Lot Essay
Benesch, op.cit., who fully accepted this drawing as by Rembrandt, placed it in a group which he compared to Rembrandt's pictures with full and half length figures of orientals of his first Amsterdam years, 1632-3. These include drawings in the Kupferstichkabinett, Berlin; the Budapest Museum of Fine Arts; Teyler's Museum, Haarlem; one formerly in a private collection, Paris; two drawings in the Louvre, Paris; and a drawing in the Musées Royaux des Beaux Arts, Brussels (Benesch, op.cit., 1973, nos. 209-14, figs. 244-51).
Current specialists in the field differ in opinion about the attribution. The closest comparison can be made with Rembrandt's drawing of An Oriental standing, full-length in the British Museum, London (M. Royalton-Kisch, Drawings by Rembrandt and his Circle in the British Museum, London, 1992, p. 86, no. 30, which is dated circa 1639, a time when Rembrandt was often using iron-gall ink. The handling of the head and turban, with the co-existence of thin pen lines laid in as an initial indication and bold lines refining and correcting over the top, would seem to be characteristic of Rembrandt. On the other hand, the drawing of the body, with the possible use of another pen heavily loaded with ink would seem unusually slack for the artist, perhaps caused by an interruption of a considerable period between the times when he drew the head and completed the torso. The scraping-out technique seen near the centre of the bust, a technique which does not seem to have been employed widely by other 17th Century artists in their drawings, is found in other Rembrandt drawings, making it difficult to believe that someone other than he could have finished it. There are analogies here with a drawing in the De Grez Collection, Musée Royaux des Beaux-Arts, Brussels (Benesch, op.cit., 1973, no. 214), which also seems to have been completed in a different mode. The white heightening is applied in a way unusual for Rembrandt, and may have been added by a later hand.
Current specialists in the field differ in opinion about the attribution. The closest comparison can be made with Rembrandt's drawing of An Oriental standing, full-length in the British Museum, London (M. Royalton-Kisch, Drawings by Rembrandt and his Circle in the British Museum, London, 1992, p. 86, no. 30, which is dated circa 1639, a time when Rembrandt was often using iron-gall ink. The handling of the head and turban, with the co-existence of thin pen lines laid in as an initial indication and bold lines refining and correcting over the top, would seem to be characteristic of Rembrandt. On the other hand, the drawing of the body, with the possible use of another pen heavily loaded with ink would seem unusually slack for the artist, perhaps caused by an interruption of a considerable period between the times when he drew the head and completed the torso. The scraping-out technique seen near the centre of the bust, a technique which does not seem to have been employed widely by other 17th Century artists in their drawings, is found in other Rembrandt drawings, making it difficult to believe that someone other than he could have finished it. There are analogies here with a drawing in the De Grez Collection, Musée Royaux des Beaux-Arts, Brussels (Benesch, op.cit., 1973, no. 214), which also seems to have been completed in a different mode. The white heightening is applied in a way unusual for Rembrandt, and may have been added by a later hand.