Object data
pen and brown ink; with greenish brown wash
height 113 mm × width 186 mm
Rembrandt van Rijn (school of)
Haman before Ahasuerus / recto: Houses and Trees on a Dike
Amsterdam, c. 1640 - c. 1650
Inscriptions
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inscribed: upper centre, in red chalk, 239; centre right, in pencil (with the 1883 Jacob de Vos sale no.), de Vos 395; below this, in blue pencil, 16; lower left, in pencil, Rembrandt
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stamped: lower left, with the mark of the Vereniging Rembrandt (L. 2135); below this, with the mark of the museum (L. 2228); below this, with the mark of De Vos (L. 1450); lower centre, with the mark of the museum (L. 2228)
Technical notes
Watermark: None
Condition
Pieces of paper added at the upper left and right corners
Provenance
...; collection Jacob de Vos Jbzn (1803-78), Amsterdam (L. 1450), by 1877;1 his widow, Abrahamina Henrietta de Vos-Wurfbain (1808-83), Amsterdam; his sale, Amsterdam (C.F. Roos et al.), 22 May 1883 sqq., no. 395, as Rembrandt, fl. 410, to the dealer R.W.P. de Vries for the Vereniging Rembrandt (L. 2135);2 from whom on loan to the museum, 1883; from whom, with 166 other drawings, fl. 5,049 for all, to the museum (L. 2228), 1889
Object number: RP-T-1889-A-2042(V)
Credit line: Purchased with the support of the Vereniging Rembrandt
Copyright: Public domain
Entry
Drawn on the recto of this sheet (fig. a, inv. no. RP-T-1889-A-2042(R)) are a few houses and trees situated along a low-lying dike. Below the dike there is a path with two figures on the left and a fence in the background. The pen lines are somewhat repetitive: the same loops for the leaves, the same regular horizontal and vertical hatching for shadows and the same strong vertical lines in the fence. The houses and trees have been extensively washed.
On the verso (inv. no. RP-T-1889-A-2042(V)) are two rapidly drawn pen figures, which have been identified as Ahasuerus and Haman. Although both sketches are clumsy, the unknown artist was more successful at rendering landscapes than figures. He was probably a Rembrandt pupil who specialized in landscapes. The name of Abraham Furnerius (1628-1654) has been mentioned,3 but the attribution is not completely convincing. There are a few drawings sometimes ascribed to Furnerius that show figures as stiffly drawn as Ahasuerus and Haman in the present example,4 and yet they are more powerfully and extensively worked out. The style of the drawing and the extensive use of wash indicate a date in the 1640s.
Peter Schatborn, 2018
Literature
M.D. Henkel, Catalogus van de Nederlandsche teekeningen in het Rijksmuseum te Amsterdam, I: Teekeningen van Rembrandt en zijn school, coll. cat. Amsterdam 1942, nos. 121-22 (as Rembrandt); W. Wegner, ‘Bemerkungen zu Zeichnungen Rembrandts und seiner Schule in der Albertina’, Albertina-Studien 5/6 (1967-68), p. 53 (as Abraham Furnerius); P. Schatborn, Catalogus van de Nederlandse tekeningen in het Rijksprentenkabinet, Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam, IV: Tekeningen van Rembrandt, zijn onbekende leerlingen en navolgers/Drawings by Rembrandt, his Anonymous Pupils and Followers, coll. cat. Amsterdam 1985, no. 115, with earlier literature
Citation
P. Schatborn, 2018, 'school of Rembrandt van Rijn, Haman before Ahasuerus / recto: Houses and Trees on a Dike, Amsterdam, c. 1640 - c. 1650', in J. Turner (ed.), Drawings by Rembrandt and his School in the Rijksmuseum, online coll. cat. Amsterdam: hdl.handle.net/10934/RM0001.COLLECT.28638
(accessed 10 November 2024 08:59:47).