Object data
pen and brown ink
height 134 mm × width 104 mm
Rembrandt van Rijn
Five Studies of Haman’s Head in Profile
Amsterdam, c. 1655 - c. 1660
Inscriptions
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stamped: lower left, with the mark of Lawrence (L. 2445)
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inscribed on verso: upper centre, by Hofstede de Groot, in pencil, f bozesdi; centre, in pencil, D 2-.R.50.h; 221.; lower centre, in pencil, 221; below that, by Esdaile, in brown ink, 1835 WE. Rembrandt (L. 2617)
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stamped on verso: centre (with the sheet turned upside down), with the mark of the museum (L. 2228); lower left, with the mark of Heyl zu Herrnsheim (L. 2879)
Technical notes
Watermark: Fragment of a Strasbourg lily
Condition
Light foxing throughout
Provenance
...; collection Sir Thomas Lawrence (1769-1830), London (L. 2445); from whom, en bloc, £16,000, to the dealer Samuel Woodburn (1786-1853), London, 1835;1 ? from whom, with 99 other drawings by Rembrandt, £1,500, to William Esdaile (1758-1837), London (L. 2617), 1835;2 his sale, London (Christie’s), 17 June 1840, no. 5 (‘Heads of the Saviour. Studies’), with one other drawing, £0.12.0, to the dealer Samuel Woodburn, London;3 ...; collection Freiherr Max von Heyl zu Herrnsheim (1844-1925), Darmstadt (L. 2879); his sale, Stuttgart (H.G. Gutekunst), 25 May 1903 sqq., no. 242, 340 DM, to Dr Cornelis Hofstede de Groot (1863-1930), The Hague;4 by whom donated to the museum, 1906, but kept in usufruct; transferred to the museum (L. 2228), 1930
Object number: RP-T-1930-16
Credit line: Gift of C. Hofstede de Groot, The Hague
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
In five separate studies, Rembrandt drew the head of a bearded man with long hair and a headband. The man’s head is bent forward and his eyes are closed. Only the study at the upper left includes part of the figure’s upper arm and back. A few lines to the left of the face give a sketchy indication of the hands; this can also be seen in the version at the lower left. The sheet must once have been larger, since several lines are cut off at the edge of the paper. In two of the sketches, the band around the man’s head was worked out in greater detail: in the lower left version, it almost seems like a kerchief, and in the version in the middle we see what looks like a knot behind the head. The lines are varied in tone and have been drawn with very little ink. The half-dry pen lines are a subtle, but effective means of achieving three-dimensionality, and the small strokes near the eyes, for example, play an important role in the rendering of the face.
Previously thought to represent Mordecai, the figure in the sketches is now considered to be related to the figure of Haman in the painting of Haman before Esther in the National Museum of Art of Romania in Bucharest (inv. no. 8187/221),5 in which Haman is being condemned while kneeling before Ahasuerus and Esther. In the painting, the kneeling man also wears a headband, albeit pushed further back on the head. The painting, no longer accepted as by Rembrandt, was reattributed to his student Jan Victors by Horst Gerson. There is also a similarity to the kneeling wise man in the Adoration of the Magi in the British Royal Collection in Buckingham Palace in London (inv. no. RCIN 405350),6 which is also a school work even though it bears a false signature and date, Rembrandt f 1657.
Based on its relationship to the painting in Bucharest, the Amsterdam drawing has also been attributed to a pupil of Rembrandt.7 There is, however, great similarity in style and expression to an autograph drawing by Rembrandt, God the Father Supported by Angels, in the National Gallery of Art in Washington (DC) (inv. no. 1942.9.666), dated 1655-60.8 The relationship between these works shows that a bearded figure type developed by Rembrandt was used for many purposes, by himself as well as by his pupils. The attribution of the drawing of the five heads is thus based solely on stylistic similarities to other works convincingly given to Rembrandt.
Peter Schatborn, 2017
Literature
C. Hofstede de Groot, Die Handzeichnungen Rembrandts, Haarlem 1906, no. 1261 (c. 1665); W.R. Valentiner, Rembrandt: Die Meisters Handzeichnungen, 2 vols., Stuttgart and elsewhere 1925-34, I (1925), no. 203 (c. 1655); M.D. Henkel, Catalogus van de Nederlandsche teekeningen in het Rijksmuseum te Amsterdam, I: Teekeningen van Rembrandt en zijn school, coll. cat. The Hague 1942, no. 35 (c. 1655-56); O. Benesch, The Drawings of Rembrandt (rev. edn. by E. Benesch), 6 vols., London 1973 (orig. edn. 1954-57), no. 1005 (c. 1656); 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. The Hague 1985, no. 47, with earlier literature; M. Royalton-Kisch, Drawings by Rembrandt and his Circle in the British Museum, exh. cat. London 1992, p. 207, under no. 100; M. Schapelhouman, Rembrandt and the Art of Drawing, Amsterdam 2006, pp. 85-86, fig. 85; S. Slive, Rembrandt Drawings, Los Angeles 2009, pp. 50-51, fig. 4.9; M. Royalton-Kisch, Catalogue of Drawings by Rembrandt and his School in the British Museum, coll. cat. (online 2010), Willem Drost, under no. 3
Citation
P. Schatborn, 2017, 'Rembrandt van Rijn, Five Studies of Haman’s Head in Profile, Amsterdam, c. 1655 - c. 1660', in J. Turner (ed.), Drawings by Rembrandt and his School in the Rijksmuseum, online coll. cat. Amsterdam: hdl.handle.net/10934/RM0001.COLLECT.28566
(accessed 15 November 2024 16:50:08).