Object data
pen and brown ink, with brown wash and opaque white, on paper toned with a light brown wash; later additions in pen and black ink; framing line in brown ink
height 177 mm × width 131 mm
Rembrandt van Rijn
Ahasuerus on his Throne
Amsterdam, c. 1635 - c. 1640
Inscriptions
-
inscribed on verso, on old mount: centre, in purple chalk (with the Hofstede de Groot cat. no.), 1284; lower right, in pencil, illegible (possibly notes concerning the mount)
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stamped on verso: centre (with the sheet turned upside down), with the mark of the museum (L. 2228)
Technical notes
Watermark: None visible through lining
Condition
Laid down on fragment of old mount; damage (bleeding and degradation of the paper) from iron-gall ink
Provenance
...; purchased from the dealer P. & D. Colnaghi, London, by Dr Cornelis Hofstede de Groot (1863-1930), The Hague, 1903;1 by whom donated to the museum, 1906, but kept in usufruct; transferred to the museum (L. 2228), 1930
Object number: RP-T-1930-38
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
As first identified by Otto Benesch, the drawing represents King Ahasuerus sitting on his throne wearing his royal robes and holding a knife in his right hand.2 The king, seated at a table, had just learned from his Jewish wife, Esther, that his confidant Haman has ordered the extermination of the Jews. Ahasuerus exploded in fury and eventually ordered Haman to be executed (Esther 7:1-10).
Neither Esther nor Haman is shown in the drawing; the king is depicted alone, as if sitting for a portrait. The model for the figure was probably the actor Willem Bartholsz Ruyter (see also inv. no. RP-T-1996-6). It was not unusual for Rembrandt to take one figure out of the context of a larger story. Ahasuerus is often portrayed with a sceptre, so the identification of the object in his hand as a knife is unusual. However, in a painting by Rembrandt’s student Aert de Gelder, in the National Gallery of Victoria in Melbourne (inv. no. 216-4),3 Ahasuerus is holding a knife in his hand, much larger and more obvious than in the drawing, so perhaps De Gelder borrowed this motif from Rembrandt.
Unfortunately, the drawing is in poor condition. The iron-gall ink has bled in several places and damaged the paper, and the opaque white pigment that Rembrandt used to cover the ink has turned yellow. The paper itself was firstly toned with a light brown wash, just as Rembrandt did in a number of drawings from his Leiden period (1625-31), a practice that Rembrandt took over from his teacher, Pieter Lastman, who used red chalk on yellow toned paper.4 Because the yellowish colour of Rembrandt’s paper is not as pronounced as it was with Lastman, it is often considered to be the result of discolouration rather than deliberate preparation, and thus often goes unmentioned.5
Besides using toned paper during his Leiden period, the technique of drawing on toned paper characterizes a group of documented works by Rembrandt from the second half of the 1630s, the period to which Ahasuerus on his Throne must belong. Two drawings from this group – one in the collection of Werner H. Kramarsky in New York, and the other in Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen Museum in Rotterdam (inv. no. MB 1958/T 32 verso)6 – were made in connection with Rembrandt’s etching Joseph Telling his Dreams from 1638 (e.g. inv. no. RP-P-OB-75).7 Two others, both in the British Museum in London, are related to works from circa 1639: the first (inv. no. 1891,0713.9)8 is a preparatory study for the painted portrait of Maria Trip in the Rijksmuseum (inv. no. SK-C-597),9 and the other (inv. no. Gg,2.248)10 was made in connection with the etching Artist Drawing a Model (e.g. inv. no. RP-P-1882-A-6184).11
Peter Schatborn, 2017
Literature
C. Hofstede de Groot, Die Handzeichnungen Rembrandts, Haarlem 1906, no. 1284 (c. 1635); 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. 13 (1633-34); O. Benesch, The Drawings of Rembrandt (rev. edn. by E. Benesch), 6 vols., London 1973 (orig. edn. 1954-57), no. 85 (1633-34); 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. 10, with earlier literature; M. Schapelhouman, Rembrandt and the Art of Drawing, Amsterdam 2006, p. 39, fig. 33; P. Schatborn and M. de Winkel, ‘Rembrandts portret van de acteur Willem Ruyter’, Bulletin van het Rijksmuseum 44 (1996), no. 4, p. 391 from pp. 382-93, fig. 6; M. Royalton-Kisch, The Drawings of Rembrandt: A Revision of Otto Benesch’s Catalogue Raisonné (online), no. 0085, with further literature
Citation
P. Schatborn, 2017, 'Rembrandt van Rijn, Ahasuerus on his Throne, 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.28130
(accessed 23 December 2024 19:17:21).