Object data
pen and brown ink, some areas deliberately rubbed with a finger or wet brush; framing line in brown ink
height 171 mm × width 224 mm
Rembrandt van Rijn
Expulsion of Hagar and Ishmael
Amsterdam, c. 1650
Inscriptions
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inscribed: lower left, in brown ink (partially effaced), Rembrandt
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stamped: lower right (effaced), with the mark of Van Suchtelen (L. 2332)
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inscribed on verso: centre, in pencil (with the sheet turned 90°), 2; below this, in blue pencil, 11.
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stamped on verso: centre, with the mark of the museum (L. 2228)
Technical notes
Watermark: Foolscap
Condition
Tears, upper centre; light foxing throughout1
Provenance
...; collection Graaf Jan Pieter van Suchtelen (1751-1836), St Petersburg (L. 2332); ...; collection Remigius Adrianus Haanen [van Haanen] (1812-94), Vienna;2 ? his student Hermine Lang-Laris (1842-1913), Munich; from whom purchased, with nine other drawings, by Dr Cornelis Hofstede de Groot (1863-1930), The Hague, 1900;3 by whom donated to the museum, 1906, but kept in usufruct; transferred to the museum (L. 2228), 1930
Object number: RP-T-1930-2
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
Having long been barren, Sarah gave her husband, Abraham, a second wife, Hagar. However, once Sarah gave birth to Isaac in her old age, she could no longer stand the presence of Abraham and Hagar’s son, Ishmael – she did not want him to share in Abraham’s inheritance – so she forced Abraham to send Hagar and Ishmael into the desert (Genesis 21:1-13). After God told him that he would make a nation for both Isaac and Ishmael, Abraham relented: ‘And Abraham rose up early in the morning, and took bread, and a bottle of water, and gave it unto Hagar, putting it on her shoulder, and the child, and sent her away: and she departed, and wandered in the wilderness of Beersheba’ (Genesis 21:14).
In the drawing, Abraham stands in front of the palace, taking leave of Hagar and their son. A dog follows them faithfully. In the background, Sarah is watching from behind the balustrade, her son, Isaac, just visible beside her. The figures have been built up with fine, broken lines and subtle hatching, dark accents and highlights being made by smudging the ink, probably with the finger. Hagar’s profile expresses sorrow and resignation. Abraham, partially hidden behind Hagar with his head close to hers, lays his hand on Ishmael’s head in blessing. He is reluctant to let him go, which Rembrandt has expressed in the quiet sorrow on his face. Ishmael is depicted as a hunter with a bow and quiver, which refers to a later verse in the story (Genesis 21:20).
The earliest known drawing by Rembrandt of the Expulsion of Hagar and Ishmael, in the Albertina in Vienna (inv. no. 8766),4 was copied from a painting of 1612 by his teacher, Pieter Lastman, now in the Hamburger Kunsthalle in Hamburg (inv. no. HK-191).5 In 1637 Rembrandt signed and dated an etching of the theme, in which the action takes place by the door of Abraham’s house (e.g. inv. no. RP-P-OB-56).6 The scene is also set by the entrance in two later drawings, both in the British Museum in London (inv. nos. 1860,0616.121 and 1910,0212.175).7 The placement of the figures in them is approximately the same as in the Amsterdam drawing, where, however, the three figures are seen as one shape, and Rembrandt has created more distance between the close-knit group and the building. Abraham’s gesture and the expression on his face lay stress on his son’s departure, whereas in the other two drawings Abraham looks at Hagar. In none of these works did Rembrandt reveal the expression on Ishmael’s face, which is always turned away.
The four drawings by Rembrandt are all from different stylistic periods. The copy after Lastman dates from the 1630s, the Amsterdam drawing is from about 1650 and the two London drawings are from the mid-1640s and mid-1650s, respectively.8 This subject was very popular among Rembrandt’s pupils and Rembrandt’s versions played an important role as models.9
Peter Schatborn, 2017
Literature
C. Hofstede de Groot, Die Handzeichnungen Rembrandts, Haarlem 1906, no. 1247; W.R. Valentiner, Rembrandt: Die Meisters Handzeichnungen, 2 vols., Stuttgart and elsewhere 1925-34, I (1925), no. 27 (c. 1648-50); 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. 59 (1650-52); O. Benesch, The Drawings of Rembrandt (rev. edn. by E. Benesch), 6 vols., London 1973 (orig. edn. 1954-57), no. 916 (c. 1652-53); 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. 40, with earlier literature; M. de Bazelaire and E. Starcky, Rembrandt et son école: Dessins du Musée du Louvre, exh. cat. Paris 1988-89, p. 64, under no. 56; M. Schapelhouman, Rembrandt and the Art of Drawing, Amsterdam 2006, pp. 102-03, fig. 99; R. Verdi, Rembrandt’s Themes: Life into Art, New Haven/London 2014, p. 185, fig. 168; H. Bevers, with a contribution by G.J. Dietz and A. Penz, Zeichnungen der Rembrandtschule im Berliner Kupferstichkabinett, coll. cat. Berlin 2018, p. 62, under no. 28.
Citation
P. Schatborn, 2017, 'Rembrandt van Rijn, Expulsion of Hagar and Ishmael, Amsterdam, c. 1650', in J. Turner (ed.), Drawings by Rembrandt and his School in the Rijksmuseum, online coll. cat. Amsterdam: hdl.handle.net/10934/RM0001.COLLECT.28558
(accessed 15 November 2024 15:45:23).