Object data
pen and brown ink, with opaque white, some areas deliberately rubbed with a finger or wet brush; framing line in brown ink
height 189 mm × width 280 mm
Rembrandt van Rijn
Annunciation to the Shepherds
Amsterdam, c. 1655
Inscriptions
Technical notes
Watermark: Countermark with letters, P(L)B
Condition
Light foxing throughout1
Provenance
...; collection Freiherr Karl Eduard von Liphart (1808-91), Tartu, Bonn and Florence; by descent to Freiherr Reinhold von Liphart (1864-1940), Rathshof, near Tartu (L. 1758); sale, Freiherr Karl Eduard von Liphart (1808-91, Tartu, Bonn and Florence), Leipzig (C.G. Boerner), 26 April 1898 sqq., no. 480, as Samuel van Hoogstraten (‘Die Verkündigung an der Hirten. Geistreiche Skizze in Sepia’), 21 DM, to Dr Cornelis Hofstede de Groot (1863-1930), The Hague;2 by whom donated to the museum, 1906, but kept in usufruct; transferred to the museum (L. 2228), 1930
Object number: RP-T-1930-21
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
After Rembrandt drew an Annunciation to the Shepherds as a vertical scene about 1650 (inv. no. RP-T-1930-20), he depicted it again in a horizontal format. The angel now appears on the left, as in an etching of 1634 (e.g. inv. no. RP-P-1962-19),3 and two of the three shepherds are kneeling and the third lets go of his staff, a motif that also appears in the etching. The figure partially visible behind the low hill at the centre raises his hands in the air, just as in the other drawn version. Here, however, the animals seem oblivious to the appearance of the angel: the sheep do not flee, but remain lying on the ground, and on the right a cow looks dimly the other way.
The handling of line is more regular, somewhat less sketchy than in the other drawing. Of the angel, only his head and hands are delineated – the rest of the figure is scarcely represented. The high mountains have also been very sketchily rendered with a series of short strokes. The figures and animals are set off against lightly shaded passages of fine, parallel hatching. In the hut on the left, the dark areas of shadow are increased by rubbing the ink, which was then partially covered with opaque white.
Compared to the 1634 etching and the vertical drawn rendering of the Annunciation, the horizontal composition is much calmer, with a less dramatic reaction of the shepherds and animals to the appearance of the angel. This suggests that it should be dated later than the other drawing, to about 1655.
Peter Schatborn, 2017
Literature
C. Hofstede de Groot, Die Handzeichnungen Rembrandts, Haarlem 1906, no. 1267 (c. 1650); W.R. Valentiner, Rembrandt: Die Meisters Handzeichnungen, 2 vols., Stuttgart and elsewhere 1925-34, I (1925), no. 291 (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. 65 (c. 1653); O. Benesch, The Drawings of Rembrandt (rev. edn. by E. Benesch), 6 vols., London 1973 (orig. edn. 1954-57), no. 1023 (1656-57); 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. 44, with earlier literature; M. Schapelhouman, Rembrandt and the Art of Drawing, Amsterdam 2006, pp. 98 and 100, fig. 96
Citation
P. Schatborn, 2017, 'Rembrandt van Rijn, Annunciation to the Shepherds, Amsterdam, c. 1655 - 1655', in J. Turner (ed.), Drawings by Rembrandt and his School in the Rijksmuseum, online coll. cat. Amsterdam: hdl.handle.net/10934/RM0001.COLLECT.28562
(accessed 23 November 2024 19:44:19).