Jacob Blessing Ephraim and Manasseh, the Sons of Joseph

Entry

This scene shows Joseph, seated in bed, with his son Joseph and his grandchildren Manasseh and Ephraim (Genesis 48:13-20). With a gesture of his left hand, Joseph confronts his father, who, according to the Bible, laid his hand in blessing not on the head of the oldest son, Manasseh, but on the head of the youngest, Ephraim. We can see in the expression on Joseph’s face that he disapproved of his father’s choice. Jacob says that Manasseh shall become a tribe but that Ephraim’s tribe shall surpass him and that his descendants shall become a multitude of nations.

There are two examples of this same composition in the Rijksprentenkabinet; for the other, which was trimmed at the bottom, see inv. no. RP-T-1905-263. Two additional versions of it are known: one formerly in the collection of Bernard Houthakker, Amsterdam,² and the other one formerly in the collection of Luigi Grassi in Florence (1924),³ possibly the version later in a private collection in England.⁴ Since both Amsterdam drawings and the presumed ex-Grassi sketch were executed only with a pen, we can conclude that the grey wash on the drawing from the Houthakker collection was added later. The existence of several examples of exactly the same depiction makes it clear that drawings in Rembrandt’s studio were often copied as training exercises by his pupils and followers.

The style of the drawings resembles Rembrandt’s draughtsmanship of the mid-to-late 1630s, when Jan Victors was his apprentice (c. 1637-39 or possibly as early as 1635).⁵ Victors seems to have adapted the composition in two of his paintings, one now in the Muzeum Lazienki Królewskie w Warszawie, Warsaw (formerly in the Muzeum Narodowe, inv. no. M.Ob.37 MNW), and the other in the Museum of Fine Arts, Budapest (inv. no. 1344).⁶ Given this connection, Victors’ name has been associated in the past with both drawings. Sumowski assumed that the present sheet was an original by Victors,⁷ while Benesch considered inv. no. RP-T-1905-263 to be a copy by Victors after Rembrandt.⁸ Most authors, however, regard the drawing formerly in the Houthakker collection as the original, but this, too, has been doubted.⁹

Which version might have been the original prototype is difficult to establish, especially since we do not know the present whereabouts of the ex-Grassi and ex-Houthakker drawings. It seems certain that the present sheet is a copy, given its black chalk underdrawing, and the version in an English private collection in 1987 – of even lesser quality – seems to be a copy after it. This leaves us with inv. no. RP-T-1905-263 and the ex-Houthakker drawing, which is compromised by the addition of later wash. Both have awkward passages, for instance, in the relationship of the two men’s hands, where what looks like a cuff on Jacob’s right wrist is apparently the fingers of Joseph’s right hand. It is also unclear how Jacob is supported. Is he in bed? Is he standing? Is he seated on a high-backed chair? Where is the lower half of his body? On balance, the Amsterdam sheet is the most likely prototype. In any case, the confused details in this drawn composition seem to have been resolved in different ways in both painted versions.

Peter Schatborn, 2018