Rijksmuseum

Object data

pen and brown ink, with brown wash; framing line in brown ink

height 125 mm × width 187 mm

Inscriptions

stamped: lower right, with the mark of Mayor (L. 2799; effaced)
inscribed on verso, in pencil: centre, by Hofstede de Groot, f bisazem; lower centre, 232; lower right (with the 1906 Hofstede de Groot no.), 1304
stamped on verso: centre, with the mark of the museum (L. 2228); lower left, with the mark of Heyl zu Herrnsheim (L. 2879)

Technical notes

Watermark: None

Condition

Light foxing throughout

Provenance

...; collection William Mayor (? - 1874), London (L. 2799; effaced), by 1871;¹ ...; collection Freiherr Max von Heyl zu Herrnsheim (1844-1925), Darmstadt (L. 2870); his sale, Stuttgart (H.G. Gutekunst), 25 May 1903 sqq., no. 253, DM 1,510, 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-1930-58

Credit line: Gift of C. Hofstede de Groot, The Hague

Entry

The reclining lion, depicted from a slightly oblique angle, is rubbing its right forepaw over its muzzle. The animal is drawn in some detail in both ink and wash, its mane rendered with broad brushstrokes. A brush was also used to structure the body and to convey light, but the former is not convincing because it was too extensively ‘filled in’ with wash. The depiction of the ground and of a sort of door in the background is also unusual: Rembrandt’s drawings of lions show only a little shadow and hardly ever any indication of setting. The background wash dissolved some of the linear hints of a setting.

Because the animal has been so clumsily rendered, it prompts the question of whether this is a copy after Rembrandt or an original work by a school pupil. On balance, given the curious inclusion of a setting, the anatomical infelicities (the lion’s hind leg is too big and its ears too small) and the anecdotal gesture of the right paw (a motif that does not directly tie in with Rembrandt’s conception of the king of beasts as we know it from his autograph drawings), it seems likely that the drawing is the original work of an unknown student rather than a copy after Rembrandt. The same artist may have drawn the lion in the Amsterdam Museum (inv. no. TA 10286), which is attributed to Samuel van Hoogstraten (1627-1678).³

Peter Schatborn, 2018

Literature

C. Hofstede de Groot, Die Handzeichnungen Rembrandts, Haarlem 1906, no. 1304 (as Rembrandt); 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. 105 (as Rembrandt, c. 1650); Benesch 1973, no. C 57 (as Rembrandt, c. 1650); 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. 108, with earlier literature

Citation

(accessed 21 September 2024 13:41:39).

Reclining Lion with its Forepaw over its Muzzle