Object data
reed pen and brown ink; framing line in black chalk
height 110 mm × width 105 mm
Willem Drost (attributed to)
An Old Woman, and the Head of a Man
Amsterdam, c. 1650 - c. 1655
Inscriptions
-
inscribed on verso, in pencil: upper centre, by Hofstede de Groot, fzba; lower right (with the 1942 Henkel no.), H. 90; below that (with the 1906 Hofstede de Groot no.), 1294
-
stamped on verso: centre, with the mark of the museum (L. 2228)
Technical notes
Watermark: None
Condition
Light foxing throughout1
Provenance
...; collection Paul Mathey (1844-1929), Paris;2 ? his sale, Paris (M. Delestre and P. Roblin), 18 May 1901, no. 63, as Rembrandt; …; purchased from the dealer P. Roblin, Paris, as Rembrandt, with five other drawings, by Dr Cornelis Hofstede de Groot (1863-1930), The Hague, 1901;3 by whom donated to the museum, 1906, but kept in usufruct; transferred to the museum (L. 2228), 1930
Object number: RP-T-1930-48
Credit line: Gift of Dr C. Hofstede de Groot, The Hague
Copyright: Public domain
The artist
Willem Drost (Amsterdam 1633 - Venice 1659)
He was baptized in the Nieuwe Kerk, Amsterdam, on 19 April 1633.4 Houbraken mentions that he was a pupil of Rembrandt and that he worked in Rome for a long time.5 Before he entered Rembrandt’s workshop, probably at the end of the 1640s, he may have studied under Rembrandt’s pupil Samuel van Hoogstraten (1627-1678) in the mid-1640s. After Drost left Amsterdam for Italy, where he is documented in Venice from 1655, he abandoned his Rembrandtesque manner and adopted the powerful chiaroscuro style of the Venetian tenebrists. He may have worked only briefly in Rome, but was mostly active in Venice, where he trained Johann Carl Loth (1632–1698), among others, and he is now known to have died there from pneumonia in 1659, at the age of only 25.6 The rediscovery of his burial record in Venice on 25 February 1659 means that many painted works with later dates traditionally ascribed to him have recently been removed from his oeuvre. On the basis of his choice of subject and style, the majority of his drawings seem to have originated during his apprenticeship in Amsterdam under Rembrandt.
Entry
Seidlitz was the first to doubt the attribution of the present drawing to Rembrandt, followed by Henkel in 1942. The drawing shows weaknesses, such as the mask-like face of the old man at the upper left of the sheet and the clumsily drawn hands of the seated old woman. Schatborn compared the drawing style to Girl Leaning on the Bottom Half of a Dutch Door and Sketches of her Head (inv. no. RP-T-1930-50), and attributed both sheets to Drost.7 Characteristic in these drawings are the precise, convincingly drawn lines, which are – according to Schatborn –typical for the artist’s later works. Drost’s customary areas of hatching are missing in the female figure, but are present in moderation on the inside of the man’s headcloth.
Schatborn further suggested that the head of the old man (in reverse) may have been taken from Rembrandt’s drawing of Nathan Admonishing David in the Kupferstichkabinett, Berlin (KdZ 5255).8 A second version of this drawing is in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York (inv. no. 29.100.934).9 That work, which is still considered autograph on the museum’s website, was described as a school piece by Bevers in 2006. Interestly, the head of the bearded old man in the Rijksmuseum study is closer to the figure of Nathan in the New York drawing than that in Berlin. Could the New York version, in fact, be an original drawing by Drost, inspired by the Berlin version? The model for the other figure in the Amsterdam sheet was probably taken from one of Rembrandt’s paintings of old women of the 1650s (e.g. Old Woman Reading in the collection of the Duke of Buccleuch and Queensberry, Drumlanrig Castle, near Thornhill, Dumfries and Galloway).10
Bonny van Sighem, 2000/Marleen Ram, 2018
Literature
Tentoonstelling van teekeningen van Oude Hollandsche meesters uit de verzameling van Dr. Corn. Hofstede de Groot, exh. cat. The Hague (Haagsche Kunstkring) 1902-03, no. 46 (as Rembrandt); Rembrandt-Hulde te Leiden. Schilderijen en teekeningen van Rembrandt en van schilderijen van andere Leidsche Meesters der Zeventiende Eeuw, exh. cat. Leiden (Stedelijk Museum De Lakenhal) 1906, no. 69 (as Rembrandt); C. Hofstede de Groot, Die Handzeichnungen Rembrandts, Haarlem 1906, no. 1294 (as Rembrandt, c. 1654); W. von Seidlitz, ‘Die Sammlung der Rembrandt-Zeichnungen von Dr. C. Hofstede de Groot im Haag’, Zeitschrift für Bildende Kunst, N.S. 28 (1917), p. 253 (as Rembrandt pupil or follower); 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. 90 (possibly by a Rembrandt pupil), with earlier literature; O. Benesch, Rembrandt: Ausstellung im 350. Geburtsjahr des Meister, exh. cat. Vienna (Graphische Sammlung Albertina) 1956, no. 121 (as Rembrandt); O. Benesch, The Drawings of Rembrandt (rev. edn. by E. Benesch), 6 vols., London 1973 (orig. edn. 1954-57), no. 1097, and p. 311, under no. 1164 (as Rembrandt); P. Schatborn, ‘Tekeningen van Rembrandts leerlingen’, Bulletin van het Rijksmuseum 33 (1985), no. 2, pp. 102-3, fig. 20; W.W. Robinson, ‘Review of P. Schatborn, Drawings by Rembrandt, his Anonymous Pupils and Followers, The Hague 1985’, Kunstchronik 41 (1988), p. 584; G.C. Sciolla, Da Leonardo a Rembrandt: Disegni della Biblioteca Reale di Torino, exh. cat. Turin (Palazzo Reale) 1990, p. 354, under no. 146; H. Bevers, P. Schatborn and B. Welzel, Rembrandt, the Master and his Workshop: Drawings and Etchings, exh. cat. Berlin (Kupferstichkabinett) and elsewhere 1991-92, p. 142, under no. 45, n. 3
Citation
(accessed 13 November 2024 03:41:25).