The young boy in this study, erroneously in the past identified as Rembrandt's son Titus, is the same model, shown half-length, as that in the drawing in the same technique in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, Sumowski, no. 783x. The present study is one of the finest of van den Eeckhout's brush drawings, of which only sixteen are recorded by Sumowski, nos. 782x-97x. The attribution of this group has, in the past, been much disputed: Nicolaes Maes, Ferdinand Bol, Caspar Netscher, both Terborch brothers, Johannes Vermeer and even Fragonard have all been proposed. The attribution to van den Eeckhout accepted by all modern scholars is based, in part, on tradition; the earliest reference to one of the drawings is in a sale in Haarlem in 1770, and Cornelis Ploos van Amstel (1726-1798) reproduced the Metropolitan Museum and Musée Cognac-Jay sheets (Sumowski, nos. 783x and 788x) in his Collections d'imitations de dessins d'après les principaux maîtres hollandais as Eeckhout. The use of wash and the physical types in the drawings can also be compared with those in studies in pen and ink with wash, such as the signed sheet of a sleeping boy in the Rijksprentenkabinet, Amsterdam, Sumowski, no. 634. The traditional attribution is further supported by comparing them with some of van den Eeckhout's paintings from the 1650s, the period to which the brush drawings are generally dated, such as the The Rest on the Flight into Egypt of 1653 in the Bader Collection or the Lille Portrait of a young Boy of the same year (W. Sumowski, Gemälde der Rembrandt Schüler, Stuttgart, 1983, II, nos. 415 and 527 respectively) which both display a similar interest in sfumato lighting effects and, particularly in the Bader picture, the figures possess a similar air of contemplative self-absorption.
Gebrand van den Eeckhout was apprenticed to Rembrandt at the age of 14 and left his studio in 1640. He remained a faithful friend of his master to the last, and carried on Rembrandt's style for far longer than any other pupil. His close friendship with Rembrandt meant that he continued to be influenced by his paintings and drawings, even his unfashionable late style. It is likely that Rembrandt drawings in the same medium and also of the 1650s, such as the celebrated study of a sleeping woman in the British Museum or the two Stockholm studies of women (O. Benesch, The Drawings of Rembrandt, London, 1973, V, nos. 1103 and 1101-2 respectively, figs. 1394 and 1392-3) inspired van den Eeckhout. The diffused, soft light in the present drawing suggests that the model was lit by candlelight, a practice that would have been familiar to van den Eeckhout from his apprenticeship, as is shown in Rembrandt's etching (Bartsch 130) of a student draughtsman drawing a bust lit by a candle. Rembrandt, particularly in the 1650s, explored in his paintings the manner in which light could enhance the contemplative mood of his figures; such as in the portrait of Titus of 1655 in the Boymans-van Beuningen Museum, Rotterdam, in which he is shown pen in hand caught in a moment of reflection, or the Woman bathing from the same period in the National Gallery, London. Such paintings, which reflect Rembrandt's lifelong study of Venetian paintings, may well have had a part in influencing van den Eeckhout to experiment with drawings in pure wash, in which light and shadow alone, without any chalk underdrawing, models the form. Eeckhout's mastery of the medium shows that he was capable of responding to and, perhaps in this drawing, matching Rembrandt's brilliance