Watermark: None

…; sale, Hendrik Valkenburg (1836-96, Amsterdam), Amsterdam (H.G. Tersteeg and F. Muller), 2 February 1897, no. 156, as Rembrandt, with four other drawings, fl. 68.20 for all, to the dealer H.J. Valk for the museum (L. 2228)

Object number: RP-T-1897-A-3478

A woman with a cloth around her head has stretched out her left arm to give a child a drink from a cup or a bowl. The child’s head is sketched in the lower right-hand corner.

The sketch was done in iron-gall ink on paper toned with light brown wash; Rembrandt used this technique in drawings from the second half of the 1630s. The type of ink and paper are the same as in the drawing of Saskia Sitting by a Window (inv. no. RP-T-1930-51). A connection has quite correctly been made with a few of Rembrandt’s drawings in which he sketched various figures and heads. Three of these drawings are in the Kupferstichkabinett, Berlin.¹¹Benesch, nos. 218, 219 and 223; H. Bevers, Rembrandt: Die Zeichnungen im Berliner Kupferstichkabinett, kritischer Katalog, coll. cat. Berlin 2006, nos. 21-23. The museum’s drawing, however, makes a messier impression. One of the Berlin drawings (KdZ 2316)²²Benesch, no. 218. bears the most stylistic resemblance to the present sheet, but the figures have livelier expressions and the composition is more striking: in the museum’s drawing the woman’s face is rather stiff and some of the folds in her clothing are just a sloppy accumulation of lines; the child’s head is also so poorly drawn that it seems almost deformed. When we see how accurately and strikingly Rembrandt has characterized the children in the Berlin drawings, it seems clear that the museum’s drawing was made by a follower. Although the authenticity of the drawing has never been doubted, the messy lines, the lack of structure, the stiff expression on the woman’s face and the clumsy rendering of the child make the attribution to Rembrandt unlikely.

The Berlin drawings are usually dated to the beginning of Rembrandt’s Amsterdam period, but a dating of circa 1638, the same as for Saskia Sitting by a Window (inv. no. RP-T-1930-51), is more probable. The drawing by the follower can also be dated to this period. As far as we know, the drawings in iron-gall ink can all be dated at the second half of the 1630s.

Peter Schatborn, 2018

C. Hofstede de Groot, Die Handzeichnungen Rembrandts, Haarlem 1906, no. 1193 (as Rembrandt); M.D. Henkel, Catalogus van de Nederlandsche teekeningen in het Rijksmuseum te Amsterdam, I: Teekeningen van Rembrandt en zijn school, coll. cat. Amsterdam 1942, no. 15 (as Rembrandt, c. 1635); O. Benesch, The Drawings of Rembrandt (rev. edn. by E. Benesch), 6 vols., London 1973 (orig. edn. 1954-57), no. 222 (as Rembrandt, c. 1633-34); 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. 92, with earlier literature

P. Schatborn, 2018, 'follower of Rembrandt van Rijn, Woman Giving a Child a Drink, Amsterdam, c. 1638', in J. Turner (ed.), Drawings by Rembrandt and his School in the Rijksmuseum, online coll. cat. Amsterdam: https://data.rijksmuseum.nl/200118044