Rijksmuseum

Object data

pen and brown ink, on thin paper toned with light brown wash; framing line in brown and grey ink

height 61 mm × width 91 mm

Inscriptions

inscribed on verso: upper centre (with the sheet oriented upside down), by Hofstede de Groot, in pencil, T 97 290 and VV / h. 31 / b. 91
stamped on verso: centre, with the mark of the museum (L. 2228)

Technical notes

Watermark: None

Provenance

...; sale, Hendrik Valkenburg (1836-96, Amsterdam), Amsterdam (H.G. Tersteeg and F. Muller), 2 February 1897, no. 156, as Rembrandt, with four other drawings, fl. 68.20 for all, to the dealer H.J. Valk for the museum (L. 2228)

Object number: RP-T-1897-A-3476

Entry

The two sketches depict a small child wearing a head protector, seated at a table. This type of hat was in general use in the seventeenth century for toddlers who were learning to walk: it was intended to cushion their heads when they fell.

The figures have been very sketchily drawn with extremely fine lines and small accents. There is no hatching except in the neck of the child on the left. The sketchy quality is so pronounced that in a few places there is hardly any feeling of form. Rembrandt’s sureness of touch in the rendering of faces is missing here: the face of the child on the right has been so lightly indicated that it is hardly visible and the other face has also been drawn with some hesitation. Whatever is lying on the table in front of the child is not clearly indicated, perhaps the child’s hand. The paper is rather thin, but not as thin as the paper Rembrandt used for Four Men Standing, Wearing Hats (inv. no. RP-T-1930-55). A precise dating of the present sheet is not easy to establish, but probably it was made in the 1630s or somewhat later.

Peter Schatborn, 2018

Literature

C. Hofstede de Groot, Die Handzeichnungen Rembrandts, Haarlem 1906, no. 1197 (as Rembrandt); 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. 27 (as Rembrandt, c. 1643); O. Benesch, The Drawings of Rembrandt (rev. edn. by E. Benesch), 6 vols., London 1973 (orig. edn. 1954-57), no. 683 (as Rembrandt, c. 1642-43); 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. 99, with earlier literature

Citation

P. Schatborn, 2018, 'school of Rembrandt van Rijn, Two Busts of a Child Wearing a Head Protector, Amsterdam, c. 1630 - c. 1645', in J. Turner (ed.), Drawings by Rembrandt and his School in the Rijksmuseum, online coll. cat. Amsterdam: hdl.handle.net/10934/RM0001.COLLECT.545203

(accessed 31 December 2024 00:34:44).