Two studies from an old man's head
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| Two studies from an old man's head |
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| Rembrandt van Rijn , 1624/1625 |
| Ink on paper |
| 9 x 14.9 cm |
| J. Paul Getty Museum , Los Angeles |
Two studies of the head of an old man is a drawing by the Dutch artist Rembrandt van Rijn . The work is executed in landscape format in brown ink on paper and was drawn in 1624 or 1625 as a sketch for the painting Christ drives the money changers out of the temple . This makes it the earliest example of Rembrandt's numerous drawings that can be assigned to a painting as preparatory sketches.
description
The drawing shows two headshots of the same old man with a bald head, a full beard and a head tilted downwards. The left portrait shows him half-left from the front, the right is a slightly larger representation almost in profile. Rembrandt manages to work out the contours of the faces and the most important features with a few lines of varying strength. The drawing is 9 × 14.9 cm in size and is drawn on paper in brown ink. The sheet was torn in two parts, the tear runs between the two portraits from the upper edge vertically downwards and bends slightly below the center of the sheet at an angle to the lower left. The parts were put back together.
background
Rembrandt's painting Christ drives the money changers out of the temple is one of Rembrandt's earliest paintings in addition to the originally five-part cycle The Five Senses , which were created during or shortly after his training with Pieter Lastman . The sketch, Two Studies of the Head of an Old Man , obviously served the preparation of this painting; the figure depicted in the painting at the bottom right at the table is based on the right of the two sketches. The sketch on the left is generally similar to the portraits of old men painted by Rembrandt. One example is the bust of a bald old man in the Gemäldegalerie Alte Meister in Kassel . However, it is not possible to assign this sketch to a specific painting.
reception
The drawing was attributed to Rembrandt by Werner Sumowski when it was auctioned in 1981. For stylistic reasons, Peter Schatborn suggested Jan Lievens as a draftsman, but received no approval from experts.
Provenance
The drawing was in private ownership until 1981 and was auctioned off on November 16, 1981 by Christie's in Amsterdam as lot 32. It was then offered in the US art trade and in 1983 sold by an art dealer in Boston to the J. Paul Getty Museum .
Exhibitions (chronological)
- J. Paul Getty Museum, Malibu , California. 17th Century Dutch Drawings exhibition , July 21 to October 4, 1992
- J. Paul Getty Museum, Malibu, California. Exhibition Dutch Drawings of the 16th and 17th Centuries , August 16 to October 23, 1994
- J. Paul Getty Museum at the Getty Center , Los Angeles, California. Exhibition Casting Characters: Portraits and Studies of Heads , November 4, 2003 to February 1, 2004
- J. Paul Getty Museum at the Getty Center , Los Angeles, California. Exhibition Masterful Likeness: Dutch Drawings of the Golden Age , July 24th to October 28th, 2018
Web link
- Two Studies of the Head of an Old Man on the J. Paul Getty Museum website
Individual evidence
- ^ A b Two Studies of the Head of an Old Man , J. Paul Getty Museum website , accessed August 26, 2019.
- ^ A b c George R. Goldner: European Drawings 1. Catalog of the Collections. J. Paul Getty Museum, Malibu, CA 1988, ISBN 0-89236-092-5 , No. 113, Rembrandt van Rijn, Two Studies of the Head of an Old Man , pp. 254-255.
- ^ Ernst van de Wetering: Rembrandt, a biography. In: Gemäldegalerie der Staatliche Museen zu Berlin (Ed.): Rembrandt. Genius in search. DuMont Literature and Art, Cologne 2006, ISBN 3-8321-7694-2 , pp. 21–49.
- ↑ Rembrandt, Two studies of the head of an old man, voor 1626 on the website of the RKD - Nederlands Instituut voor Kunstgeschiedenis , accessed on August 26, 2019.