Watermark: Fleur-de-lys within a shield

…; collection Sir Joshua Reynolds (1723-92), London (L. 2364); ? his sale, London (A.C. de Poggi), 26 May 1794, possibly one of the drawings in Album QQ, nos. 960-85, or Album PP, nos. 987-1009 (drawings not specified); or his sale, London (H. Phillips), 5 March 1798 sqq. (drawings not specified); …; collection Edward Vernon Utterson (1775/76-1856), London (L. 909); ? his sale, London (Christie’s), 24 February 1857 sqq., possibly no. 541, as Rembrandt; …; collection Francis Abbott (1801-93), Edinburgh;¹¹According to the catalogue for the sale, Comte Louis-François de Robiano et al., Amsterdam (A.W.M. Mensing), 15 June 1926 sqq., no. 424; the collector’s mark (L. 970) mentioned in the sale catalogue text is no longer present and may have been on a former mount. his sale, Edinburgh (Dowell), 22 January 1894 sqq., no. 371, as Rembrandt, £ 12.12.0;²²Copy RKD. …; sale, Comte Louis-François de Robiano (1785-1855, Brussels) et al., Amsterdam (A.W.M. Mensing), 15 June 1926 sqq., no. 424, as Rembrandt, fl. 2,600, to the dealer E.J. van Wisselingh, Amsterdam;³³Copy RKD. …; collection Léonardus Nardus (1868-1955), New York, Paris and Tunisia;⁴⁴Note RMA. …; with the dealer J. Walter, Kasteel Heijen, Gennep, by 1962;⁵⁵Delft 1962, unpag., repr. from whom, as school of Rembrandt, fl. 5,000, to the museum (L. 2228), 1963

Object number: RP-T-1963-271

The drawing, which is traditionally attributed to Rembrandt or Jan Victors (1619-1676), can be given to Drost, as was suggested by Schatborn in 1985. Characteristic for him are the rather squat-looking figures with pointy features, which are drawn with sketchy lines of althernating thickness.

A copy of this drawing in the Biblioteca Reale, Turin (inv. no. 16521),⁹⁹G.C. Sciolla, I disegni di maestri stranieri della Biblioteca Reale di Torino: Catalogo, coll. cat. Turin 1974, p. 277, no. 340; G.C. Sciolla, with P.G. Tordella, I disegni fiamminghi en olandesi della Biblioteca Reale di Torino (Rariora et Mirabilia, vol. 7), coll. cat. Turin, no. 67. which has extensive passages of wash, extends further to the right, indicating that the Amsterdam sheet has been cut down on that side. The Turin copy includes a third full figure at right (almost completely missing here), who is also playing a flute. There are other minor differences, for example the architecture in the background, and the hairstyle of the servant and the muscisians. In the present drawing, they seem to be wearing turbans, whereas in the Turin sheet three of them have shoulder-length curly hair.

The scene is traditionally described as David Playing his Harp before Saul (I Samuel 16:23). There is a degree of doubt over this identification. Saul appointed David as his personal musician to alleviate his spells of melancholy with harp music, which certainly explains the prominent harp-playing figure at lower right. Yet that story does not usually include flautists, and one would expect that the main figure seated at the table, if Saul, would be wearing a crown or turban rather than the type of headgear known as a Tellerbarret (platter or pizza hat). His expression is rather vacuous, whereas Saul’s black mood is usually conveyed by a brooding expression or pose. On balance, however, this remains the most plausible interpretation of the subject.

Bonny van Sighem, 2000

W.R. Valentiner, Rembrandt: Des Meisters Handzeichnungen, 2 vols., Stuttgart and elsewhere 1925-34, II (1934), pp. xxviii-xxix, fig. 25 (as Jan Victors?); F. Lugt, Musée du Louvre. Inventaire général des dessins des écoles du nord, III: École hollandaise: Rembrandt, ses élèves, ses imitateurs, ses copistes, coll. cat. Paris 1933, p. 56, under no. 1291 (not Rembrandt); “Aanwinsten,” Bulletin van het Rijksmuseum 11 (1963), p. 124 (as pupil of Rembrandt); Jaarverslag 1963, pp. 72, 74, repr. (as school of Rembrandt); G.C. Sciolla, ‘Disegni Rembrandtiani a Torino’, Critica d’Arte 19 (1972), no. 126, p. 74, n. 2 (no attribution); G.C. Sciolla, I disegni di maestri stranieri della Biblioteca Reale di Torino: Catalogo, coll. cat. Turin 1974, p. 277, under no. 240 (as Rembrandt); W. Sumowski, Drawings of the Rembrandt School, 10 vols., New York 1979-92, IV (1981), p. 1887, no. 9 (as anonymous school work of the 1650s); V (1981), p. 2348, under no. 1055b* (as works by Drost are related, but dissimilar); P. Schatborn, ‘Tekeningen van Rembrandts leerlingen’, Bulletin van het Rijksmuseum 33 (1985), no. 2, p. 101, fig. 15; 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, Nuove ricerche in margine alla mostra: Da Leonardo a Rembrandt. Disegni della Biblioteca Reale di Torino, Turin 1990, p. 336, fig. 9; H. Bevers, P. Schatborn and B. Welzel, Rembrandt, the Master and his Workshop: Drawings and Etchings, exh. cat. Berlin (Kupferstichkabinett) and elsewhere 1991-92, p. 142, under no. 45, n. 3; G.C. Sciolla, with P.G. Tordella, I disegni fiamminghi en olandesi della Biblioteca Reale di Torino (Rariora et Mirabilia, vol. 7), coll. cat. Turin 2007, p. 92, fig. 67a; 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. 122, no. 16 (c. 1650-53)

B. van Sighem, 2000, 'attributed to Willem Drost, David Playing his Harp before Saul, with a Servant and Other Musicians, 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/200123333