Rijksmuseum

Object data

pen and brown ink; framing line in brown ink

height 144 mm × width 184 mm

Inscriptions

inscribed on verso, in pencil: centre (with the 1906 Hofstede de Groot no.), Hdg 1215; above that, by Hofstede de Groot, f jodsu-; lower right, 1
stamped on verso: lower centre, with the mark of the museum (L. 2228)

Technical notes

Watermark: Pelican within garland, close to Heawood, no. 199 (1644)

Condition

Light foxing throughout¹

Provenance

...; purchased from Paul Mathey (1844-1929), Paris, as Rembrandt, with three other drawings, through the mediation of the dealer P. Roblin, by Dr Cornelis Hofstede de Groot (1863-1930), The Hague, 1903;² by whom donated to the museum, 1906, but kept in usufruct; transferred to the museum (L. 2228), 1930

Object number: RP-T-1930-11

Credit line: Gift of C. Hofstede de Groot, The Hague

Entry

David, who is fleeing from Saul, meets his friend, Saul’s son Jonathan, in the field. He had helped David to escape from the wrath of his father. Jonathan then said to David (I Samuel 20:42): ‘Go in peace, since both of us have sworn in the name of the Lord, saying, “The Lord shall be between me and you, and between my descendants and your descendants forever.”’ In the drawing, Jonathan is addressing David with his left hand raised. David kneels before him and kisses his right hand. The figures are seen from the side and the uneven surface on which they are placed indicates that the scene takes place out-of-doors.

Even though the drawing features Rembrandt’s stylistic traits from the early 1650s, it should be considered the work of a pupil. The rendering of the figures is not characteristic enough for Rembrandt. David’s body, drawn with cautious lines and an excessive indication of the folds in his garment, is weak in volume and form. The angle of his elbow is exaggerated, and the shoulder and chest area have been overworked, resulting in a loss of form. The facial detail is too pronounced for the size of his head, and the two clasped hands and David’s arm behind them are unclear. Jonathan’s face seems too small, and his long index finger and highly placed arm emerging from his cloak are awkward. These and other details give the figures an unsteady appearance. The blank areas, unlike those in Rembrandt’s drawings, convey little sense of plasticity.

Jonathan’s figure style and type seems to have been inspired by the figure of Christ, also seen in strict profile to the left, in the museum’s drawing of Christ Appearing to Mary Magdalene as a Gardener (‘Noli me tangere’) (inv. no. RP-T-1961-80). There are three drawings in the museum’s collection made by the same anonymous Rembrandt pupil, who can now be identified as Carel van Savoyen: David and Jonathan, Christ Presented to the People by Pilate (inv. no. RP-T-1961-84) and Jacob Being Shown Joseph’s Blood-stained Coat (inv. no. RP-T-1930-5). The most striking similarity is in the way the dark accents and lines were added on top of lighter lines. All three drawings use the same shade of brown ink. Although the drawing of Joseph’s Blood-stained Coat was attributed by Sumowski to Rembrandt’s student Samuel van Hoogstraten (1627-1678), the style of these drawings is based on drawings by Rembrandt that are later in date than Van Hoogstraten’s period of apprenticeship, which ended in 1648.

There are two other drawings that appear to be by the same pupil that Sumowski attributed to Van Hoogstraten: the Calling of the Apostles Simon and Andrew, in the Louvre, Paris (inv. no. RF 4665),³ and Joseph and his Brothers, in the Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen, Rotterdam (inv. no. R 80 (PK)).⁴ Other drawings that probably belong to this group include three that were attributed to Rembrandt himself: Sts Peter and John Healing the Paralytic, in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York (inv. no. 11.85),⁵ Susanna Brought to Judgement, in the Ashmolean Museum, Oxford (inv. no. WA1855.7)⁶ and the Mocking of Christ, in the J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles (inv. no. 83.GA.358).⁷ All should probably now be assigned to Carel van Savoyen.

Peter Schatborn, 2018

Literature

C. Hofstede de Groot, Die Handzeichnungen Rembrandts, Haarlem 1906, no. 1256 (as Rembrandt); W.R. Valentiner, Rembrandt: Die Meisters Handzeichnungen, 2 vols., Stuttgart and elsewhere 1925-34, I (1925), no. 158 (as Rembrandt, c. 1645); 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. 55 (as Rembrandt, c. 1647-48); Benesch 1973, no. 1025 (as Rembrandt, c. 1656-57); Sumowski, Drawings, I (1979), p. 462, under no. 219*; 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. 71 (as school of Rembrandt, c. 1650), 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 1995-96, II, p. 188, under no. 78, fig. 10; J. Garff, Drawings by Rembrandt and other 17th-century Dutch Artists in the Department of Prints and Drawings, the Royal Museum of Fine Arts, Copenhagen, Copenhagen 1996, pp. 36 (under no. 11), 42 (under no. 14) ; C. Dittrich and T. Ketelsen et al., Rembrandt: Die Dresdener Zeichnungen, exh. cat. Dresden (Kupferstich-Kabinett) 2004, p. 97, under no. 31, n. 7 (as school of Rembrandt, c. 1650); P. Schatborn, Rembrandt and his Circle: Drawings in the Frits Lugt Collection, 2 vols., coll. cat. Paris 2010, p. 246, cat.nr. 97

Citation

P. Schatborn, 2018, 'attributed to Carel van Savoyen, Jonathan Saying Farewell to David, Amsterdam, 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.28591

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