Standing Boy Holding a Whip and Raising his Right Hand

Watermark: Fragment of a foolscap

Light foxing throughout

...; collection Narcisse Révil (1779-1844), Paris;¹¹According to an inscription on the drawing. his sale, Paris (B. Bonnefons de Lavialle et al.), 29 (31) March 1842 sqq., no. 222, as Rembrandt (‘Une jeune garçon dirigeant ses pas vers la gauche [...] Croquis à la plume et au bistre. Haut. 13 cent. 6 mill., larg. 10 cent. 5 mill.’), 14.50 frs.;²²Copy RKD. ...; collection Charles Gasc (c. 1822- after 1869), Paris;³³According to an inscription on the drawing. ? his sale, Paris (J.E. Vignères), 17 January 1865, no. 151 (drawings not specified);⁴⁴Schatborn mistakenly included lot no. 60 of this sale, which is a drawing by Bartolomé Esteban Murillo; 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. 105. ...; sale, Charles-Philippe, Marquis de Chennevières-Pointel (1820-99, Paris) and Sir John Charles Robinson (1824-1913, Edinburgh and London), Amsterdam (F. Muller), 20 November 1882 sqq., no. 167, as Rembrandt, fl. 31, to the dealer Van Gogh, Paris;⁵⁵Copy RKD. from whom purchased by Dr Cornelis Hofstede de Groot (1863-1930), The Hague, after 1900;⁶⁶Hofstede de Groot notes, KB. by whom donated to the museum, 1906, but kept in usufruct; transferred to the museum (L. 2228), 1930

ObjectNumber: RP-T-1930-45

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

The pose of the boy with his raised right index finger and a whip in his left hand suggests that he is giving riding lessons. This theme is exceptional in the Rembrandt school; there are no other works in which such a horseman is depicted.

In the early literature, the figure was identified as Jan Six,⁷⁷F. Saxl, ‘Zu einigen Handzeichnungen Rembrandts’, Repertorium für Kunstwissenschaft 31 (1908), p. 342. who wears a similar hat in Rembrandt’s famous painted portrait of 1654 still in the Six collection,⁸⁸RRP, VI (2015), no. 233; J. Bikker et al., Rembrandt: The Late Works, exh. cat. London (The National Gallery)/Amsterdam (Rijksmuseum), 2014-15, no. 101. and the drawing was dated 1647, the date of Rembrandt’s etching of Six (e.g. inv. RP-P-OB-578).⁹⁹B. 285; New Hollstein: Rembrandt, no. 238. It was then suggested that the figure was Rembrandt’s son Titus at 15 years of age, so the drawing was dated to circa 1656.¹⁰¹⁰M.D. Henkel, Catalogus van de Nederlandsche teekeningen in het Rijksmuseum te Amsterdam, I: Teekeningen van Rembrandt en zijn school, coll. cat. The Hague 1942. Both theories are based on the assumption that Rembrandt or a close follower drew the boy, using a known person from his circle as the model.

These theories can no longer be supported. It is not always easy to distinguish between drawings done from memory and those done from life, and we cannot determine to which category the present drawing belongs. The style, with heavy contours, suggests the influence of Rembrandt’s drawings of the 1640s.

Peter Schatborn, 2018

C. Hofstede de Groot, Die Handzeichnungen Rembrandts, Haarlem 1906, no. 1291 (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. 91 (as probably not by Rembrandt, c. 1656?); 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. 105, with earlier literature; A. Müller-Schirmer, ‘Grenzen im Licht. Über Licht und Schatten in den Zeichnungen von Rembrandt’, Oud Holland 121 (2008), no. 1, p. 76

P. Schatborn, 2018, 'school of Rembrandt van Rijn, Standing Boy Holding a Whip and Raising his Right Hand, 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.28626