Lot Essay
The rediscovery of this quietly powerful drawing, more than eighty years after it disappeared in the turmoil of the Second World War, allows a fresh assessment of its quality and attribution. Although not included in Peter Schatborn’s Rembrandt. Complete Drawings and Etchings (Cologne, 2019), Martin Royalton-Kisch, to whom we are most grateful for his help in cataloguing the present drawing, judges that ‘on balance the drawing does seem to have sufficient analogies with at least one documentary work, the signed drawing of Simeon and the Christ Child, dated 1661, in the Royal Library in The Hague, to make the traditional attribution to Rembrandt justifiable’ (written communication, 16 August, 2022; for the drawing in the Koninklijke Bibliotheek, see Benesch, op. cit., 1973, V, no. 1057, fig. 1341; and Schatborn, op. cit., no. D177, ill.). Although made with a quill pen, rather than the reed pen used here, and worked-up with wash, the sheet in The Hague has several striking features in common with the Liebermann drawing: ‘the overall restraint in the description of the figure, with many cursory but suggestive touches using differing strengths of pressure on the pen’; the way the bridge of the nose, the mouth and beard are rendered in both sheets; and the way in which the dome of the head of the old man and his temples and those of the man at the centre in the sketch in The Hague are drawn.
Royalton-Kisch points to several other works, most of them datable to the years around 1660, which are stylistically and technically comparable, including a study for the etched portrait of Lieven Willemsz. van Coppenol in the Szépművészeti Múzeum, Budapest, inv. 1570 (Benesch, op. cit., 1973, IV, no. 766, fig. 967; Schatborn, op. cit., no. D647, ill.); Christ consoled by the angel in the Hamburger Kunsthalle, inv. 22413 (Benesch, op. cit., 1973, V, no. 899, fig. 1176; Schatborn, op. cit., no. D96, ill.); Homer dictating in the Nationalmuseum, Stockholm, inv. NM 1677/1875 (Benesch, op. cit., 1973, V, no. 1066, fig. 1352; Schatborn, op. cit., no. D178, ill.); and A woman suckling a child in a private collection (Benesch, op. cit., 1973, V, no. 1136, fig. 1431; Schatborn, op. cit., no. D452, ill.). The analogies with these drawings certainly seem to indicate must date from 1660 or later, a time when Rembrandt had few pupils – and ‘none,’ remarks Royalton-Kisch, ‘that we know of who was capable of the economical and suggestive use of line seen here.’
The present work was part of several drawings by or previously attributed to Rembrandt, as well as a representative group of etchings by him, owned by the celebrated pioneer of German Impressionism, Max Liebermann (J. Müller, ‘Liebermann und Rembrandt – eine Skizze’, in Hedinger et al., op. cit., pp. 65-72, and S. Haug and B. Hedinger ibid., nos. SL 184-SL193, ill.). The most famous of these is undoubtedly the Healing of the mother-in-law of Saint Peter in the Frits Lugt Collection, Paris, inv. 5794 (P. Schatborn, Rembrandt and his Circle. Drawings in the Frits Lugt Collection, Bussum and Paris 2010, I, no. 21, II, ill.). Unlike the Lugt sheet, which was taken with her to New York by Liebermann’s daughter, the present work seems to have been left behind by her in Berlin (Benesch, op. cit., 1973, V, p. 295). For a drawing by Adolph von Menzel from Liebermann’s collection, see lot 96.
Royalton-Kisch points to several other works, most of them datable to the years around 1660, which are stylistically and technically comparable, including a study for the etched portrait of Lieven Willemsz. van Coppenol in the Szépművészeti Múzeum, Budapest, inv. 1570 (Benesch, op. cit., 1973, IV, no. 766, fig. 967; Schatborn, op. cit., no. D647, ill.); Christ consoled by the angel in the Hamburger Kunsthalle, inv. 22413 (Benesch, op. cit., 1973, V, no. 899, fig. 1176; Schatborn, op. cit., no. D96, ill.); Homer dictating in the Nationalmuseum, Stockholm, inv. NM 1677/1875 (Benesch, op. cit., 1973, V, no. 1066, fig. 1352; Schatborn, op. cit., no. D178, ill.); and A woman suckling a child in a private collection (Benesch, op. cit., 1973, V, no. 1136, fig. 1431; Schatborn, op. cit., no. D452, ill.). The analogies with these drawings certainly seem to indicate must date from 1660 or later, a time when Rembrandt had few pupils – and ‘none,’ remarks Royalton-Kisch, ‘that we know of who was capable of the economical and suggestive use of line seen here.’
The present work was part of several drawings by or previously attributed to Rembrandt, as well as a representative group of etchings by him, owned by the celebrated pioneer of German Impressionism, Max Liebermann (J. Müller, ‘Liebermann und Rembrandt – eine Skizze’, in Hedinger et al., op. cit., pp. 65-72, and S. Haug and B. Hedinger ibid., nos. SL 184-SL193, ill.). The most famous of these is undoubtedly the Healing of the mother-in-law of Saint Peter in the Frits Lugt Collection, Paris, inv. 5794 (P. Schatborn, Rembrandt and his Circle. Drawings in the Frits Lugt Collection, Bussum and Paris 2010, I, no. 21, II, ill.). Unlike the Lugt sheet, which was taken with her to New York by Liebermann’s daughter, the present work seems to have been left behind by her in Berlin (Benesch, op. cit., 1973, V, p. 295). For a drawing by Adolph von Menzel from Liebermann’s collection, see lot 96.