Houses and Trees on a Dike / verso: Haman before Ahasuerus

Watermark: None

Pieces of paper added at the upper left and right corners

...; collection Jacob de Vos Jbzn (1803-78), Amsterdam (L. 1450), by 1877;¹¹Vosmaer 1877A, p. 535 his widow, Abrahamina Henrietta de Vos-Wurfbain (1808-83), Amsterdam; his sale, Amsterdam (C.F. Roos et al.), 22 May 1883 sqq., no. 395, as Rembrandt, fl. 410, to the dealer R.W.P. de Vries for the Vereniging Rembrandt (L. 2135);²²According to an inscription on the drawing; copy RKD. from whom on loan to the museum, 1883; from whom, with 166 other drawings, fl. 5,049 for all, to the museum (L. 2228), 1889

ObjectNumber: RP-T-1889-A-2042(R)

Credit line: Purchased with the support of the Vereniging Rembrandt

A few houses and trees are situated along a low-lying dike. Below the dike there is a path with two figures on the left and a fence in the background. The pen lines are somewhat repetitive: the same loops for the leaves, the same regular horizontal and vertical hatching for shadows and the same strong vertical lines in the fence. The houses and trees have been extensively washed.

On the verso (fig. a, inv. no. RP-T-1889-A-2042(V)) are two rapidly drawn pen figures, which have been identified as Ahasuerus and Haman. Although both sketches are clumsy, the unknown artist was more successful at rendering landscapes than figures. He was probably a Rembrandt pupil who specialized in landscapes. The name of Abraham Furnerius (1628-1654) has been mentioned,³³W. Wegner, ‘Bemerkungen zu Zeichnungen Rembrandts und seiner Schule in der Albertina’, Albertina-Studien 5/6 (1967-68). but the attribution is not completely convincing. There are a few drawings sometimes ascribed to Furnerius that show figures as stiffly drawn as Ahasuerus and Haman in the present example,⁴⁴For example, David and Goliath, formerly in the collection of Friedrich August II, Dresden; Sumowski, Drawings, IV (1981), no. 1035**. and yet they are more powerfully and extensively worked out. The style of the drawing and the extensive use of wash indicate a date in the 1640s.

Peter Schatborn, 2018

M.D. Henkel, Catalogus van de Nederlandsche teekeningen in het Rijksmuseum te Amsterdam, I: Teekeningen van Rembrandt en zijn school, coll. cat. Amsterdam 1942, nos. 121-22 (as Rembrandt); W. Wegner, ‘Bemerkungen zu Zeichnungen Rembrandts und seiner Schule in der Albertina’, Albertina-Studien 5/6 (1967-68), p. 53 (as Abraham Furnerius); 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. 115, with earlier literature

P. Schatborn, 2018, 'school of Rembrandt van Rijn, Houses and Trees on a Dike / verso: Haman before Ahasuerus, Amsterdam, c. 1640 - c. 1650', in J. Turner (ed.), Drawings by Rembrandt and his School in the Rijksmuseum, online coll. cat. Amsterdam: hdl.handle.net/10934/RM0001.COLLECT.28637