Cottage with White Paling among Trees

Watermark: None

Light foxing throughout

...; ? Dr Johannes Claesz Furnerius (1582-1668), Rotterdam;¹¹Amsterdam/Paris 2015-16, p. 80. ...; the dealer Georges Ryaux (1894-1978), Paris;²²According to Benesch 1954-57, part IV, p. 222, no. C 41....; collection of Charles C. Cunningham Jr (b. 1934), Boston, by 1968;³³White 1968, p. 392 (as private collection, USA). from whom, through the mediation of the dealer R.M. Light, Santa Barbara, $356,150, with support of the Vereniging Rembrandt, the Prins Bernardfonds and the Rijksmuseum-Stichting, 1981

ObjectNumber: RP-T-1981-1

Credit line: Purchased with the support of the Vereniging Rembrandt, the Prins Bernhard Fonds and the Rijksmuseum-Stichting

Tucked away among trees and bushes, surrounded by a wooden fence or paling, is a small thatched cottage situated near a dike and a small inland lake, such as is still to be seen near the Zuiderzee dike. On a path at the left is a cart, and at the far right a man sits or leans against a small fence overlooking the water. Another man, now largely obliterated, emerges from behind the paling at the left (near the cart), comparable to the man peering around the corner in A Cow in a Shed (inv. no. RP-T-1930-59).

The landscape, in my view wrongly rejected as a copy by Benesch, was drawn with Rembrandt’s characteristic strong contrasts. The cart, foreground details and fencing on the extreme right were sketched in broad lines with a reed pen, while the branches of the trees and the leaves blowing in the wind were rendered with small loops and hatchings made with a fine pen. Rembrandt exploited the blank white paper to convey the brightly lit planks of the dilapidated wooden fence. A small strip of paper has been attached along the lower edge. Since this fragment has a few of Rembrandt’s original vertical reed pen lines and passages of wash, it suggests that the sheet was cut apart at some point, then reattached somewhat unsatisfactorily (with a few millimetres missing), possibly by Rembrandt himself. The crown of the largest tree and the man peering around the paling have been heightened or corrected with opaque white. The light greyish-purple wash is a later addition and can also be seen in other drawings by Rembrandt and his school, such as Tobias and the Fish, in the Statens Museum for Kunst in Copenhagen (inv. no. KKSgb2),⁴⁴Benesch, no. 638; attributed to Ferdinand Bol on the museum’s website. and Rembrandt’s Trees Surrounding the Entrance to a Garden, in the Hamburger Kunsthalle in Hamburg (inv. no. 39470).⁵⁵Benesch, no. 1285; A. Stefes, Sammlungen der Hamburger Kunsthalle Kupferstichkabinett, III: Niederländische Zeichnungen, 1450-1850, coll. cat. 3 vols., Cologne and elsewhere 2011, no. 849.

That the Amsterdam drawing was originally larger can be deduced not only from the reattached fragment on the lower edge but also from the etching of the same scene, in reverse, the Cottage with White Paling, which features more of the sky and foreground, as can be seen in an impression in the British Museum in London (inv. no. F,5.209).⁶⁶B. 232; New Hollstein: Rembrandt, no. 246. The relationship between the two works is exceptional, for there are hardly any other landscape drawings that have been used so directly for an etching. Martin Royalton-Kisch harbours some doubt about the attribution,⁷⁷See P. Schatborn, ‘The Core Group of Rembrandt Drawings, I: Overview’, Master Drawings 49 (2011), no. 3, p. 319 from pp. 293-322. hence its omission from our ‘core list’.⁸⁸See M. Royalton-Kisch and P. Schatborn, ‘The Core Group of Rembrandt Drawings, II: The List’, Master Drawings 49 (2011), no. 3, pp. 323-46. The drawing is larger than the etching, so could not have been indented and transferred directly onto the copper plate. Rembrandt probably composed most of his landscape etchings in his studio, after having made plein-air landscape sketches in preparation. In this case, he used the drawing as a starting point, but nevertheless made some changes. He drew the top of the hayrick behind the cottage, thereby changing it into a farmhouse; he also added a dovecote to the roof, ducks in the water, a cow on the dike and a windmill on the horizon – all typical motifs of the Dutch countryside. In addition, he included a horse’s skull in the lower right corner of the etching, a symbol of vanity and transience. Thus, while the drawing is nothing more than a depiction of a slice of nature, drawn in situ, the etching is invested with an independent and more emblematic character through the addition of iconic Dutch landscape details. The actual site of the drawing was identified by Boudewijn Bakker as a cottage on the Spaarndammerdijk.⁹⁹B. Bakker et al., Landscapes of Rembrandt: His Favourite Walks, exh. cat. Amsterdam (Gemeentearchief Amsterdam)/Paris (Institut Néerlandais) 1998-99.

The date on the third state of the etching was problematic for some years, but it is now read as 1648, so that the drawing can also be dated to the same year.¹⁰¹⁰Dr Sträter in W. von Seidlitz, Die Radierungen Rembrandts, Leipzig 1922, under no. 332; C. White, ‘Rembrandt’s Etchings and Drawings of a Cottage with a White Paling’, The Burlington Magazine 110 (1968), no. 784, pp. 390-94 and C. White, Rembrandt as an Etcher: A Study of the Artist at Work, 2 vols., New Haven/London 1969; New Hollstein: Rembrandt, no. 246. It is, therefore, an important point of reference for Rembrandt’s chronology and was made in the same period as Daniel in the Lions’ Den (inv. no. RP-T-1930-17) and the View of the Amstel from the Blauwbrug (inv. no. RP-T-1890-A-2410), where the contrasts are admittedly more subtly indicated.

The inscription with Rembrandt’s name at the lower left was written by a seventeenth-century hand that has been tentatively identified by Jane Shoaf Turner as that of Dr Johannes Claesz Furnerius, the father of Rembrandt’s pupil Abraham Furnerius.¹¹¹¹For a summary of the reasons for this identification, see J. Shoaf Turner and R.J.A. te Rijdt (eds.), Home and Abroad: Dutch and Flemish Landscape Drawings from the John and Marine van Vlissingen Art Foundation, exh. cat. Amsterdam (Rijksmuseum)/Paris (Fondation Custodia) 2015-16, p. 80, under no. 30. As Maud van Suylen noted, an identical inscription with Rembrandt’s name, written in the same hand, appears on the recto or verso of three drawings traditionally attributed to Rembrandt.¹²¹²M. van Suylen and J. Shoaf Turner, ‘Reconstructing the Drawings Collection of Dr. Johannes Furnerius’, Master Drawings (forthcoming). Two are from the important group of landscape drawings by Rembrandt assembled by Nicolaes Anthoni Flinck (the son of pupil Govert Flinck) and sold to William Cavendish, 2nd Duke of Devonshire, for Chatsworth in 1723 (former inv. nos. 1040 and 1037), one of which is now in the John and Marine Fentener van Vlissingen Art Foundation¹³¹³Benesch, no. 1217; M. Jaffé, The Devonshire Collection of Northern European Drawings, coll. cat. 5 vols., Turin/London/Venice 2002, no. 1491; J. Shoaf Turner and R.J.A. te Rijdt (eds.), Home and Abroad: Dutch and Flemish Landscape Drawings from the John and Marine van Vlissingen Art Foundation, exh. cat. Amsterdam (Rijksmuseum)/Paris (Fondation Custodia) 2015-16, no. 30. and the other of which was later in the collection of Paul W.L. Russell, Amsterdam, and is now in the collection of Leon Black in New York.¹⁴¹⁴Benesch, no. 1233; M. Jaffé, The Devonshire Collection of Northern European Drawings, coll. cat. 5 vols., Turin/London/Venice 2002, no. 1473, with the inscription repr. The third drawing with the same inscription is in the Kupferstich-Kabinett, Dresden (inv. no. C 1331).¹⁵¹⁵C. Hofstede de Groot, Die Handzeichnungen Rembrandts, Haarlem 1906, no. 279; C. Dittrich and T. Ketelsen et al., Rembrandt: Die Dresdener Zeichnungen, exh. cat. Dresden (Kupferstich-Kabinett) 2004, no. 27 (as attributed to Abraham Furnerius). This is a curious case: the drawing was accepted as by Rembrandt by Hofstede de Groot but was omitted by Benesch in his corpus; it is currently catalogued as ‘attributed to Abraham Furnerius’, though apparently with some hesitation by Thomas Ketelsen (see C. Dittrich and T. Ketelsen et al., Rembrandt: Die Dresdener Zeichnungen, exh. cat. Dresden (Kupferstich-Kabinett) 2004), who believes it is by the same hand as two accepted landscapes by Rembrandt; if the inscription is by Johannes Furnerius, as Ketelsen further endorsed, it seems unlikely that he would have erroneously written Rembrandt’s name on a work by his son. Such inscriptions are usually combined with a collector’s mark consisting of one or two Greek letters inscribed at the upper right in the same ink (L. 2942, L. 2943 and L. 2944), as is the case with all three of these drawings, but such a mark does not appear on our drawing. Since it may have been reduced in size, it is possible that such a mark was originally present at the upper right. The general reliability of Furnerius’s near contemporary inscriptions should dispel any lingering doubts about the attribution of this important study.

Peter Schatborn, 2017

O. Benesch, The Drawings of Rembrandt (rev. edn. by E. Benesch), 6 vols., London 1973 (orig. edn. 1954-57), no. C 41 (as copy, c. 1642); 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. 30, with earlier literature; C.P. Schneider et al., Rembrandt’s Landscapes: Drawings and Prints, exh. cat. Washington (DC) (National Gallery of Art) 1990, p. 95, under no. 11, fig. 2; M. Royalton-Kisch, Drawings by Rembrandt and his Circle in the British Museum, exh. cat. London 1992, p. 158, under no. 71, p. 159, under no. 72, p. 167, under no. 78; P. Schatborn, ‘Rembrandt: From Life and from Memory’, in G. Cavalli-Björkman (ed.), Rembrandt and his Pupils: Papers Given at a Symposium in Nationalmuseum Stockholm 2-3 October 1992, Stockholm 1993, pp. 165-66 from pp. 156-72, fig. 3; W.A. Liedtke et al., Rembrandt/Not Rembrandt in the Metropolitan Museum of Art: Aspects of Connoisseurship, 2 vols., exh. cat. New York 1995-96, p. 168, fig. 88; B. Bakker et al., Landscapes of Rembrandt: His Favourite Walks, exh. cat. Amsterdam (Gemeentearchief Amsterdam)/Paris (Institut Néerlandais) 1998-99, pp. 115 and 362, fig. 2; C. White, Rembrandt as an Etcher: A Study of the Artist at Work, New Haven/London 1999 (orig. edn. 1969), p. 232, fig. 317; K.A. Schröder and M. Bisanz-Prakken (eds.), Rembrandt, exh. cat. Vienna (Graphische Sammlung Albertina) 2004, p. 43; M. Schapelhouman, Rembrandt and the Art of Drawing, Amsterdam 2006, pp. 71-72, fig. 65; C. Vogelaar et al., Rembrandts Landschappen, exh. cat. Kassel (Staatliche Museen)/Leiden (Stedelijk Museum De Lakenhal) 2006-07, p. 188, fig. 165; S. Slive, Rembrandt Drawings, Los Angeles 2009, p. 132, fig. 11.6; H. Bevers, W.W. Robinson and P. Schatborn, Drawings by Rembrandt and his Pupils: Telling the Difference, exh. cat. Los Angeles (J. Paul Getty Museum) 2009-10, p. 163, fig. 25c; P. Schatborn, Rembrandt and his Circle: Drawings in the Frits Lugt Collection, 2 vols., coll. cat. Paris 2010, pp. 381 and 340, under no. 142 and 164; P. Schatborn, ‘The Core Group of Rembrandt Drawings, I: Overview’, Master Drawings 49 (2011), no. 3, p. 319 from pp. 293-322, fig. 66; E. Hinterding and J. Rutgers, The New Hollstein Dutch and Flemish Etchings, Engravings, and Woodcuts, 1450-1700: Rembrandt, 7 pts., Ouderkerk aan den IJssel 2013, p. 170, under no. 246

P. Schatborn, 2017, 'Rembrandt van Rijn, Cottage with White Paling among Trees, Amsterdam, c. 1648', in J. Turner (ed.), Drawings by Rembrandt and his School in the Rijksmuseum, online coll. cat. Amsterdam: hdl.handle.net/10934/RM0001.COLLECT.28548