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Temptation of Christ
anonymous, after c. 1650 - after c. 1655
- Artwork typedrawing
- Object numberRP-T-1889-A-2062
- Dimensionsheight 88 mm x width 118 mm
- Physical characteristicsreed pen and brown ink, with light grey wash, over traces of black chalk; framing line in pen and dark grey ink
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Identification
Title(s)
Temptation of Christ
Object type
Object number
RP-T-1889-A-2062
Part of catalogue
Catalogue reference
Benesch A88
Creation
Creation
- print maker: anonymous
- after drawing by Willem Drost
- after drawing by Rembrandt van Rijn [rejected attribution]
Dating
after c. 1650 - after c. 1655
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Material and technique
Physical description
reed pen and brown ink, with light grey wash, over traces of black chalk; framing line in pen and dark grey ink
Dimensions
height 88 mm x width 118 mm
Acquisition and rights
Credit line
Purchased with the support of the Vereniging Rembrandt
Acquisition
purchase 1889-07-24
Copyright
Provenance
…; collection Jacob de Vos Jbzn (1803-78), Amsterdam (L. 1450); his widow, Abrahamina Henrietta de Vos-Wurfbain (1808-83), Amsterdam; his sale, Amsterdam (C.F. Roos et al.), 22 May 1883 sqq., no. 424, as Rembrandt, with fifteen other drawings, fl. 480 for all, to the dealer J.H. Balfoort for the Vereniging Rembrandt (L. 2135);{According to an inscription on the drawing; copy RKD.} from whom on loan to the museum, 1883; from whom, fl. 5,049, with 166 other drawings, to the museum (L. 2228), 1889
Documentation
Persistent URL
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anonymous, after Willem Drost
Temptation of Christ
after c. 1650 - after c. 1655
Inscriptions
inscribed on verso; upper left, in blue pencil (with the sheet turned 90°), 36; upper right, in pencil (with the 1883 De Vos sale no.), de Vos 424; lower right, in pencil (with the 1906 Hofstede de Groot no.), 1174
Technical notes
Watermark: Foolscap
Condition
Foxing on the upper half of the sheet
Provenance
…; collection Jacob de Vos Jbzn (1803-78), Amsterdam (L. 1450); his widow, Abrahamina Henrietta de Vos-Wurfbain (1808-83), Amsterdam; his sale, Amsterdam (C.F. Roos et al.), 22 May 1883 sqq., no. 424, as Rembrandt, with fifteen other drawings, fl. 480 for all, to the dealer J.H. Balfoort for the Vereniging Rembrandt (L. 2135);1According to an inscription on the drawing; copy RKD. from whom on loan to the museum, 1883; from whom, fl. 5,049, with 166 other drawings, to the museum (L. 2228), 1889
Object number: RP-T-1889-A-2062
Credit line: Purchased with the support of the Vereniging Rembrandt
The artist
Biography
Willem Drost (Amsterdam 1633 - Venice 1659)
He was baptized in the Nieuwe Kerk, Amsterdam, on 19 April 1633.2S.A.C. Dudok van Heel, ‘Willem Drost, een ongrijpbaar Rembrandt-leerling’, Maandblad Amstelodamum 79 (1992), no. 1, pp. 15-21. Houbraken mentions that he was a pupil of Rembrandt and that he worked in Rome for a long time.3A. Houbraken, De groote schouburgh der Nederlantsche konstschilders en schilderessen, 3 vols., Amsterdam 1718-21, vol. III (1721), p. 61. 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 25.4J. Bikker, ‘Drost’s End and Loth’s Beginnings in Venice’, The Burlington Magazine 144 (2002), no. 1188, p. 147. 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
This drawing is a copy after a sheet by Drost, that was formerly with Boerner, Düsseldorf, and subsequently on the Amsterdam art market.5Sale, Amsterdam (Sotheby’s), 5 November 2002, no. 54; Sumowski, Drawings, III (1980), no. 556*. In the original sheet, the devil can be seen at the right, challenging Christ to turn stones into bread. This is one of the temptations Christ had to withstand during his forty-day fast in the desert (Matthew 4:1-4). The museum’s drawing was radically trimmed at the right, so only the devil’s hand holding a stone and its wing can be discerned.
In the Kupferstichkabinett, Berlin (KdZ 5281),6Benesch, no. 635; H. Bevers, with a contribution by G.J. Dietz and A. Penz, Zeichnungen der Rembrandtschule im Berliner Kupferstichkabinett, coll. cat. Berlin 2018, no. 46. is another copy representing the temptation of Christ, based in this case on an original drawing by Drost, whose whereabouts are unknown. In this copy, Christ is tempted to worship the devil in return for ‘all the kingdoms in the world and their splendour’ (Matthew 4:8-11). When the devil, a skeleton with bat’s wings and a tail, approaches him, Christ responds: ‘Away from me, Satan! For it is written: “Worship the Lord your God, and serve him only.”’
Bonny van Sighem, 2000
Literature
C. Hofstede de Groot, Die Handzeichnungen Rembrandts, Haarlem 1906, no. 1174 (as Rembrandt, c. 1650); W.R. Valentiner, Rembrandt: Die Meisters Handzeichnungen, 2 vols., Stuttgart and elsewhere 1925-34, I (1925), no. 354b (as copy after Rembrandt); 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. 104, with additional earlier literature (as copy after Rembrandt); S. Slive, Drawings of Rembrandt, with a Selection of Drawings by his Pupils and Followers, 2 vols., New York 1965, I, no. 246 (as copy after Rembrandt); O. Benesch, The Drawings of Rembrandt (rev. edn. by E. Benesch), 6 vols., London 1973 (orig. edn. 1954-57), under no. A 88 (as copy after Rembrandt); W. Sumowski, Drawings of the Rembrandt School, 10 vols., New York 1979-92, III (1980), p. 1210, under no. 556*; P. Schatborn, ‘Tekeningen van Rembrandts leerlingen’, Bulletin van het Rijksmuseum 33 (1985), p. 100
Citation
B. van Sighem, 2000, 'anonymous, Temptation of Christ, after c. 1650 - after c. 1655', in J. Turner (ed.), Drawings by Rembrandt and his School in the Rijksmuseum, online coll. cat. Amsterdam: https://data.rijksmuseum.nl/200125088
(accessed 9 December 2025 09:54:28).Footnotes
- 1According to an inscription on the drawing; copy RKD.
- 2S.A.C. Dudok van Heel, ‘Willem Drost, een ongrijpbaar Rembrandt-leerling’, Maandblad Amstelodamum 79 (1992), no. 1, pp. 15-21.
- 3A. Houbraken, De groote schouburgh der Nederlantsche konstschilders en schilderessen, 3 vols., Amsterdam 1718-21, vol. III (1721), p. 61.
- 4J. Bikker, ‘Drost’s End and Loth’s Beginnings in Venice’, The Burlington Magazine 144 (2002), no. 1188, p. 147.
- 5Sale, Amsterdam (Sotheby’s), 5 November 2002, no. 54; Sumowski, Drawings, III (1980), no. 556*.
- 6Benesch, no. 635; H. Bevers, with a contribution by G.J. Dietz and A. Penz, Zeichnungen der Rembrandtschule im Berliner Kupferstichkabinett, coll. cat. Berlin 2018, no. 46.