119 A Wooded Road
Pen and brown ink and brown wash on gray-brown
tinted paper, intentionally scratched by the artist; H:- 9 cm (6*4 in.); W: 20. 1 cm (yI5/i6in.)
8s.GA.95
MARKS AND INSCRIPTIONS: At bottom left, collection
mark of N. A. Flinck (L. 959).
PROVENANCE: N. A. Flinck, Rotterdam; William, sec-
ond duke of Devonshire, Chatsworth; by descent to the
current duke (sale, Christie's, London, July 3, 1984, lot
67); art market, New York.
EXHIBITIONS: Exhibition of Dutch Art 1450-1900, Royal
Academy of Arts, London, 1929, no. 611 (catalogue by
D. Hannema et al.). Rembrandt Tentoonstelling, Rijks-
museum, Amsterdam, July-October 1935, no. 73. Old
Master Drawings from Chatsworth, National Gallery of
Art, Washington, D.C., and other institutions, 1962 -
1963, no. 90 (catalogue by A. E. Popham). Old Master
Drawings from Chatsworth: A Loan Exhibition from the
Devonshire Collection, Royal Academy of Arts, London,
July-August 1969, no. 90 (catalogue by A. E. Popham).
"Shock of Recognition": The Landscape of English Roman-
ticism and the Dutch Seventeenth-Century School, Maurit-
shuis, The Hague, and Tate Gallery, London, November
1970-January 1971 and January-February 1971, no. 80
(catalogue by A. G. H. Bachrach). Old Master Drawings:
A Loan from the Collection of the Duke of Devonshire, Israel
Museum, Jerusalem, April-July 1977, no. 38.
BIBLIOGRAPHY: F. Lippmann, Original Drawings by
Rembrandt, ist ser. (Berlin, 1888-1892), no. 55; E.
Michel, Rembrandt, sa vie, son oeuvre, et son temps (Paris,
J893), P- 373 ; C. Hofstede de Groot, Die Handzeichnun-
gen Rembrandts (Haarlem, 1906), p. 193, no. 843; M. Eis-
ler, Rembrandt als Landschafter (Munich, 1918), fig. 36;
A. M. Hind, Commemorative Catalogue of the Exhibition of
Dutch Art, exh. cat., Royal Academy of Arts, London,
1930, p. 207; O. Benesch, Rembrandt: Werk und Forschung
(Vienna, 1935), p. 49; idem, Rembrandt: Selected Drawings
(Oxford, 1947), p. 26, no. 175; J. Rosenberg, Rembrandt
(Cambridge, Mass., 1948), vols. i, p. 90; 2, fig. 131 ; O.
Benesch, The Drawings of Rembrandt, vol. 6 (London,
1957), no. 1253, fig. 1478; J. Rosenberg, Rembrandt: Life
and Work (London, 1964), p. 155; S. Slive, Drawings of
Rembrandt (New York, 1965), vol. i, no. 55 ; O. Benesch,
The Drawings of Rembrandt (London, 1973), vol. 6, no.
1253 , fig. 1556.
AROUND 1650-1652 REMBRANDT MADE A NUMBER
of generally related drawings of wooded scenes in pen
and ink (Benesch 1973, vol. 6, nos. 1245-1254, 1284-
1285, 1287). Here as in several others he drew the trees
with quick, thin strokes of the quill pen, suggesting the
forms impressionistically rather than describing them
with specificity. The only passage upon which he
dwelled is the isolated tree in the left foreground; he em-
phasized its bulk and scratched into the paper through the
brown tint in order to produce white highlights. It is in-
structive to compare this drawing with a variant of the
same view in the Hamburger Kunsthalle (inv. 22818; Be-
nesch 1973, vol. 6, no. 1254), in which the artist rendered
the forms with fewer, somewhat broader lines from a
slightly nearer vantage point. The Hamburg drawing is
somewhat problematical and contains at least one addi-
tion by another hand. The Museum's drawing is far
closer in style to other landscapes of the period such as
those i n the Kupferstichkabinett, Berlin (inv. 5266, 5267)
and in the Devonshire collection, Chatsworth (inv.
1044), in which paths through woods open up next to
canals (Benesch 1973, vol. 6, nos. 1251-1252), achieving
a similar overall effect. These drawings of wooded scenes
can be dated to the early 16505 partly on account of anal-
ogies with etchings such as the Landscape with a Road be-
side a Canal (B.22i) of circa 1652.266 DUTCH SCHOOL • REMBRANDT