Object data
pen and brown ink; framing lines in brown ink over traces of black chalk
height 177 mm × width 159 mm
Rembrandt van Rijn
One of the Three Kings Adoring the Virgin and Child
Amsterdam, c. 1635 - c. 1640
Inscriptions
-
stamped: lower right (effaced), with the mark of Van Suchtelen (L. 2332)
-
inscribed on verso: centre, in blue pencil, 3; lower left, in blue pencil, 24; above that, in pencil, 38; lower centre, in pencil (with the Hofstede de Groot cat. no.), 1268; above that, by Hofstede de Groot, in pencil, fl lolpjje
Technical notes
Watermark: None visible through lining.
Condition
Laid down; light foxing throughout1
Provenance
...; collection Graaf Jan Pieter van Suchtelen (1751-1836), St Petersburg (L. 2332); ? his sale, Paris (Delbergue-Cormont), 4 June 1862, no. 132 (‘P. Rembrandt. Tête d’homme, etc. Très-jolis dessins à la pierre noire et lavis. (Même collection [Collection du comte Suchtelen]).’); ...; 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-1930-22
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
The three wise men came from the East to Bethlehem where the king of the Jews was born (Matthew 2:1-12). Representations of the Adoration of the Magi generally show three kings and Joseph, but here Rembrandt has drawn only one king who kneels in prayer before the Virgin and Child. The infant is not sitting in the Virgin’s lap with regal dignity but is held up by his mother in a very natural, lifelike manner. Rembrandt borrowed the figure of the king from a painting of the Adoration of the Magi of 1621 by Rubens, now in the Musée des Beaux-Arts in Lyon (inv. no. A 118),4 which he knew from a reproductive print, in the same sense, by an unknown artist, published by C.J. Visscher (e.g. inv. no. RP-P-OB-75.249);5 this print was a copy of another print, in reverse to Rubens’s original, by Lucas Vorsterman.6 The pose of this figure (seen in profile to the right), the precise folds of his robe, not to mention the pair of parallel lines indicating the tonsure on his scalp, have all been taken from the print. In the print, the king kisses the Infant Christ’s foot, and the position of the hands of the king in Rembrandt’s drawing also reflects this gesture. Other sources show that Rembrandt knew this print.7
The drawing was begun with fine lines in dark brown ink, then developed with heavy, broad accents that define the shapes more clearly. In several places, the iron-gall ink has bled and eaten into the paper. There is very little hatching to indicate shadow except on the inside of the veil over the Virgin’s head, where it has been very regularly and carefully drawn. A combination of sketchiness and precision can be seen in nearly all of Rembrandt’s drawings.
A school version of the present composition surfaced in a sale in 2004.8 Moreover, the individual motif of the veil over Mary’s head was also used by Rembrandt’s student Ferdinand Bol in his painting of Judah and Tamar (1644), which is now in the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston (inv. no. 17.3268).9 This motif also occurs in a drawing of a man and a woman seated at a table, formerly in the collection of Curtis O. Baer in New Rochelle (NY),10 for which an attribution to Bol cannot be excluded.
Peter Schatborn, 2017
Literature
C. Hofstede de Groot, Die Handzeichnungen Rembrandts, Haarlem 1906, no. 1268 (1657); W.R. Valentiner, Rembrandt: Die Meisters Handzeichnungen, 2 vols., Stuttgart and elsewhere 1925-34, I (1925), no. 302 (c. 1637); 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. 42 (1638-39); O. Benesch, The Drawings of Rembrandt (rev. edn. by E. Benesch), 6 vols., London 1973 (orig. edn. 1954-57), no. 115 (c. 1635); 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. 9, with earlier literature; B.P.J. Broos, Rembrandt and his Sources, exh. cat. Amsterdam (Museum Het Rembrandthuis) 1985-86, no. 24; J. Giltaij, The Drawings by Rembrandt and his School in the Museum Boymans-van Beuningen, coll. cat. Rotterdam 1988, p. 46, under no. 6; M. Royalton-Kisch, Drawings by Rembrandt and his Circle in the British Museum, exh. cat. London 1992, p. 86, under no. 30; K.A. Schröder and M. Bisanz-Prakken (eds.), Rembrandt, exh. cat. Vienna (Graphische Sammlung Albertina) 2004, p. 42, fig. 2; M. Schapelhouman, Rembrandt and the Art of Drawing, Amsterdam 2006, pp. 17-18, fig. 12; P. Schatborn, Rembrandt and his Circle: Drawings in the Frits Lugt Collection, 2 vols., coll. cat. Paris 2010, p. 56, under no. 11; M. Royalton-Kisch, The Drawings of Rembrandt: A Revision of Otto Benesch’s Catalogue Raisonné (online), no. 0115, with further literature; P. Schatborn, E. Starcky and P. Curie (eds.), Rembrandt intime, exh. cat. Paris (Musée Jacquemart-André) 2016-17, no. 32
Citation
P. Schatborn, 2017, 'Rembrandt van Rijn, One of the Three Kings Adoring the Virgin and Child, Amsterdam, c. 1635 - c. 1640', in J. Turner (ed.), Drawings by Rembrandt and his School in the Rijksmuseum, online coll. cat. Amsterdam: hdl.handle.net/10934/RM0001.COLLECT.28129
(accessed 13 November 2024 03:36:48).