Rijksmuseum

Object data

pen and brown ink; framing line in brown ink

height 111 mm × width 137 mm

Inscriptions

inscribed on verso, in pencil: centre, 13; centre right, by Pitcairn Knowles, de Vos – Sale; lower centre (with the 1895 Pitcairn Knowles sale no.), 534; lower right (with the 1906 Hofstede de Groot no.), deGr 1171
stamped on verso: lower left, with the mark of De Vos (L. 1450); next to this, with the mark of Pitcairn Knowles (L. 2643); lower centre, with the mark of the museum (L. 2228)

Technical notes

Watermark: Letters BB [L] and fragment of a shield, close to Heawood, no. 137 (1631)

Provenance

...; collection Jacob de Vos Jbzn (1803-78), Amsterdam (L. 1450); his widow, Abrahamina Henrietta de Vos-Wurfbain (1808-83), Amsterdam; his sale, Amsterdam (C.F. Roos et al.), 22 May 1883 sqq., possibly no. 377, as Rembrandt, fl. 305, to the dealer A. Meder, Berlin;¹ ...; collection William Pitcairn Knowles (1820-94), Rotterdam and Wiesbaden (L. 2643); his sale, Amsterdam (F. Muller), 25 (26) June 1895 sqq., no. 534, as Rembrandt, fl. 76, to the dealer C.F. Roos for the Vereniging Rembrandt;² from whom on loan to the museum, 1895; from whom, fl. 87.50, to the museum (L. 2228), 1901

Object number: RP-T-1901-A-4528

Credit line: Purchased with the support of the Vereniging Rembrandt

Entry

In the parable of the Good Samaritan, who helps and cares for a robbed and mistreated man, Christ illustrated the idea of brotherly love through compassion. Here, the man, who has been robbed of his clothes, is being lifted up by the only partially shown Samaritan, who takes him to an inn (Luke 10:25-37).

There is a second version of this scene, whose current whereabouts are unknown,³ and both drawings are considered to be copies. The draughtsmanship indicates a dating of circa 1635-36, when Flinck was a pupil of Rembrandt for a year. The sheet was inspired in the placement of the two figures by a print by Werner van der Valckert (c. 1580/85-c. 1627/47) (e.g. inv. no. RP-P-OB-15.635), although there the group is in reverse.⁴ The drawing that most resembles the present sheet is the Samson and Delilah, in the Musée des Beaux-Arts, Dijon, which has been attributed to Govert Flinck.⁵ The heavy, multi-directional crosshatching is typical of the early Flinck. Yet in the case of the Amsterdam drawing, the handling seems too coarse to be an original. In the École Nationale Supérieure des Beaux-Arts, Paris, is a comparable sheet (inv. no. PC 35637) that, like the present drawing, must be a copy after Flinck.⁶

Peter Schatborn, 2018

Literature

C. Hofstede de Groot, Die Handzeichnungen Rembrandts, Haarlem 1906, no. 1171 (as Rembrandt); W.R. Valentiner, Rembrandt: Die Meisters Handzeichnungen, 2 vols., Stuttgart and elsewhere 1925-34, I (1925), no. 372 (as Rembrandt, c. 1631); M.D. Henkel, Catalogus van de Nederlandsche teekeningen in het Rijksmuseum te Amsterdam, I: Teekeningen van Rembrandt en zijn school, coll. cat. Amsterdam 1942, no. 83 (as Rembrandt); O. Benesch, The Drawings of Rembrandt (rev. edn. by E. Benesch), 6 vols., London 1973 (orig. edn. 1954-57), no. C4; 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. 85 (as school of Rembrandt, c. 1630), with earlier literature; W.A. Liedtke et al., Rembrandt/Not Rembrandt in the Metropolitan Museum of Art: Aspects of Connoisseurship, 2 vols., exh. cat. New York (Metropolitan Museum of Art) 1995-96, I, p. 77

Citation

P. Schatborn, 2018, 'anonymous, Good Samaritan, after c. 1635 - c. 1636', in J. Turner (ed.), Drawings by Rembrandt and his School in the Rijksmuseum, online coll. cat. Amsterdam: hdl.handle.net/10934/RM0001.COLLECT.28605

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