Reclining Lion / recto: Reclining Lion

Entry

The lion on the verso, which is seen in profile to the right, is rendered mainly with sketchy contours. The forms within these contours are only roughly indicated. Several lines on the recto and verso have been corrected with opaque white. A few lines on the front have also been covered with yellowish-brown, but probably not by the artist himself.¹ The staring lion on the recto (fig. a, inv. no. RP-T-1948-408(R)) of this double-sided sheet is drawn with strong lines, both large and small, and with a great deal of hatching – some of which is very regular, but the sheer quantity of strokes gives the drawing a messy appearance. Neither the rough, but thorough drawing style of the recto, nor the messy, sketchy style of the verso are characteristic of Rembrandt. The lions were probably drawn by a pupil or follower. It has also been suggested that the drawings were made by Rembrandt and a pupil together, in which case it is impossible to tell the work of the one from the other.²

The inscription on the verso was written by Cornelis Ploos van Amstel (1726-1798), who thought that Rembrandt was born in Leiderdorp. In the 1800 sale catalogue of his collection, there are 14 sketches of lions listed under Rembrandt’s name.³ Only four of these are now known, and none of them is still considered to be by Rembrandt. Three quarters of a century earlier, 19 drawings of lions were included in the catalogue of circa 1722 of the art dealer and broker Jan Pietersz. Zomer (1641-1724), who did not have the best reputation.⁴ They were listed in his Album 38, which also contained small figure sketches (e.g. inv. no. RP-T-1930-55). Considering the fact that Zomer’s collection contained so many lions, it is perhaps not completely coincidental that there are so many dubious Rembrandt drawings of these animals.

In 1729 the Recueil de lions was published with etchings by Bernard Picart (1673-1733), for which he used 17 drawings which were then attributed to Rembrandt (see also inv. no. RP-T-1901-A-4525 and RP-T-1889-A-2044.⁵ It is, of course, possible and perhaps even probable that the drawings that Picart reproduced were the same ones that had been in the Zomer collection seven years earlier. Those drawings of lions that have come to light with a Ploos provenance, including the museum’s drawing, are all in some way different from the Picart prints. The head and forelegs of the lion on the verso resemble the museum’s autograph pen drawing of a lion (inv. no. RP-T-1901-A-4524). The drawings on both sides of this sheet may have been sketched by a pupil in the same period as Rembrandt’s lion, that is, circa 1660.

Peter Schatborn, 2018