Watermark: Foolscap, similar to Churchill, no. 341 (1644)

Light foxing throughout;¹¹Typical of most drawings formerly in the collection of Hofstede de Groot, which at some point during his ownership were stored in unfavourably damp conditions. creases at the top; holes at upper left, upper right and lower left

…; sale, Albert Langen (1869-1909, Munich), Munich (A. Rieger and H. Helbing), 5 June 1899, no. 149, as Rembrandt, to Dr Cornelis Hofstede de Groot (1863-1930), The Hague;²²Hofstede de Groot notes, KB; note RMA. by whom donated to the museum, 1906, but kept in usufruct; transferred to the museum (L. 2228), 1930

Object number: RP-T-1930-4

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

Here Jacob’s favourite son, Joseph, is being harassed by his jealous half-brothers, who, according to the Bible, stripped him of his robe and threw him into a pit. When a caravan of Ishmaelites passed by, he was then sold to the merchants for 20 pieces of silver (Genesis 37:12-36).

By depicting Joseph at the very edge of the sheet, the hopelessness of his position is underscored: he literally has nowhere left to go. The rapidly executed hatching lends the scene a certain dynamism. The limbs of the figure in the middle, in particular, seem to be assembled from separate parts and modelled after a wooden mannequin. This rather awkward handling led scholars to doubt the sheet’s traditional attribution to Rembrandt. The long, occasionally interrupted contour lines and the parallel hatching is, however, characteristic of Drost, as was recognized in 1985 by Schatborn, who assigned it an early date in the pupil’s training period.⁶⁶P. Schatborn, ‘Tekeningen van Rembrandts leerlingen’, Bulletin van het Rijksmuseum 33 (1985), no. 2, pp. 101 and 103, fig. 13. Drost’s drawing of Ruth and Naomi of circa 1651 in the Kunsthalle, Bremen (inv. no. 54/437),⁷⁷Sumowski, Drawings, III (1980), no. 546. which is one of the most secure drawings by him, presents similar stylistic features, such as the angular forms of the drapery and the facial types with their pointy noses. Schatborn also drew a parallel between the standing figures in the present drawing and the ones in The Roman Centurion Cornelius Sending his Men to Joppa (inv. no. RP-T-1891-A-2423), which are rendered in such a similar manner that they are, as it were, interchangeable.⁸⁸P. Schatborn, ‘Tekeningen van Rembrandts leerlingen’, Bulletin van het Rijksmuseum 33 (1985), no. 2, p. 101.

Bonny van Sighem, 2000

Tentoonstelling van teekeningen van Oude Hollandsche meesters uit de verzameling van Dr. Corn. Hofstede de Groot, exh. cat. The Hague (Haagsche Kunstkring) 1902-3, no. 16 (as Rembrandt); C. Hofstede de Groot, Die Handzeichnungen Rembrandts, Haarlem 1906, no. 1249 (as Rembrandt); Teekeningen van Rembrandt in de verzamelingen C. Hofstede de Groot te ’s-Gravenhage, in facsimile weergegeven, Haarlem 1909, no. 21 (as Rembrandt); E.W. Bredt, Rembrandt-Bibel: Vier Bände mit 270 Abbildungen, 4 vols., Munich 1921, I, p. 42, repr. (as Rembrandt); K. von Baudissin, ‘Anmerkungen zur Rembrandt-Erklärung’, Repertorium für Kunstwissenschaft 46 (1925), p. 193 (as Rembrandt); W.R. Valentiner, Rembrandt: Die Meisters Handzeichnungen, 2 vols., Stuttgart and elsewhere 1925-34, I (1925), no. 92 (as Rembrandt, c. 1650); 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. 109, with additional earlier literature (as school of Rembrandt); I. LeMaistre de Sacy, La Bible de Rembrandt: Récits sacrés de l’ancien testament, [Paris] 1947, p. 25, repr. (as Rembrandt); D. Pont, Barent Fabritius (1624-1673), The Hague 1958 (PhD diss., Rijksuniversiteit Utrecht), pp. 21, 154 (as possibly by Carel Fabritius); H.M. Rotermund, Rembrandts Handzeichnungen zur Bibel, Stuttgart 1963, pp. 21, 312, fig. 53, (as Rembrandt); W. Sumowski, ‘Rembrandtzeichnungen’, Pantheon 22 (1964), p. 197, n. 8; S. Slive, Drawings of Rembrandt, with a Selection of Drawings by his Pupils and Followers, 2 vols., New York 1965, II, no. 371 (as copy after Rembrandt); O. Benesch, The Drawings of Rembrandt (rev. edn. by E. Benesch), 6 vols., London 1973 (orig. edn. 1954-57), no. C 99 (as copy after Rembrandt); W. Sumowski, Drawings of the Rembrandt School, 10 vols., New York 1979-92, IV (1981), p. 1876, no. 1 (as not Carel Fabritius); P. Schatborn, ‘Tekeningen van Rembrandts leerlingen’, Bulletin van het Rijksmuseum 33 (1985), no. 2, pp. 101 and 103, fig. 13; 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; E. Haverkamp-Begemann (ed.), The Robert Lehman Collection, VII: Fifteenth- to Eighteenth-century European Drawings: Central Europe, the Netherlands, France, England, coll. cat. New York 1999, p. 237, under no. 73, n. 9; D.A. de Witt, L. van Sloten and J. van der Veen, Rembrandt’s Late Pupils: Studying under a Genius, exh. cat. Amsterdam (Museum Het Rembrandthuis) 2015, p. 123, no. 40

B. van Sighem, 2019, 'attributed to Willem Drost, Joseph Threatened by his Brothers, Amsterdam, c. 1650 - c. 1655', in J. Turner (ed.), Drawings by Rembrandt and his School in the Rijksmuseum, online coll. cat. Amsterdam: https://data.rijksmuseum.nl/200125083