Three Scribes / recto: Study of a Woman’s Legs

Watermark: None

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. discolouration on verso, where drawing was mounted with smaller window opening and exposed to light

...; collection Remigius Adrianus Haanen [van Haanen] (1812-94), Vienna;²²Note RMA. ? his student Hermine Lang-Laris (1842-1913), Munich; from whom purchased, with nine other drawings, by Dr Cornelis Hofstede de Groot (1863-1930), The Hague, 1900;³³Hofstede 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-1930-54(V)

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

There are very few drawings by Rembrandt that can be connected with his paintings. This sheet is an exception (as are inv. nos. RP-T-1947-213 and RP-T-1896-A-3172). The sketch on what is now considered its verso⁴⁴Previously regarded as the recto, for instance by Benesch. – a study for three scribes under a curtain – played an important role in the evolution of Judas Returning the Thirty Pieces of Silver, dated 1629, now in an English private collection.⁵⁵RRP I (1982), no. A 15; RRP VI (2015), no. 23 (1629). Two further sheets of studies survive for this, Rembrandt’s most important Leiden-period painting: a compositional study of figures surrounding a priest in pen and wash, formerly in the Albertina in Vienna, and now in a private collection,⁶⁶Benesch, no. 8. which has a recently revealed study of a standing and a kneeling figure on its verso,⁷⁷Sale, New York (Sotheby’s), 26 January 2011, no. 602; P. Rumberg, with H. Bevers, Rembrandt’s First Masterpiece, exh. cat. New York (The Morgan Library & Museum) 2016, no. 2. and a black chalk study of Two Scribes on the verso of a double-sided sheet in Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen in Rotterdam (inv. no. R 89 verso (PK)).⁸⁸Benesch, no. 6 verso; J. Giltaij, The Drawings by Rembrandt and his School in the Museum Boymans-van Beuningen, coll. cat. Rotterdam 1988, no. 2 verso; P. Rumberg, with H. Bevers, Rembrandt’s First Masterpiece, exh. cat. New York (The Morgan Library & Museum) 2016, no. 4 verso. The newly discovered faint sketch on the verso of the compositional study is apparently related to the kneeling figure of Judas and the standing high priest. Since Rembrandt probably started working on the painting in 1628, all four known studies for it can be dated to that year or to the beginning of 1629. Another drawing of the subject is mentioned in the catalogue of the Lawrence collection and subsequently in the auction catalogue of the Esdaile collection,⁹⁹London (Christie’s), 18-25 June 1840, no. 100. from which it was purchased by Andrew Geddes: ‘Judas laying the thirty pieces of silver before the high priest, who is seated under a canopy to the right, the members of the council around him... a very grand design; from the collection of Zoomer of Amsterdam’. However, since Rembrandt never made ‘grand designs’, this was probably no more than a copy of the painting.

There was no firm iconographic tradition for the representation of Judas Repentant,¹⁰¹⁰For the iconography, see J. Bialostocki, ‘Der Sünder als tragischer Held bei Rembrandt’, in O.G. von Simson and J. Kelch (eds.), Neue Beiträge zur Rembrandt-Forschung, Berlin 1973, pp. 144-48 from pp. 137-50. and Rembrandt, in his search for an appropriate narrative, used both the canvas and the various drawings to explore different solutions as the painting evolved toward the final composition, which strongly emphasized Judas’s acute feelings of repentance.¹¹¹¹J. Bruyn, ‘Rembrandt and the Italian Baroque’, Simiolus 4 (1970), no. 1, pp. 30-31 from pp. 28-48. The work had a complex gestation, as can be deduced from X-radiographs that show a number of important changes made during the course of its execution.¹²¹²For the complex story of its completion, see RRP I (1982), pp. 185-91; D. Bomford et al., Rembrandt, exh. cat. London (National Gallery) 1988-89 (Exh. ser. Art in the Making), fig. 28 for diagram of the various stages of completion. Rembrandt had apparently initially envisaged the high priest seated on an elevated throne, below a heavy curtain, in the upper left-hand area of the painting, where X-radiographs show an open space below the curtain; Rembrandt then decided to move the high priest more towards the centre of the composition and to have him standing, but, as our drawing shows, he initially wanted to retain the curtain. The sketch of Two Scribes in Rotterdam probably immediately follows the Amsterdam drawing and seems to reflect the artist’s decision to separate the seated scribes from the standing priest (who was obliterated with opaque white on the Amsterdam verso, though over time he has become visible again due to abrasion). The compositional drawing in the private collection – probably made after the painting was well underway – seems to be a subsequent version of the whole composition in which the curtain is completely left out. Two of the scribes in our drawing are now seated in the background and the standing figure has been moved to the right. As a result, very little of the composition of our drawing survives in the painting, in which most of the light falls on the open book at the left, and the seated figure at the lower centre of our sheet turns towards Judas, a movement that connects the previous action of reading the book with the new action involving Judas.

In drawing the verso, Rembrandt started with pen and brown ink and then added wash in the same yellow-brown ink – a special compound, as can be clearly seen from the grains of pigment in the lightly brushed areas.¹³¹³This ink with grains of pigment appears in a number of drawings from the Leiden period (e.g. Benesch, nos. 14-15, 25, 50 and 57a), and occasionally later as well (e.g. Benesch, no. 432, which he dates 1634.) Opaque white was used not only to cover the whole of the standing figure, but also to lighten the chair and to adjust the profile of the foreground figure. The very sketchy lines sometimes end in a dot, a feature we often see in Rembrandt’s work. The wash is characteristically transparent so that the paper shines through and the brushstrokes always remain visible. In this respect, the sheet is similar to the only known landscape drawing from the Leiden period, a view of a town gate, in the Fitzwilliam Museum in Cambridge (inv. no. 2138).¹⁴¹⁴Benesch, no. 57a; C.P. Schneider et al., Rembrandt’s Landscapes: Drawings and Prints, exh. cat. Washington (DC) (National Gallery of Art) 1990, no. 31. Rembrandt also skilfully conveyed differences in tone, which is evident in both the pen lines and the brushstrokes.

In the middle of what is now considered the recto (fig. a, inv. no. RP-T-1930-54(R)) is the depiction of a pair of half-draped legs, presumed to be those of a woman; one leg is covered, the other is bare. It was made in red chalk and the exposed knee heightened with white; then the right foot was given an even tone over the red chalk. In several places the red chalk was moistened with the tongue, which, unlike using a brush with wash, preserves the structure of the chalk. Darkening areas to give them depth was called ‘deepening’, and Rembrandt used this method behind the knee and under the drapery. The combination of the dark areas with detailed treatment of the exposed leg and the sketchy style of the rest of the drawing result in making the leg stand out strongly. In order to improve its representation and to define the context of the lower half of the figure’s body and to distinguish it from the undrawn torso and more drapery, Rembrandt drew a vertical loop above the figure’s right knee and two curved horizontal lines above both legs, guidelines that do not seem to portray anything in particular but improve the composition as a whole. In addition, there is a short horizontal line through the figure’s proper right foot, probably the edge of a low platform on which the heel of the other foot is resting.

The motif of a platform on which models in the studio are placed occurs in a number of Rembrandt’s paintings, including two with which the recto study has been related, the Judas Returning the Thirty Pieces of Silver and a work of the previous year, the Samson and Delilah, dated 1628, in the Gemäldegalerie in Berlin (inv. no. 812A).¹⁵¹⁵RRP I (1982), no. A 24 (1629-30); RRP VI (2015), no 37 (c. 1628-30). The drawing of legs has generally been seen as a preparatory study for the figure of Delilah in the Berlin painting,¹⁶¹⁶RRP I (1982), p. 255; P. Schatborn, ‘From Drawings to Prints and Paintings’, Apollo 117 (1983), p. 453 from pp. 452-60. but I would now term it ‘indirectly preparatory’. Rembrandt often drew motifs or part of motifs as exercises, perhaps with a painting in mind, but not always with an immediate purpose. In the case of the study of legs, it seems to me that he conceived of the legs as an exercise for a female figure rather than for a man. In a recent monographic exhibition devoted to the genesis of the Judas painting,¹⁷¹⁷P. Rumberg, with H. Bevers, Rembrandt’s First Masterpiece, exh. cat. New York (The Morgan Library & Museum) 2016. Per Rumberg, on the other hand, argued (less plausibly in my opinion) that the legs in the study are those of a man and that the pose, with legs slightly apart, is more closely related to that of the high priest in the Judas painting than to the pose of Delilah, who kneels on one leg in the Berlin painting. He further connected the two parallel looped chalk strokes above the legs with the belt worn by the high priest in the Judas painting. By contrast, Martin Royalton-Kisch¹⁸¹⁸M. Royalton-Kisch, The Drawings of Rembrandt: A Revision of Otto Benesch’s Catalogue Raisonné (online), under no. 0009. was tempted to date the study of legs somewhat later, too late to have functioned in the preparation of either painting, for he saw the handling as comparable to some drawings that Rembrandt made in red chalk as late as circa 1635-37.¹⁹¹⁹Benesch, nos. 17, 137 and 142A.

Peter Schatborn, 2017

C. Hofstede de Groot, Die Handzeichnungen Rembrandts, Haarlem 1906, no. 1300 (c. 1630); W.R. Valentiner, Rembrandt: Die Meisters Handzeichnungen, 2 vols., Stuttgart and elsewhere 1925-34, II (1934), no. 460 (c. 1629); M.D. Henkel, Catalogus van de Nederlandsche teekeningen in het Rijksmuseum te Amsterdam, I: Teekeningen van Rembrandt en zijn school, coll. cat. Amsterdam 1942, nos. 5-6 (c. 1629); O. Benesch, The Drawings of Rembrandt (rev. edn. by E. Benesch), 6 vols., London 1973 (orig. edn. 1954-57), no. 9; 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. 5, with earlier literature; J. Giltaij, The Drawings by Rembrandt and his School in the Museum Boymans-van Beuningen, coll. cat. Rotterdam 1988, pp. 38-39, under no. 2, fig. e (verso); D. Bomford et al., Rembrandt, exh. cat. London (National Gallery) 1988-89 (Exh. ser. Art in the Making), p. 57, fig. 26 (verso); M. Royalton-Kisch, ‘Rembrandt’s Sketches for his Paintings’, Master Drawings 27 (1989), no. 2, p. 131 from pp. 128-45, fig. 8 (verso); C.P. Schneider et al., Rembrandt’s Landscapes: Drawings and Prints, exh. cat. Washington (DC) (National Gallery of Art) 1990, p. 144, under no. 31, fig. 2; C. Vogelaar et al., Rembrandt and Lievens in Leiden: ‘A pair of young and noble painters’, exh. cat. Leiden (Stedelijk Museum de Lakenhal) 1991-92, p. 106, fig. 58 (recto), and p. 123, fig. 73 (verso); M. Royalton-Kisch, Drawings by Rembrandt and his Circle in the British Museum, exh. cat. London 1992, under nos. 2-4 and 15, n. 11, p. 220, pl. 1; 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, p. 160 from pp. 156-72; E. van de Wetering, Rembrandt: The Painter at Work, Amsterdam 2009 (orig. edn. 1997), p. 25, fig. 25 (verso); A. Chong (ed.), Rembrandt Creates Rembrandt: Art and Ambition in Leiden, 1629-1631, exh. cat. Boston (Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum) 2000-01, p. 61, fig. 58 (verso); J. Lloyd Williams et al., Rembrandt’s Women, exh. cat. Edinburgh (National Gallery of Scotland)/London (Royal Academy of Arts) 2001, no. 9 (recto); E. van de Wetering et al., The Mystery of the Young Rembrandt, exh. cat. Kassel (Staatliche Museen)/Amsterdam (Museum Het Rembrandthuis) 2001-02, no. 34; R. van Straten, Rembrandts Leidse tijd, 1606-1632, Leiden 2005, p. 96, fig. 117 (recto), and p. 111, fig. 138 (verso); E. van der Wetering et al., Rembrandt: Quest of a Genius, exh. cat. Amsterdam (Museum Het Rembrandthuis)/Berlin (Gemäldegalerie) 2006, p. 68, fig. 5 (recto); E.J. Sluijter, Rembrandt and the Female Nude, Amsterdam 2006, p. 319, fig. 303 (recto); R.H. Fuchs, Rembrandt spreekt: Een verslag, Amsterdam 2006, pp. 111-12, fig. 17 (verso); D. Bomford et al., Art in the Making: Rembrandt, London 2006 (orig. edn. London 1988-89), p. 38, under no. 1, fig. 27 (verso); E. van de Wetering, Rembrandt: The Painter at Work, Amsterdam 2009 (orig. edn. 1997), p. 25, fig. 25 (verso); M. Royalton-Kisch and P. Schatborn, ‘The Core Group of Rembrandt Drawings, II: The List’, Master Drawings 49 (2011), no. 3, pp. 323-46, no. 5; J. Noorman and D. de Witt (eds.), Rembrandt’s Naked Truth: Drawing Nude Models in the Golden Age, exh. cat. Amsterdam (Museum Het Rembrandthuis) 2016, p. 19, fig. 7 (recto); P. Rumberg, with H. Bevers, Rembrandt’s First Masterpiece, exh. cat. New York (The Morgan Library & Museum) 2016, no. 3, repr.; M. Royalton-Kisch, The Drawings of Rembrandt: A Revision of Otto Benesch’s Catalogue Raisonné (online), no. 0009, with further literature

P. Schatborn, 2017, 'Rembrandt van Rijn, Three Scribes / recto: Study of a Woman’s Legs, Leiden, c. 1628 - c. 1629', in J. Turner (ed.), Drawings by Rembrandt and his School in the Rijksmuseum, online coll. cat. Amsterdam: hdl.handle.net/10934/RM0001.COLLECT.28124