Object data
pen and brown ink, red chalk; framing lines in brown ink over black chalk
height 201 mm × width 143 mm
Rembrandt van Rijn
Studies of the Magdalene and the Virgin Mourning
Amsterdam, c. 1635 - c. 1636
Inscriptions
Technical notes
Watermark: Unidentified fragment showing a housemark with number ‘4’ and perhaps three balls or initials below, under a shield (Schatborn 1985a, p. 241, repr.)
Condition
Light foxing throughout
Provenance
...; collection Jean Zacharie Mazel (1792-1884), The Hague;1 by whom donated to Adrianus David Schinkel (1784-1864), The Hague;2 his sale, The Hague (W.P. van Stockum), 21 (23) November 1864 sqq., no. 368 (‘Immerzeel, Levens en Werken der Hollandsche en Vlaamsche Kunstschilders, Beeldhouwers, Graveurs en Bouwmeesters. Amsterdam 1842. Exemplaire remarquable [...] à cause [...] de qq. dessins des Artistes mentionnés dans l’ouvrage, qui s’y trouvent joints’), fl. 181, to Van Doorn;3 …; sale, Johannes Kneppelhout (1814-85, Oosterbeek), The Hague (W.P. van Stockum), 15 May 1920 sqq., no. 2790, to Dr Cornelis Hofstede de Groot (1863-1930), The Hague (L. 561);4 his sale, Leipzig (C.G. Boerner), 4 November 1931, no. 178 (‘Studienblatt. Oben eine trauernde Frau in großem Mantel und Kopftuch, in Halbfigur und fast Ganzfigur. Darunter Studien zweier sitzender Gestalten, oben rechtszwei Kopfstudien. 198:142. [...]’), 2,550 DM, to the dealer R.W.P. de Vries, Amsterdam, for Coenraad Willem Antonie Buma (1877-1944), Leeuwarden;5 his sale et al., The Hague (Venduehuis der Notarissen), 4 November 1947 sqq., no. 158, fl. 1,332, to the museum (L. 2228)
Object number: RP-T-1947-213
Copyright: Public domain
The artist
Rembrandt Harmensz van Rijn (Leiden 1606 - Amsterdam 1669)
After attending Latin school in his native Leiden, Rembrandt, the son of a miller, enrolled at Leiden University in 1620, but soon abandoned his studies to become an artist. He first trained (1621-23) under the Leiden painter Jacob Isaacsz van Swanenburg (c. 1571-1638), followed by six months with the Amsterdam history painter Pieter Lastman (c. 1583-1633). Returning to Leiden around 1624, he shared a studio with Jan Lievens, where he aimed to establish himself as a history painter, winning the admiration of the poet and courtier Constantijn Huygens. In 1628 Gerard Dou (1613-75) became his first pupil. In the autumn of 1631 Rembrandt moved to Amsterdam, where his career rapidly took off. Three years later he joined the Guild of St Luke and married Saskia Uylenburgh (1612-42), niece of the art dealer Hendrik Uylenburgh (c. 1587-1661), in whose house he had been living and working. She died shortly after giving birth to their son Titus, by which time Rembrandt was already in financial straits owing to excessive spending on paintings, prints, antiquities and studio props for his history pieces. After Saskia’s death, Rembrandt lived first with Titus's wet nurse, Geertje Dircx (who eventually sued Rembrandt for breach of promise and was later imprisoned for her increasingly unstable behaviour), and then with his later housekeeper, Hendrickje Stoffels (by whom he had a daughter, Cornelia). Mounting debts made him unable to meet the payments of his house on the Jodenbreestraat and forced him to declare bankruptcy in 1656 and to sell his house and art collection. In the last decade of his life, he, Hendrickje and Titus resided in more modest accommodation on the Rozengracht, but Rembrandt continued to be dogged by continuing financial difficulties. His beloved Titus died in 1668. Rembrandt survived him by only a year and was buried in the Westerkerk.
Entry
This drawing is an important document in the ‘core list’ of authentic drawings by Rembrandt,6 being both inscribed in his hand and among the few works that can be linked with a painting (see also inv. nos. RP-T-1930-54(R), RP-T-1930-54(V) and RP-T-1896-A-3172). The sketches of two grief-stricken Marys have been connected with the artist’s painting of The Entombment from the series of Passion scenes that he carried out for the stadholder, Prince Frederick Henry of Orange, all now in the Alte Pinakothek in Munich (inv. no. 396).7 The figure at the upper centre can be recognized from the picture as Mary Magdalene, drawn twice in pen and ink, and at the bottom is a seated figure, drawn twice in red chalk, usually identified as the Virgin Mary, the mother of Christ.8 Two additional slight sketches in red chalk to the right of the centre represent a head and arms for a third figure; these might be related to the figure in the left foreground of the painting, who is also holding her hands in front of her breasts but in a different position.
Rembrandt probably received the commission for the series of paintings through the Prince’s secretary, Constantijn Huygens.9 It is the subject of two of the only seven letters by Rembrandt to have been preserved.10 In February 1636 Rembrandt wrote to Huygens that ‘The Entombment was more than half finished’,11 and on 12 January 1639, he reported: ‘My Lord, Because of the great zeal and devotion which I exercised in executing well the two pictures which His Highness commissioned me to make – the one being where Christ’s dead body is being laid in the tomb and the other where Christ arises from the dead to the great consternation of the guards – these same two pictures have now been finished through studious application, so that I am now also disposed to deliver the same and so to afford pleasure to His Highness, for in these two pictures the greatest and most natural emotion has been observed, which is also the main reason why they have been taken so long to execute.’12
The text inscribed by the artist at the top of the drawing has generally been interpreted to say that Christ shall be preserved in Mary’s heart as a blessed treasure to comfort her soul, filled with emotion.13 The phrase ‘filled with emotion’ agrees with the ‘greatest and most natural emotion’ that Rembrandt mentioned in his letter. He depicted this emotion in the painting as naturally and genuinely as possible, partially with the help of the drawing.
Rembrandt derived the figure of Mary Magdalene from a German printed prototype, apparently either the woodcut of The Lamentation of 1509 by Lucas Cranach (e.g. inv. no. RP-P-OB-4401)14 or, as Nadine Orenstein has suggested more recently, an engraving of the Road to Calvary by Martin Schongauer (e.g. inv. no. RP-P-OB-1015).15 Of Rembrandt’s two pen sketches of the Magdalene, the one at the bottom was drawn first. Its minute detail shows that he was working towards a form that he was to realize, more directly and clearly, only in the sketch above. The figures in red chalk – which would not necessarily have been recognized as female (much less as the mother of Christ), were it not for the connection with the painting – show how Rembrandt was attempting to find a pose for the seated woman with folded hands. The sketch at the lower left comes closest to the figure in the painting.
Because Rembrandt was working on this painting for a period of over three years, the present drawing cannot be precisely dated. It was most likely made in either late 1635 or early 1636, when he was starting work on the painting. Stylistically comparable drawings include the sketches made in connection with John the Baptist Preaching of circa 1635 in the Gemäldegalerie in Berlin (inv. no. 828 K);16
The motif of the veiled head of the Magdalene, looking downwards to the right, with her left hand raised, was adopted by Rembrandt’s pupil Willem Drost in a drawing of Ruth and Naomi in the Kunsthalle in Bremen (inv. no. 54/437).17 There is also a related pen-and-ink sketch of the head of Mary Magdalene by a follower of Rembrandt in the Fodor Collection of the Amsterdam Museum (inv. no. TA 10272).18
Peter Schatborn, 2017
Literature
W.R. Valentiner, Rembrandt: Die Meisters Handzeichnungen, 2 vols., Stuttgart and elsewhere 1925-34, II, no. 552 (c. 1633); O. Benesch, The Drawings of Rembrandt (rev. edn. by E. Benesch), 6 vols., London 1973 (orig. edn. 1954-57), no. 152 (c. 1637); P. Schatborn, Dutch Figure Drawings of the Seventeenth Century, exh. cat. Amsterdam (Rijksmuseum)/Washington (DC) (National Gallery of Art) 1981-82, no. 82; 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. 7, with earlier literature; S.A.C. Dudok van Heel et al., The Rembrandt Papers: Documents, Drawings and Prints, exh. cat. Amsterdam (Museum Het Rembrandthuis) 1987-88, no. 45; I.H. van Eeghen, ‘Review of S.A.C. Dudok van Heel et al., The Rembrandt Papers: Documents, Drawings and Prints, exh. cat. Amsterdam (Museum Het Rembrandthuis) 1987-88’, Maandblad Amstelodamum 75 (1988), no. 1, pp. 21-22; RRP III (1989), p. 276; M. Royalton-Kisch, ‘Rembrandt’s Drawing of The Entombment over the Raising of Lazarus’, Master Drawings 29 (1991), no. 3, pp. 263-83 (with addendum published as a letter, 30 (1992), no. 3, pp. 336-37), see pp. 278 and 280 (1635-36); M. Royalton-Kisch, Drawings by Rembrandt and his Circle in the British Museum, exh. cat. London 1992, p. 63, under no. 15, and p. 65, under no. 16; A. Röver-Kann, Rembrandt, oder nicht? Zeichnungen von Rembrandt und seinem Kreis aus den Hamburger und Bremer Kupferstichkabinetten, exh. cat. Bremen (Kunsthalle) 2000-01, p. 44, under no. 10, fig. d; C. Tümpel, ‘Jesus und die Ehebrecherin und Rembrandts Notizien auf Zeichnungen mit Historien’, in T. Vignau-Wilberg (ed.), The Munich Rembrandt Drawings: Rembrandt and his Followers, Drawings from Munich, exh. cat. Munich 2003, p. 166 from pp. 161-75, fig. 4; K.A. Schröder and M. Bisanz-Prakken (eds.), Rembrandt, exh. cat. Vienna (Graphische Sammlung Albertina) 2004, p. 230; J. Bikker, Willem Drost (1633-1659): A Rembrandt Pupil in Amsterdam and Venice, New Haven/London 2005, p. 54, under no. 1, fig. 1d; A.K. Wheelock Jr et al., Rembrandt’s Late Religious Portraits, exh. cat. Washington (DC) (National Gallery of Art) 2005, p. 118, fig. 3 (c. 1637); M. Schapelhouman, Rembrandt and the Art of Drawing, Amsterdam 2006, pp. 77-78, fig. 71; G. Schwartz, De grote Rembrandt, Zwolle 2006, p. 348, fig. 619; S. Slive, Rembrandt Drawings, Los Angeles 2009, p. 50, fig. 4.8; M.C. Barker, ‘A Disquieting Presence: The Virgin Mary in Rembrandt’s “Protestant” Art’, PhD diss., University of Auckland 2010, p. 59; M. Royalton-Kisch and P. Schatborn, ‘The Core Group of Rembrandt Drawings, II: The List’, Master Drawings 49 (2011), no. 3, pp. 323-46, no. 33; N.M. Orenstein, ‘Rembrandt Looks to Schongauer’, Journal of Historians of Netherlandish Art 5 (2013), no. 2 (online), p. 5, fig. 15; M. Royalton-Kisch, The Drawings of Rembrandt: A Revision of Otto Benesch’s Catalogue Raisonné (online), no. 0152, with further literature; G. Luijten et al., Drawings for Paintings in the Age of Rembrandt, exh. cat. Washington (DC) (National Gallery of Art)/Paris (Fondation Custodia) 2016-17, no. 65
Citation
P. Schatborn, 2017, 'Rembrandt van Rijn, Studies of the Magdalene and the Virgin Mourning, Amsterdam, 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.28126
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