watermark: none

Thin spots along left border

…; sale, Jan Lucas van der Dussen (1724-1773, Amsterdam), Amsterdam (J.S. Hendriks et al.), 31 October 1774, no. 709 (‘Gabriel Metzu. Een Jongeling, zittende op een Bank, met een Tinne Wynkan in zyn hand; fraay met zwart Kryt getekend’), fl. 5:-;¹¹Copy RKD. …; ? collection Johan van der Linden van Slingeland (1701-1782), Dordrecht;²²According to inscription on verso; not identified in his sale, Dordrecht (Yver et al.), 22 August 1785 sqq. …; collection Jonkheer Johan Goll van Franckenstein (1756-1821), Amsterdam and Velzen (L. 2987); his son, Jonkheer Pieter Hendrik Goll van Franckenstein (1787-1832), Amsterdam and Velzen; his sale, Amsterdam (J. de Vries et al.), 1 July 1833 sqq., Album K, no. 7 (‘Gabriel Metzu. Een Man, zittende op eene bank, en hebbende een bierkan in de hand. Breed met zw. krijt’), fl. 40, to the dealer C.F. Roos, Amsterdam;³³Copy RKD. …; collection Jonkheer Johan Adriaan Repelaer van Driel (1889-1966), The Hague;⁴⁴Note RMA. his sale, The Hague (Venduehuis der Notarissen), 7 November 1967 sqq., no. 169, to the museum (L. 2228), with the support of the Stichting tot Bevordering van de Belangen van het Rijksmuseum, 1967

Object number: RP-T-1967-92

Credit line: Purchased with the support of the Stichting tot Bevordering van de Belangen van het Rijksmuseum

This drawing was traditionally attributed to Gabriel Metsu (1629-1667), the name under which it entered the Rijksmuseum. In 1990 Schatborn reassigned it and two other sheets in the museum to Constantijn Verhout (inv. nos. RP-T-1937-70 and RP-T-1885-A-496), both also previously given to Metsu.

Schatborn identified five drawings in other collections that could also be attributed to the little-known Verhout, who, as a painter, specialized in genre scenes with one or two half-length figures: Standing Boy Wearing a Hat in the Statens Museum for Kunst, Copenhagen (inv. no. Tu 54,1), also formerly given to Metsu;⁸⁸P. Schatborn, ‘Dutchmen Found in Copenhagen: Figure Drawings by Simon Kick and Constantijn Verhout’, in V. Villadsen (ed.), European Drawings from Six Centuries: Festschrift to Erik Fischer, Copenhagen 1990, fig. 11. Seated Boy Looking for Fleas in his Jacket in the Kupferstich-Kabinett, Dresden (inv. no. C 2042), where it is catalogued as by Jan Miel (1599-1664);⁹⁹Ibid., fig. 15. Standing Boy at a Table in the Kupferstichkabinet, Berlin (KdZ 14004), formerly classified as manner of Gerard ter Borch II (1617-1681);¹⁰¹⁰Ibid., fig. 16. Elegant Young Man Seated on a Block, which appeared on the Amsterdam art market as by Metsu in 1991,¹¹¹¹Sale, Amsterdam (Christie’s), 25 November 1991, no. 86. but was offered as Verhout when it resurfaced on the New York art market in 2007;¹²¹²Sale, New York (Christie’s), 25 January 2007, no. 60. and Young Man Seated on a Bench, in the École Nationale Supérieure des Beaux-Arts, Paris (inv. no. Mas 1888), formerly given to Anthonie Palamedesz (1602-1673).¹³¹³E. Brugerolles and O. Savatier Sjöholm (eds.), Dessiner le quotidien: La Hollande au siècle d’or, exh. cat. Paris (Musée du Louvre) 2017, no. 29, quoting Schatborn’s proposed reattribution of that sheet to Verhout (p. 86, n. 6).

This initial group of eight sheets has been augmented by three others, bringing the artist’s possible drawn oeuvre to eleven works. The proposed additions are: Young Man Seated on a Low Plinth, Turned to the Left in the Special Collections, Universiteit Leiden (inv. no. PK-T-AW-1301), a proposal advanced by Leonore van Sloten;¹⁴¹⁴J. Schaeps and J. van der Veen (eds.), Leiden viert feest! Hoogtepunten uit een academische collectie, exh. cat. Amsterdam (Museum Het Rembrandthuis) 2014-15, no. 61. and two re-attributions suggested by the present writer, the Rijksmuseum’s Seated Boy, Drawing (inv. no. RP-T-1902-A-4579), previously given to Godefridus Schalcken (1643-1706); and and a Seated Young Man, which was on the London art market in 2005 and in 2014 with the dealer Otto Naumann, New York.¹⁵¹⁵Written communication to the dealer by the present author, 8 February 2014.

Several of these drawings, including the present sheet and inv. nos. RP-T-1967-92 and RP-T-1902-A-4579, may have been drawn from the same young male model, with only minor variations in dress. Based on clothing, facial features and hairstyle, Schatborn hypothesized in 1990 that the same model was depicted in Verhout’s Sleeping Student, a signed and dated painting (1663) by the artist in the Nationalmuseum, Stockholm (inv no. NM 677),¹⁶¹⁶P. Schatborn, ‘Dutchmen Found in Copenhagen: Figure Drawings by Simon Kick and Constantijn Verhout’, in V. Villadsen (ed.), European Drawings from Six Centuries: Festschrift to Erik Fischer, Copenhagen 1990, fig. 17. whose foreground is dominated by a still-life of stacked books.

Another recurring motif is a book used as a studio prop in all four of the Rijksmuseum’s drawings. In the present sheet, a book serves as seat cushion; in inv. no. RP-T-1885-A-496, a book is being read by the female figure; in inv. no. RP-T-1937-70, a young man is apparently recording sums in an account book; and in inv. no. RP-T-1902-A-4579, a portfolio is propped up on the desk against the wall.

Another common feature of the drawings now given to Verhout is the attention paid to the rendering of surface textures through the soft handling of the chalk, as in the hard, shiny metal of the jug contrasting with the soft fabrics of clothes.

Annemarie Stefes, 2019

‘Keuze uit de aanwinsten’, Bulletin van het Rijksmuseum 16 (1968), p. 39, fig. 15 (as Metsu); P. Schatborn and K.G. Boon, Dutch Genre Drawings of the Seventeenth Century: A Loan Exhibition from Dutch Museums, Foundations and Private Collections, exh. cat. New York (Pierpont Morgan Library)/Boston (Museum of Fine Arts)/Chicago (Art Institute of Chicago) 1972-73, no. 65 (as Metsu); P. Schatborn, ‘Dutchmen Found in Copenhagen: Figure Drawings by Simon Kick and Constantijn Verhout’, in V. Villadsen (ed.), European Drawings from Six Centuries: Festschrift to Erik Fischer, Copenhagen 1990, pp. 194-204 (fig. 12); P. Schatborn and L. van Sloten, Old Drawings, New Names: Rembrandt and his Contemporaries, exh. cat. Amsterdam (Museum Het Rembrandthuis) 2014, no. 59; J. Schaeps and J. van der Veen (eds.), Leiden viert feest! Hoogtepunten uit een academische collectie, exh. cat. Amsterdam (Museum Het Rembrandthuis) 2014-15, p. 142 (fig. 60a); E. Brugerolles and O. Savatier Sjöholm (eds.), Dessiner le quotidien: La Hollande au siècle d’or, exh. cat. Paris (Musée du Louvre) 2017, p. 86 (n. 4), under no. 29

A. Stefes, 2019, 'Constantijn Verhout, Young Man Seated on a Book on a Bench, Gouda, c. 1650 - c. 1660', in J. Turner (ed.), Dutch Drawings of the Seventeenth Century in the Rijksmuseum, online coll. cat. Amsterdam: https://data.rijksmuseum.nl/200144712