Object data
reed pen and brown ink, with brown wash and opaque white (oxidized), some areas deliberately rubbed with a finger or wet brush
height 136 mm × width 283 mm
Rembrandt van Rijn
Nude Woman Lying on a Pillow
Amsterdam, c. 1661 - c. 1662
Inscriptions
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inscribed: lower left, with the mark of Esdaile, in brown ink, WE (L. 2617)
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stamped: lower left, with the mark of Lawrence (L. 2445)
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inscribed on verso: upper left (with the sheet turned upside down), with the mark of Roupell, in brown ink, RPR (L. 2234)
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stamped on verso: upper right (with the sheet turned upside down), with the mark of Heseltine (L. 1507)
Technical notes
Watermark: None
Condition
Light foxing throughtout
Provenance
...; collection Sir Thomas Lawrence (1769-1830), London (L. 2445); from whom, en bloc, £16,000, to the dealer Samuel Woodburn (1786-1853), London, 1835;1 ? from whom, with 99 other drawings by Rembrandt, £1,500, to William Esdaile (1758-1837), London (L. 2617), 1835;2 his sale, London (Christie’s), 17 June 1840, no. 10 (‘A nymph sleeping, a bold outline, slightly washed’), £0.17.0, to the dealer Samuel Woodburn, London;3 ...; collection Robert Prioleau Roupell (1798-1886), London (L. 2234); his sale, London (Christie’s), 12 July 1887, no. 1065 (‘A woman sleeping. From the Esdaile, Lawrence, and Woodburn collections’), £3, with one other drawing, to the dealer Alphonse Wyatt Thibaudeau (1840-93), London;4 ...; collection John Postle Heseltine (1843-1929), London (L. 1507), by 1907;5 his sale, Amsterdam (F. Muller & Co.), 27 May 1913 sqq., no. 22, fl. 14,900, to the Vereniging Rembrandt;6 from whom, fl. 11,500, to the museum, 1917
Object number: RP-T-1917-1
Credit line: Purchased with the support of the Vereniging Rembrandt
Copyright: Public domain
The artist
Rembrandt Harmensz van Rijn (Leiden 1606 - Amsterdam 1669)
After attending Latin school in his native Leiden, Rembrandt, the son of a miller, enrolled at Leiden University in 1620, but soon abandoned his studies to become an artist. He first trained (1621-23) under the Leiden painter Jacob Isaacsz van Swanenburg (c. 1571-1638), followed by six months with the Amsterdam history painter Pieter Lastman (c. 1583-1633). Returning to Leiden around 1624, he shared a studio with Jan Lievens, where he aimed to establish himself as a history painter, winning the admiration of the poet and courtier Constantijn Huygens. In 1628 Gerard Dou (1613-75) became his first pupil. In the autumn of 1631 Rembrandt moved to Amsterdam, where his career rapidly took off. Three years later he joined the Guild of St Luke and married Saskia Uylenburgh (1612-42), niece of the art dealer Hendrik Uylenburgh (c. 1587-1661), in whose house he had been living and working. She died shortly after giving birth to their son Titus, by which time Rembrandt was already in financial straits owing to excessive spending on paintings, prints, antiquities and studio props for his history pieces. After Saskia’s death, Rembrandt lived first with Titus's wet nurse, Geertje Dircx (who eventually sued Rembrandt for breach of promise and was later imprisoned for her increasingly unstable behaviour), and then with his later housekeeper, Hendrickje Stoffels (by whom he had a daughter, Cornelia). Mounting debts made him unable to meet the payments of his house on the Jodenbreestraat and forced him to declare bankruptcy in 1656 and to sell his house and art collection. In the last decade of his life, he, Hendrickje and Titus resided in more modest accommodation on the Rozengracht, but Rembrandt continued to be dogged by continuing financial difficulties. His beloved Titus died in 1668. Rembrandt survived him by only a year and was buried in the Westerkerk.
Entry
Rembrandt depicted the nude at various points in his career. Female nudes appear in several of his paintings and prints with either biblical or mythological subjects, as well as in some of his drawings, such as a standing female represented as Cleopatra, in a red chalk study in the J. Paul Getty Museum in Los Angeles (inv. no. 81.GB.27).7 In only a few cases, however, are the drawings of nudes directly related to etched or painted works, such as a drawing of Diana at the Bath, in the British Museum in London (inv. no. 1895,0915.1266),8 which was a preliminary study for an etching, in reverse, of circa 1631 (e.g. inv. no. RP-P-1962-70),9 and a nude study in the Kupferstichkabinett in Berlin (inv. no. KdZ 5264),10 which was used as a preparatory stage for the figure of Susanna in the 1647 painting of Susanna and the Elders, in the Gemäldegalerie in Berlin (inv. no. 828E).11
Other nude studies were made either when he was drawing with his students or perhaps in a more domestic situation. For instance, there is a drawing of Rembrandt’s studio, in the Ashmolean Museum in Oxford (inv. no. WA1855.8), in which the artist’s easel stands on the left and on the right is a woman seated topless before a desk with a cradle on it.12 In this scene, Rembrandt’s housekeeper and long-term mistress Hendrickje Stoffels had probably just nursed their daughter, Cornelia (b. 1654). At an earlier period, it could have been his wife, Saskia, or his previous live-in lover, Geertje Dircx, who posed for Rembrandt when he was alone. We also know of a case when Rembrandt made an etching of a boy who was standing as a model (e.g. inv. no. RP-P-OB-427),13 while his students were busy drawing him.14 Some drawings traditionally attributed to Rembrandt himself are now recognized as by pupils recording that same male model at these sessions. Drawings of this boy, seen from different angles, are in the British Museum in London (inv. no. Oo,9.94),15 the Albertina in Vienna (inv. no. 8828)16 and the Louvre in Paris (inv. no. RF 4713).17 A few of these model studies have perhaps been corrected by Rembrandt (in the same manner as both he and later Samuel van Hoogstraten corrected historical scenes by pupils such as Constantijn à Renesse), but it is not certain that all of these drawings were corrected by him, as assumed in the past.18 One example with an obvious correction by Rembrandt is a drawing of a female nude once incorrectly attributed to the master himself, in the Museum of Fine Arts in Budapest (inv. no. 1575),19 where Rembrandt has altered the contour of the face in profil perdu.
The present drawing, in which the reclining nude is leaning slightly forward, was executed mainly with broad strokes of a reed pen. Only the contours of the figure’s left shoulder, left shin and left upper arm where the light falls were drawn with very thin lines, while broad, powerful reed pen lines were used for the shaded areas. In a few places, the shadows were indicated with hatching, but most of the darks were achieved with extremely subtle passages of wash, which set off the untouched areas of the paper and make them appear illuminated. The lighting of the partially shaded face is especially well observed, without defining the shadow precisely, conveying the feeling that there is still some reflection in this area. In the fold of the slightly fleshy, sagging stomach, we see a thick, dark, dry pen line that Rembrandt corrected with opaque white. Oxidation of the white lead pigment has caused this line to become too dark again, which was not Rembrandt’s intention. As in so many drawings by Rembrandt and other artists, the sheet has been trimmed, cutting off the foot and part of the pillow and thereby compromising the feeling of space. Despite this loss, the drawing – with its robust modelling of form (e.g. in the hands) and its subtle use of wash – is a striking example of Rembrandt’s draughtsmanship. It is generally dated to 1658, the same year as a number of etchings of female nudes.20 Another nude in the Rijksprentenkabinet, Female Nude Seated in front of a Stove (inv. no. RP-T-00-227), is dated a few years later.
Peter Schatborn, 2017
Literature
C. Hofstede de Groot, Die Handzeichnungen Rembrandts, Haarlem 1906, no. 1032 (c. 1650-55); 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. 42; O. Benesch, The Drawings of Rembrandt (rev. edn. by E. Benesch), 6 vols., London 1973 (orig. edn. 1954-57), no. 1137 (1657-58); P. Schatborn, Dutch Figure Drawings of the Seventeenth Century, exh. cat. Amsterdam (Rijksmuseum)/Washington (DC) (National Gallery of Art) 1981-82, pp. 56-57, fig. 4, no. 85; 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. 52, with earlier literature; P. Schatborn, ‘Tekeningen van Rembrandt in verband met zijn etsen’, De Kroniek van het Rembrandthuis 38 (1986), no. 1, pp. 1-38, p. 318, fig. 15; 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. 157 from pp. 156-72; C. White, Rembrandt as an Etcher: A Study of the Artist at Work, New Haven/London 1999 (orig. edn. 1969), p. 207, fig. 283; E. Hinterding, G. Luijten and M. Royalton-Kisch, Rembrandt, the Printmaker, exh. cat. Amsterdam (Rijksmuseum)/London (British Museum) 2000-01, p. 363, under no. 90, fig. d; J. Lloyd Williams et al., Rembrandt’s Women, exh. cat. Edinburgh (National Gallery of Scotland)/London (Royal Academy of Arts) 2001, no. 132; E. Hinterding et al., Rembrandt: Dipinti, incisioni e riflessi sul ‘600 e ‘700 italiano, exh. cat. Rome (Azienda Speciale Palaexpo/Scuderie del Quirinale) 2002-03, pp. 309-10, under no. 90, fig. d; K.A. Schröder and M. Bisanz-Prakken (eds.), Rembrandt, exh. cat. Vienna (Graphische Sammlung Albertina) 2004, no. 66; M. Schapelhouman, Rembrandt and the Art of Drawing, Amsterdam 2006, pp. 29-30, fig. 25; G. Schwartz, De grote Rembrandt, Zwolle 2006, p. 94, fig. 174; P. Schatborn, Rembrandt and his Circle: Drawings in the Frits Lugt Collection, 2 vols., coll. cat. Paris 2010, pp. 85 and 225-226, under no. 21 and 88; J. Bikker et al. Late Rembrandt, exh. cat. London (The National Gallery)/Amsterdam (Rijksmuseum), 2014-15, pp. 99-100, 310, no. 36 (ill.); 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. 14, fig. 1
Citation
P. Schatborn, 2017, 'Rembrandt van Rijn, Nude Woman Lying on a Pillow, Amsterdam, c. 1661 - c. 1662', in J. Turner (ed.), Drawings by Rembrandt and his School in the Rijksmuseum, online coll. cat. Amsterdam: hdl.handle.net/10934/RM0001.COLLECT.28571
(accessed 14 May 2024 13:31:58).