REMBRANDT VAN RIJN
113 Two Studies of the Head
of an Old Man
Pen and brown ink, sheet torn down the center and re-
joined; H: 9 cm (3^9 /i6 in.); W: 15 cm ($^7 /8 in.)
8s.GA.264
MARKS AND INSCRIPTIONS: None.
PROVENANCE: Private collection (sale, Christie's, Am-
sterdam, November 16, 1981, lot 32); art market,
Boston.
EXHIBITIONS: None.
BIBLIOGRAPHY: None.
THIS SHEET MADE ITS FIRST APPEARANCE AT A
Christie's, Amsterdam, sale (1981, lot 32) with an attri-
bution to Rembrandt by W. Sumowski. An alternate at-
tribution, to Jan Lievens, has been proposed by P. S chat-
born.^1 The attribution to Rembrandt depends in large
part on the clear relationship between the head at the right
and that of the old man in his painting of 1626, Christ
Driving the Money Changers from the Temple (Moscow,
Pushkin Museum). Not only are the general pose and fa-
cial type similar, but the two renderings agree in several
significant details. In both, the eyes have been left as un-
described dark caverns, and the ears were rendered as
crude geometric forms. In both drawing and painting
the furrowed forehead is indicated in a linear manner, and
a strong area of shadow—suggested in the drawing and
explicit in the painting—begins at the throat and contin-
ues behind the ear. Lastly, the two are alike in their pen-
sive and withdrawn expressive characterization. To be
sure, there are also differences, especially in the descrip-
tion of the hair at the back of the head, but such diver-
gences are to be expected between a study freely drawn
from life and a figure in a finished painting. The sketch
of the model at the left on this sheet is more generally
related to images by Rembrandt such as the Portrait of an
Old Man (Staatliche Kunstsammlungen Kassel), but can-
not be connected directly to any of them.
By contrast, the attribution to Lievens rests on
grounds of graphic style and technique. Schatborn has
related the drawing closely to one showing an old
woman in the Abrams collection, Boston,^2 pointing to
several characteristics that to him are closer to Lievens
than to Rembrandt: the thin, smooth lines and thicker
ones close to one another in certain areas; the use of broad
contours and of dotting; and a tendency toward graphic
elegance. Using the early prints of Rembrandt and Liev-
ens as a standard of comparison, he has noted that Rem-
brandt "is bolder, nearly uglier, and his lines less graphic
and regular. ... He tends to painterly qualities." Schat-
born also has pointed to "an ease and a self-evidence that
is alien to Rembrandt's earliest drawings," and has stated
his belief that the similarities between the painted money
changer and the drawn figure "only illustrate [the two
artists'] close collaboration."
Taking these arguments in favor of Lievens individ-
ually, it may be noted that Rembrandt employed a tech-
nique of dotting in his early self-portrait in the Rijks-
museum, Amsterdam (inv. 1961, 75),^3 and continued to
use it later as well. The use of thin lines and then thicker
ones near each other recurs in a drawing of not many
years later showing an old man and another in a turban,
formerly in the H. Oppenheimer collection, London.^4 A
still closer similarity exists in both technique and date be-REMBRANDT VAN RIJN (Dutch, 1606-1669). Christ Driving the
Money Changers from the Temple, 1626 (detail). Oil on panel. H:
43 cm (i6Vi6 in.); W: 33 cm (13 in.). Moscow, Puschkin Mu-
seum 1900. Photo courtesy Puschkin Museum.254 DUTCH SCHOOL • REMBRANDT