterdam, Private Collection, Paul Brandt.
Further literature/remarks: Sumowski, 1964.I, p.245, repr. fig.14 (Rembrandt, c.1648-50); Exh. Amsterdam-Paris, 1998-99, p.320, n.3 (copy by a pupil?); London, 2010 (online), under no.69 (copy of Benesch 1242); This Catalogue online, March 2013; [Not in Schatborn, 2019].

Not in Benesch
Rembrandt: A View of Sloten from the East 1650?
Pen and brown ink with brown wash; framing lines in pen and brown ink; inscribed on tyhe mount in brown ink: ‘Rembrandt-Van Rhin’ and verso, in graphite (by Klingsor?): ‘Rembrandt: Vue du village de Sloten […]’
100 x 164
Drawn from a vantage-point a little closer to the village than Benesch 1237. Compare also the Oslo drawing illustrated below.
COLLECTION: CH Geneva, Private Collection (Jean Bonna)

FURTHER LITERATURE/REMARKS: Sumowski, 2002, pp.240-42, repr. fig.2 (first publication; relates to other views of Sloten) ; Exh. Kassel-Leiden, 2006-2007, no.43, repr.; Exh. Paris, Institut Néerlandais, Dessins nordiques, 2008, no.25, repr.; Exh. New York-Edinburgh, 2009, no.49; Strasser, 2013, no.45, repr. (c.1650); This Catalogue online, March 2013; Schatborn, 2019, p.306 and no.555, repr. (same village as Benesch 1237).
PROVENANCE: Jan Pietersz. Zomer, Amsterdam?; Léon Leclère, called Tristan Klingsor, Paris; sale, Paris, Drouot Richelieu (Ader & De Maigret), 21 March, 2001, lot 59 (as Dutch School); David Lachenmann (dealer), Zurich, from whom acquired by the present owner.

Enlarged

Not in Benesch
Rembrandt: The Ruins of the Church at Sloten 1650-52?
Verso: Inscriptions only; the heavier penwork shows through.
Medium: Pen and brown ink in two tones, the majority in a darker ink in a finer-nibbed pen, on paper prepared (slightly unevenly) in brown. Ruled framing lines in pen and brown ink, similar in colour to the paler brown in the drawing. Small patch made up top right. Inscriptions: verso, in graphite, in an 18th-19th century hand, below: “Rembrand Van Ryn / aus [?] Rumphes Sml Dresden d. B Norl…1846. Dahl 2 g /ng” and “B.15804”
118 x 179. Watermark: Posthorn with WR below; chain lines: 25h. Mat: modern only
COMMENTS: The drawing compares closely in every way (style, technique and preparation) with Benesch 1242 and 1244, both of which sport identical watermarks. Possibly the broader penlines in the foreground and in the facade of the hut on the left were added by Rembrandt later as an afterthought.[1] The drawing in a private collection (Bonna), also of Sloten and illustrated on this page (above),

was probably made on the same excursion.
Condition: Small repaired patch, top right.
Summary attribution: Rembrandt.
Date: 1650-52?
COLLECTION: Norway, Oslo, Nationalgaleriet (purchased 1903; inv.NG.K&H.B.15804)
FURTHER LITERATURE/REMARKS: Haverkamp-Begemann, 1974; Exh. Oslo, 1976, no.41; ; Exh. Oslo, 1995; Exh. Amsterdam-Paris, 1998-99, pp.350-53, repr. fig.3 and p.141 (in colour); Exh. Oslo (Picture of the Month), 2002; Sumowski, 200, pp.240-42, repr. fig.3; Exh. Leiden, 2006-7, no.42, repr. fig.167 in colour (c.1650); This Catalogue online, March 2013; Schatborn, 2019, no.557, repr. (1650-1652).
PROVENANCE: Jan Pietersz Zoomer (Lugt 1511); Carl Friedrich von Rumohr; Johan Christian Dahl. Purchased from Siegwald Dahl, 1903.
[1] As noted by Sumowski, 2002 (see Literature).

The watermark (viewed with transmitted light)

Enlarged

Watermark

Not in Benesch
Rembrandt, Kostverloren House on the Amstel River 1652?
Pen brown ink with brown wash, touched with white bodycolour and red wash, on greyish paper; ruled framing lines in pen and brown ink; inscribed recto, lower right in pen and brown ink in an 18th century hand: ‘Rembrandt’.
133 x 230. Watermark: top of a crown (fragment; comparable to Benesch 0577);[1] chain lines: 24/25v.; an added strip on the left.
D Dresden, Staatliche Kunstsammlungen, Kupferstich-Kabinett (inv. C 1910-52).
Further literature/remarks: Freise, Lilienfeld and Wichmann, no.88; Exh. Dresden, 2004, no.110; This Catalogue online, March 2013; Exh. Dresden, 2019, p.27, no.14, repr. (c.1650-53; with watermark illustration used here); Schatborn, 2019, no.572, repr. (1650-1652).
[1] As noted in Exh. Dresden, 2019 (see Literature).

Not in Benesch
Rembrandt, A Ruinous Cottage 1650-52?
Pen and brown ink with brown was (and later grey wash); traces of framing lines.
103 x 207. Arched top. Watermark: Strasburg Lily.
Mentioned in Benesch, 1973, I, p.xii. According to the Christie’s lot description, the drawing was “first attributed to Rembrandt by Frits Lugt in a letter dated 16 November 1968. The attribution was subsequently confirmed by K.G. Boon, who dated the drawing to 1645-50, and by Professor Egbert Haverkamp-Begemann. The latter pointed out that “the gray wash was added to the drawing by a later hand.”
LITERATURE/FURTHER REMARKS: This Catalogue online, March 2013; Schatborn, 2019, no.540, repr. (c.1648-1650).
PROVENANCE: Sale, New York, Christie’s, 23 January 2002, lot 128 ($160,000).

Not in Benesch
Rembrandt
An Inn on a Dyke 1652-55??
Reed pen and brown ink and (later) grey wash.
104 x 201.
Somewhat comparable in style to Benesch 1336-37. The condition of the sheet somewhat hampers any judgement but there seem to be sufficient analogies to sustain the attribution to Rembrandt, rather than to a follower such as Pieter de With. The building is a farm used as an inn, the projection to the right being a barn. The pole to the left is a navigational aid and it has been suggested that the inn lay on the Spaarndammerdijk on the IJ river to the west of Amsterdam.[1]
LITERATURE/FURTHER REMARKS: This Catalogue online, March 2013; [Not in Schatborn, 2019]


PROVENANCE: From an album belonging to Archibald Keightley (Registrar of Charterhouse in the early 19th Century and friend and executor of Sir Thomas Lawrence); by descent to his daughter, Sarah, who married Sir Charles Nicolson; by descent to their grandson, Sir John Nicolson; his sale, London, Sotheby’s, 11 November, 1965, lot 64; sale, Amsterdam, Sotheby’s, 2 November 2004, lot 78, repr.; private collection; sale, London, Sotheby’s, 9 July, 2014, lot 108, repr..
[1] As proposed by B. Bakker and E. Schmitz in the 2014 Sotheby’s catalogue. They refer to drawings of this area made by Jan Van Goyen in c.1651-52 (see Beck, 1972, vol.I, no.847/162).

Not in Benesch
Rembrandt
Landscape with a Bear (after Titian) 1650-52?
Pen and brown ink, with some white heightening on brownish paper.
203 x 294.
Apparently a copy after a drawing by Titian, but the latter’s original is unknown.
F Paris, Fondation Custodia, Frits Lugt collection (inv. 6584).
FURTHER LITERATURE/REMARKS: Paris, 2010, no. 16, repr. (c.1650); Exh. New York, 2011, repr. p.91, (c.1650); This Catalogue online, March 2013; Schatborn, 2019, pp. 19, 306 and 435, and no. 674, repr. (c.1650; though original not known, most important example of Rembrandt copying Titian; his style influenced Rembrandt, eg. in Benesch 980 and Benesch 1243).

Not in Benesch
Rembrandt?? after Titian
Landscape with a Horse 1652-56?
Pen and brown ink. Inscribed in graphite lower left: ‘A CARATS’ [for Carracci]
199 x 298.
A copy after a drawing by Titian at Chatsworth.[1] Copies after other masters are often difficult to judge and this is no exception. While the attribution to Rembrandt seems possible, one to a pupil of follower, such as Willem Drost, seems more likely. Pieter de With’s name has also been invoked.[2] It seems rather too literal a copy for Rembrandt to have made in his later career, despite some simplification of the details in the original. Much of the drawing has been ‘gone over’ in a darker ink, exacerbating the difficulty of makiing a definitve assessment.
D Berlin, Staatliche Museen Berlin, Kupferstichkabinett (KdZ 17598)
Further literature/remarks: Exh. Venice, 1976, under no.47; Winner, 1979, pp.221-24 (Rembrandt); Exh. Washington, 1990, no.38; Exh. Paris-Haarlem, 1997-98, under no.18 (attributed to Rembrandt); Berlin, 2006, p.204, repr. p.205 (attributed to Pieter de With); This Catalogue online, March 2013; Berlin, 2018, no.113 (as Attributed to De With); [Not in Schatborn, 2019]
[1] Inv.751, see Exh. Washington, 1990, no.38a, repr.; Chatsworth, 1994, no.841, repr..
[2] By Bevers in Berlin, 2006, pp.204-205.

Not in Benesch
Attributed to Pieter de With
Landscape with Buildings and Lovers Embracing, after Titian or Campagnola 1655?
Pen and brown ink
140 x 202; chain lines 31-32v
Formerly attributed to Titian or his school, the drawing is based on another, similar sketch attributed to the Italian master now also at Chatsworth (inv. 749A; Chatsworth, 2002, no. 842). The suggestion that the draughtsman here is De With (to whom the preceeding drawing in the present list has been ascribed) is based on a comparison with De With’s signed drawings, including one in the Lugt Collection (Paris 2010, no.161, repr.) and a drawing in the British Museum that is inscribed with his name on the verso (inv.Oo,9.88; London, 2010 [online] De With no.3, repr.).[1]
Collection: GB Chatsworth, Trustees of the Chatsworth Settlement (inv.749B)
Further literature/remarks: Byam Shaw, 1980, p.390 (Rembrandt after Titian); Rosand, 1992, p.173, repr. fig.14 (lovers in shade also seen in Three Trees etching et al.; significant in pastoral traditions); Chatsworth, 2002, no.1471, repr. (Rembrandt; with earlier literature); Paris, 2010, under no.16 (without attribution); This Catalogue online, March 2013; [Not in Schatborn, 2019]
Provenance: Peter Lely (L.2092); 2nd Duke of Devonshire? Thence by descent.
[1] The attribution made here 2 February 2014. I am grateful to correspondence with Amy Golahny for prompting me to re-examine this drawing and include it here.

DRAWINGS RETOUCHED OR POSSIBLY RETOUCHED BY REMBRANDT
(AND EITHER NOT ACCEPTED OR NOT RECORDED IN BENESCH’S CATALOGUE)

Not in Benesch
Retouched by Rembrandt?
A girl in Oriental dress
1647-52?
Black chalk, touched with pen and brown ink
118 x 72
COMMENT: The idea that some of the decorative strokes in the


dress, made with fluid confidence, could be retouches by Rembrandt never leaves me.
GB London, British Museum (inv.1935,0608.8);
LITERATURE/FURTHER REMARKS: This Catalogue online, March 2013; [Not in Schatborn, 2019]

Benesch C 49
Willem Drost?? Retouched by Rembrandt??
A Rider Asking Two Wanderers the Way 1655??
Pen and brown ink with brown wash; ruled framing-lines only on backing; inscribed right, in pen and brown ink (18th cent?): “Rem 1640” [?]
161 x 188 Laid down; chain lines 25h (visible, just, in raking light.
This is perhaps a studio copy, or pupil’s ‘satellite’ drawing, based on a Rembrandt or Rembrandtesque design. The style betrays similarities with Willem Drost’s but seems less competent. The forceful brown wash touches, especially in the horse, seem to be not inconceivably corrections by Rembrandt, the only reason for the drawing’s inclusion here. They greatly improve on the modelling of the pen-lines. When correcting pupils’ drawings, Rembrandt might sometimes have been, literally, leaning over their shoulders – not an ideal situation to produce his finest draughtsmanship, to say the least.
F Bayonne Musée Bonnat (inv. 1444).
LITERATURE/FURTHER REMARKS: This Catalogue online, March 2013; [Not in Schatborn, 2019]
Provenance: Léon Bonnat (1833-1922) (L.1714).