Watermark: None

Light foxing throughout¹¹Typical of most drawings formerly in the collection of Hofstede de Groot, which at some point during his ownership were stored in unfavourably damp conditions.

…; purchased from the dealer P. Roblin (?1853-1908), Paris, with six other drawings, by Dr Cornelis Hofstede de Groot (1863-1930), The Hague, 1901;²²Hofstede de Groot notes, KB. by whom donated to the museum, 1906, but kept in usufruct; transferred to the museum (L. 2228), 1930

Object number: RP-T-1930-40

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

A man holding his hands and wearing a high cap is walking towards the left. The figure was drawn with a reed pen in a mixture of fine, light lines and dark, broad lines. The face and the cap were fairly precisely indicated, but the rest of the figure was broadly sketched.

The attribution to Rembrandt is problematical, as is its relationship with two paintings, the Adoration of the Magi in the British Royal Collection in Buckingham Palace in London (inv. no. RCIN 405350),³³A. Bredius, Rembrandt: The Complete Edition of the Paintings (rev. edn. by H. Gerson), London 1969 (orig. edn. Vienna 1936), no. 592; C. White, The Dutch Pictures in the Collection of Her Majesty the Queen, Cambridge 1982, no. 164. The relationship between the drawing and this painting is unclear, as Sumowski has already mentioned in Sumowski, Drawings, VIII (1984). which is a school work even though it bears a false signature and date, Rembrandt f 1657, and the Return of the Prodigal Son, in The State Hermitage Museum in St Petersburg (inv. no. GE-742),⁴⁴RRP VI (2015), no. 320. The connection with this painting was made by Benesch in 1964, in O. Benesch, ‘Neuentdeckte Zeichnungen von Rembrandt’, Jahrbuch der Berliner Museen n.s. 6 (1964), pp. 105-50, so the drawing was included as a supplementary item only in the 1973 revised edition of his corpus. which may be by Rembrandt. The style of the study, however, is so typical of the drawings Rembrandt made in the second half of the 1650s, all of which were very broadly sketched in reed pen, that the attribution to him cannot be doubted.⁵⁵Some of these drawings are: St Peter at the Deathbed of Tabitha, in the Kupferstich-Kabinett, Dresden (inv. no. C 1302; Benesch, no. 1068; C. Dittrich and T. Ketelsen et al., Rembrandt: Die Dresdener Zeichnungen, exh. cat. Dresden (Kupferstich-Kabinett) 2004, no. 116); the Meeting of Christ with Mary and Martha after the Death of Lazarus, in The Cleveland Museum of Art (inv. no. 1962.116; Benesch, no. 1068A); and Noah’s Ark, in The Art Institute of Chicago (inv. no. 1953.36; Benesch, no. 1045; S. Perlove and G.S. Keyes (eds.), Seventeenth-century European Drawings in Midwestern Collections: The Age of Bernini, Rembrandt and Poussin, Notre Dame (IN) 2015, no. 65). It is exactly these stylistic similarities with a group of later drawings by Rembrandt that rule out Werner Sumowski’s reattribution of Walking Man in a High Cap to Nicolaes Maes, who was Rembrant’s pupil circa 1650.⁶⁶In my opinion, Sumowski incorrectly reattributed two other drawings by Rembrandt to Maes (Sumowski, Drawings, VIII (1984), nos. 1966-ax and 1966-bx): Christ and the Apostles and the Woman who Had an Issue of Blood, in the Albertina, Vienna (inv. no. 8793; Benesch, no. 1052; K.A. Schröder and M. Bisanz-Prakken (eds.), Rembrandt, exh. cat. Vienna (Graphische Sammlung Albertina) 2004, no. 115) and Susanna and the Elders, in the Kupferstichkabinett in Berlin (inv. no. KdZ 1130; Benesch, no. 977). However, Maes’s broad, sketchy drawing style is based on drawings by Rembrandt in which the forms are not indicated with the short, angular strokes so characteristic of Rembrandt’s later drawings. The relationship between the precisely indicated face and the increasing sketchiness of line as we move towards the bottom of the figure in the present sketch – and especially the manner in which light and dark lines alternate and certain areas have been left unresolved – are all typical traits of Rembrandt’s later drawings.

The connection with the figure on the right in the Prodigal Son in the Hermitage is not sufficiently direct to consider the Walking Man in a High Cap to be a preliminary study; in fact, Rembrandt seldom made preparatory studies of this type. On the other hand, the figure type bears enough resemblance to allow us to speak of a broad relationship. The link between the drawing and the painting raises various questions, however, including how much of the painting, which is the largest work to come out of the studio in the late 1660s, was completed by Rembrandt himself.⁷⁷Haak, in B. Haak, Rembrandt: Zijn leven, zijn werk, zijn tijd, Amsterdam 1968, p. 328, was of the opinion that Rembrandt painted only the father and the son and that the scene was completed by someone else. It was catalogued in the latest volume of the RRP as by Rembrandt and other hand(s). If we assume that it was not Rembrandt but a student such as Aert de Gelder who made, or at least finished, the painting, then he could have based the life-size painted figure, which contains details absent in the drawing, on the Walking Man in a High Cap. In any case, De Gelder certainly knew the drawing, since he used it for one of the figures in his painting of The Entombment in the Staatsgalerie in Schloss Johannisburg in Aschaffenburg (inv. no. 6331).⁸⁸Sumowski, Gemälde, II, no. 775.

The drawing is probably a section from a sheet of studies, possibly of the same man in different positions. The paper has not been cut straight with respect to the chain and laid lines, causing the man to bend forward a bit too much. If we allow for this, the figure is standing up straight, as in the Hermitage painting.

These types of drawings were made by Rembrandt at various periods of his career, for example, a pair of sheets in the British Museum in London, Three Studies of a Bearded Man on Crutches and a Woman (inv. no. Gg,2.252)⁹⁹Benesch, no. 327 (c. 1636); M. Royalton-Kisch, Catalogue of Drawings by Rembrandt and his School in the British Museum, coll. cat. (online 2010), no. 7 (c. 1632-34). and Three Studies of Old Men Standing and Walking (inv. no. Oo,9.76),¹⁰¹⁰Benesch, no. 679 (c. 1642-43); M. Royalton-Kisch, Catalogue of Drawings by Rembrandt and his School in the British Museum, coll. cat. (online 2010), no. 77 (attributed to Rembrandt, c. 1645-48). A third drawing, the Three Studies of an Old Man in a High Fur Cap (inv. no. Gg,2.251; Benesch, no. 688 (c. 1643-44); Royalton-Kisch, coll. cat. (online 2010), no. 33 (c. 1640)), has recently been reassigned to Ferdinand Bol by Holm Bevers, myself, and Leonore van Sloten (see P. Schatborn and L. van Sloten, Old Drawings, New Names: Rembrandt and his Contemporaries, exh. cat. Amsterdam (Museum Het Rembrandthuis) 2014, no. 3). and, finally, one in the Kupferstichkabinett in Berlin, the Three Studies of a Beggar (inv. no. KdZ 3108).¹¹¹¹Benesch, no. 1141 (c. 1659-60); H. Bevers, Rembrandt: Die Zeichnungen im Berliner Kupferstichkabinett, kritischer Katalog, coll. cat. Ostfildern/Berlin 2006, no. 53 (c. 1658-60).

I consider the drawing to be a work of Rembrandt from the second half of the 1650s, which was used by Aert de Gelder for a figure in his painting of The Entombment and perhaps also by him in the Hermitage Prodigal Son.

Peter Schatborn, 2017

C. Hofstede de Groot, Die Handzeichnungen Rembrandts, Haarlem 1906, no. 1286; M.D. Henkel, Catalogus van de Nederlandsche teekeningen in het Rijksmuseum te Amsterdam, I: Teekeningen van Rembrandt en zijn school, coll. cat. The Hague 1942, no. 33 (c. 1655); O. Benesch, The Drawings of Rembrandt (rev. edn. by E. Benesch), 6 vols., London 1973 (orig. edn. 1954-57), no. 1068B (1660s); Sumowski, Drawings, VIII (1984), no. 1993x (as Nicolaes Maes); 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. 48, with earlier literature; M. Schapelhouman, Rembrandt and the Art of Drawing, Amsterdam 2006, pp. 84-86, fig. 84

P. Schatborn, 2017, 'Rembrandt van Rijn, Walking Man in a High Cap, Amsterdam, c. 1655 - c. 1660', in J. Turner (ed.), Drawings by Rembrandt and his School in the Rijksmuseum, online coll. cat. Amsterdam: https://data.rijksmuseum.nl/200117998