Rembrandt Looks to Schongauer

Martin Schongauer,  Christ Carrying the Cross, ca. 1475–80, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York

Rembrandt’s use of works by earlier artists as formal inspiration for his own is well-known. This essay examines Rembrandt’s little-recognized appropriation of poses, compositions, and even methods of handling light and dark from Martin Schongauer’s engraving Christ Carrying the Cross. Rembrandt returned to Schongauer’s print at various moments in his career, most notably for the creation of one of his most ambitious etchings, The Hundred Guilder Print.

DOI: 10.5092/jhna.2013.5.2.10

Acknowledgements

Some of my most valuable learning experiences at the Institute of Fine Arts under Egbert Haverkamp-Begemann’s tutelage took place outside the classroom: on visits with him to private collectors, auctions houses, and dealers. The idea for this essay, which came to me as I was laying out prints on the Metropolitan Museum’s print study room table for a class that I was about to teach, is indebted to those memorable visits, which always underscored the fact that examining real works of art is of the utmost importance.

Martin Schongauer,  Christ Carrying the Cross,  ca. 1475–80,  The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York
Fig. 1 Martin Schongauer, Christ Carrying the Cross, ca. 1475–80, engraving, 28.9 x 42.9 cm. The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, inv. no. 35.27 (artwork in the public domain) [side-by-side viewer]
Rembrandt van Rijn,  The Hundred Guilder Print,  ca. 1648,  The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York
Fig. 2 Rembrandt van Rijn, The Hundred Guilder Print, ca. 1648, etching, engraving, and drypoint, second state of two, 28 x 39.3 cm. The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, inv. no. 29.107.35 (artwork in the public domain) [side-by-side viewer]
Rembrandt van Rijn,  The Hundred Guilder Print, detail (fig. 2),  ca. 1648,
Fig. 3 Detail of Rembrandt van Rijn, The Hundred Guilder Print (fig. 2) [side-by-side viewer]
Martin Schongauer,  Christ Carrying the Cross, detail (fig. 1),  ca. 1475–80,
Fig. 4 Detail of Martin Schongauer, Christ Carrying the Cross (fig. 1) [side-by-side viewer]
Martin Schongauer,  Christ Carrying the Cross, detail (fig. 1),  ca. 1475–80,
Fig. 5 Detail of Martin Schongauer, Christ Carrying the Cross (fig. 1) [side-by-side viewer]
Rembrandt van Rijn,  The Hundred Guilder Print, detail (fig. 2),  ca. 1648,
Fig. 6 Detail of Rembrandt van Rijn, The Hundred Guilder Print (fig. 2) [side-by-side viewer]
Martin Schongauer,  Christ Carrying the Cross, detail (fig. 1),  ca. 1475–80,
Fig. 7 Detail of Martin Schongauer, Christ Carrying the Cross (fig. 1) [side-by-side viewer]
Lucas van Leyden,  The Adoration of the Magi, 1513,  The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York
Fig. 8 Lucas van Leyden, The Adoration of the Magi, 1513, engraving, 30 x 43.3 cm. The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, inv. no. 35.66 (artwork in the public domain) [side-by-side viewer]
Martin Schongauer,  Christ Carrying the Cross, detail (fig. 1),  ca. 1475–80,
Fig. 9 Detail of Martin Schongauer, Christ Carrying the Cross (fig. 1) [side-by-side viewer]
Rembrandt van Rijn,  The Hundred Guilder Print, detail,  ca. 1648,  The British Museum, London
Fig. 10 Detail of Rembrandt van Rijn, The Hundred Guilder Print, ca. 1648, etching, engraving, and drypoint, second state of two, 28.1 x 39.5 cm. The British Museum, London, inv. no. F, 7.5 (artwork in the public domain) [side-by-side viewer]
Rembrandt van Rijn,  The Hundred Guilder Print, detail (fig. 2),  ca. 1648,
Fig. 11 Detail of Rembrandt van Rijn, The Hundred Guilder Print (fig. 2) [side-by-side viewer]
Martin Schongauer,  A Shield with Wings Conjoined in Base, Supported,  1469–82,  The British Museum, London
Fig. 12 Martin Schongauer, A Shield with Wings Conjoined in Base, Supported by a Peasant, 1469–82, engraving diameter 7.3 cm. The British Museum, London, inv. no. 1895,0915.293 (artwork in the public domain) [side-by-side viewer]
Rembrandt van Rijn,  Abraham and Isaac, 1645,  The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York
Fig. 13 Rembrandt van Rijn, Abraham and Isaac, 1645, etching and burin, 15.5 x 13 cm. The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, inv. no. 29.107.26 (artwork in the public domain) [side-by-side viewer]
Rembrandt van Rijn,  Christ Crucified Between the Two Thieves (The Th, 1653,  The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York
Fig. 14 Rembrandt van Rijn, Christ Crucified Between the Two Thieves (The Three Crosses), 1653, drypoint, third state of five, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, inv. no. 41.1.32 (artwork in the public domain) [side-by-side viewer]
Rembrandt van Rijn,  Sheet of Studies of Grieving Mary,  1635–36,  Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam
Fig. 15 Rembrandt van Rijn, Sheet of Studies of Grieving Mary, 1635–36, pen and brown ink and red chalk 20.1 x 14.3 cm. Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam, inv. no. RP-T-1947-213 (artwork in the public domain) [side-by-side viewer]
Martin Schongauer,  Christ Carrying the Cross, detail (fig. 1),  ca. 1475–80,
Fig. 16 Detail of Martin Schongauer, Christ Carrying the Cross (fig. 1) [side-by-side viewer]
Rembrandt van Rijn,  The Raising of Lazarus: The Larger Plate,  ca. 1632,  The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York
Fig. 17 Rembrandt van Rijn, The Raising of Lazarus: The Larger Plate, ca. 1632, etching and burin, 36.8 x 25.5 cm. The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, inv. no. 17.37.194 (artwork in the public domain) [side-by-side viewer]
  1. 1. B. P. J. Broos, Index to the Formal Sources of Rembrandt’s Art (Maarssen: Gary Schwartz, 1977) and Ben [B. P. J.] Broos, “Rembrandt and His Picturesque Universe: The Artist’s Collection as a Source of Inspiration,” in Rembrandt’s Treasures, ed. Bob van den Boogert, exh. cat. (Amsterdam: Rembrandt House Museum / Zwolle: Waanders Publishers, 1999), 91–139. My thanks to An van Camp, Erik Hinterding, Martin Royalton-Kisch, and Elizabeth Eisenberg.

  2. 2. Ben Broos in his compilation of Rembrandt’s sources noted references to Rembrandt’s reliance on Schongauer in two etchings by the master The Flight into Egypt: A Sketch (Hollstein 54), loosely indebted to the Colmar printmaker’s The Flight into Egypt (Lehrs 7), and more convincingly The Death of the Virgin (Hollstein 99), which is reliant on the earlier Death of the Virgin (Lehrs 16). He also mentioned a drawing, Christ Carrying the Cross (Teylers Museum Haarlem), now tentatively attributed to Willem Drost, that was likely inspired by Schongauer’s Christ Carrying the Cross; see Michiel C. Plomp, The Dutch Drawings in the Teyler Museum (Haarlem, Ghent, and Doornspijk: Teyler Museum, Snoeck Ducaju & Zoon, and Davaco Publishers,1997), vol. 2, no. 117. The references to Schongauer’s prints will be given here with Lehrs numbers, referring to Max Lehrs, Geschichte und kritischer Katalog des Deutschen, Niederländischen und Französichen Kupferstichs im XV Jahrhundert, vol. 5 (Vienna: Gesellschaft für Vervielfältigende Kunst, 1925).

  3. 3. Peter Schtaborn in Holm Bevers, Peter Schatborn, and Barbara Welzel, Rembrandt: The Master and His Workshop: Drawings and Etchings (New Haven and London: Yale University Press in association with London National Gallery Publications, 1991), 35–36; and Holm Bevers, Rembrandt: Die Zeichnungen im Berliner Kupferstichkabinett: Kritischer Katalog (Ostfildern: Hatje Cantz, 2006), 47–49.

  4. 4. “237. Een papiere kas vol printen van Hubse Marten, Holbeen, Hans Broesmer en Israel van Ments.”: Rembrandt’s inventory (1656), Gemeentearchief Amsterdam, arch. no. 5072, inv. no. 364, fol. 29–38 v, dd July 25 and 26, 1656, cited in Appendix 2 in Rembrandt’s Treasures, 147–52. Schongauer was known starting in the fifteenth century as Hübsch Martin.

  5. 5. The references for the Rembrandt prints mentioned here will be given with Hollstein numbers, referring to Christopher White and Karel G. Boon, Rembrandt van Rijn, vol. 18 of Hollstein’s Dutch and Flemish Etchings, Engravings and Woodcuts (Amsterdam: Van Gendt & Co., 1969).

  6. 6. On this print, see Christopher White, Rembrandt as an Etcher: A Study of the Artist at Work, 2nd ed. (New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 1999), 54–64; and Martin Royalton-Kisch in Rembrandt the Printmaker, by Erik Hinterding, Ger Luijten, and Martin Royalton-Kisch (Amsterdam: Rijksmuseum and Zwolle: Waanders, 2000), 253–58.

  7. 7. According to White and Boon (Hollstein 5), in the second state parallel shading was added to the neck of the ass and the burr of the drypoint in the center was either scraped away or worn down.

  8. 8. White, Rembrandt, 57–62. I would argue that the drawing in the Louvre (Benesch 543; White, Rembrandt, fig. 75; Martin Royalton-Kisch in Rembrandt the Printmaker, no.6), the authenticity of which has been questioned, and which is usually considered to be a study for the group to the left of Christ, relates more closely to the group on the right because a number of the same figures which appear in the other sketches for that group appear here as well, namely the woman with two strips of cloth hanging down her back who is kneeling, the old bearded man with a fur cap, and the young bearded man who is crouching here but standing in the center of the drawing in Berlin (Benesch 188; White, Rembrandt, fig. 70); in addition, Christ’s arm in the Louvre drawing is raised in their direction as it is in the final version of the print.

  9. 9. White, Rembrandt, 57, n.6; Ludwig Münz discussed these sources in A Critical Catalogue of Rembrandt’s Etchings and the Etchings of His School Formerly Attributed to the Master (London: Phaidon Press, 1952), 1:101. Jan Veth rightly found connections with Lucas van Leyden’s painting Healing the Blind Man of Jericho in the Hermitage Museum, St. Petersburg; see Veth, “Rembrandts zoogenaamde Jodenbruid uit de kollektie Van der Hoop,” Oud Holland 24 (1906): 42–43. http://dx.doi.org/10.1163/187501706X00050

  10. 10. A drawing for this figure, Blind Old Man Guided by a Woman exists in the Louvre, but there the woman is looking at him and her body is in a different position relative to the man.

  11. 11. Jan Piet Filedt Kok et al., The New Hollstein Dutch and Flemish Etchings, Engravings and Woodcuts 1450–1700: Lucas van Leyden (Rotterdam: Sound & Vision Interactive, 1996). Münz disagreed with Veth’s connection of the Pharisees with Lucas van Leyden’s painting in the Hermitage (see note 9 above); see Münz, Critical Catalogue, no. 9.

  12. 12. Inventory number F, 7.5. The impression is less well wiped in some areas and overly wiped in others; horizontally through the center there is a band with ink striations which seems to have been produced by the artist swiping a stiff, ink-laden rag across the plate. Oddly enough, this band of ink corresponds quite closely to the placement of the horizontal section of the cross in Schongauer’s print and the marked texture of that swipe of ink also evokes the remarkable texture of Schongauer’s cross. Might this have been an intentional reference to the Schongauer that Rembrandt made in this impression.

  13. 13. The shape of the combined easel and canvas in the first state of Rembrandt’s Portrait of Jan Asselijn (Hollstein 277) of about the same time bears a similar shape; my thanks to Stephanie Dickey for pointing out this resemblance.

  14. 14. Peter Schatborn, Dutch Figure Drawings from the Seventeenth Century (The Hague: Government publishing office, 1981), 54–55, cat. 82.

  15. 15. On the question of the dating see J. Bruyn et al., A Corpus of Rembrandt Paintings (The Hague and Boston: Martinus Nijhoff, 1982–89), 1:300–306; and Gary Schwartz, Rembrandt, His Life, His Paintings (New York: Viking, 1985), 83–86.

  16. 16. Further references to the engraving may still be found; other possibilities that I have not had time to thoroughly consider here include The Triumph of Mordechai (Hollstein 40) and the mounted soldier in The Baptism of the Eunuch (Hollstein 98).

Benesch, Otto. The Drawings of RembrandtEnlarged and Edited by Eva Benesch. 6 vols. London: Phaidon, 1954–47. Enlarged edition, 1973.

Bevers, Holm, Peter Schatborn, and Barbara Welzel. Rembrandt: The Master and His Workshop; Drawings and Etchings. New Haven and London: Yale University Press in association with London National Gallery Publications, 1991.

Bevers, Holm. Rembrandt: Die Zeichnungen im Berliner Kupferstichkabinett: Kritischer Katalog. Ostfildern: Hatje Cantz, 2006.

Broos, B. P. J. Index to the Formal Sources of Rembrandt’s Art. Maarssen: Gary Schwartz, 1977.

Broos, Ben [B. P. J.]. “Rembrandt and His Picturesque Universe: The Artist’s Collection as a Source of Inspiration.” In Rembrandt’s Treasures, edited by Bob van den Boogert, 91–139. Exh. cat. Amsterdam: Rembrandt House Museum / Zwolle: Waanders Publishers, 1999.

Bruyn, J., et al. A Corpus of Rembrandt Paintings. 3 vols. The Hague and Boston: Martinus Nijhoff, 1982–89.

Filedt Kok, Jan Piet, et al. The New Hollstein Dutch and Flemish Etchings, Engravings and Woodcuts 1450–1700: Lucas van Leyden. Rotterdam: Sound & Vision Interactive, 1996.

Hinterding, Erik, Ger Luijten, and Martin Royalton-Kisch. Rembrandt the Printmaker. Amsterdam: Waanders Publishers and Rijksmuseum Amsterdam, 2000.

Lehrs, Max. Geschichte und kritischer Katalog des Deutschen, Niederländischen und Französichen Kupferstichs im XV Jahrhundert. 9 vols. Vienna: Gesellschaft für Vervielfältigende Kunst, 1908–34.

Münz, Ludwig. A Critical Catalogue of Rembrandt’s Etchings and the Etchings of His School Formerly Attributed to the Master. 2 vols. London: Phaidon Press, 1952.

Plomp, Michiel C. The Dutch Drawings in the Teyler Museum. Haarlem, Ghent, and Doornspijk: Teyler Museum, Snoeck Ducaju & Zoon, and Davaco Publishers, 1997.

Rembrandt’s Treasures. Edited by Bob van den Boogert. Exh. cat. Amsterdam: Rembrandt House Museum / Zwolle: Waanders Publishers, 1999.

Schatborn, Peter. Dutch Figure Drawings from the Seventeenth Century. The Hague: Government publishing office, 1981.

Schwartz, Gary. Rembrandt, His Life, His Paintings. New York: Viking, 1985.

Veth, Jan. “Rembrandts zoogenaamde Jodenbruid uit de kollektie Van der Hoop.” Oud Holland 24 (1906): 41–44. http://dx.doi.org/10.1163/187501706X00050

White, Christopher. Rembrandt as an Etcher: A Study of the Artist at Work. 2nd ed. New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 1999.

White, Christopher, and Karel G. Boon. Rembrandt van Rijn. Vol. 18 of Hollstein’s Dutch and Flemish Etchings, Engravings and Woodcuts. Amsterdam: Van Gendt & Co., 1969.

List of Illustrations

Martin Schongauer,  Christ Carrying the Cross,  ca. 1475–80,  The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York
Fig. 1 Martin Schongauer, Christ Carrying the Cross, ca. 1475–80, engraving, 28.9 x 42.9 cm. The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, inv. no. 35.27 (artwork in the public domain) [side-by-side viewer]
Rembrandt van Rijn,  The Hundred Guilder Print,  ca. 1648,  The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York
Fig. 2 Rembrandt van Rijn, The Hundred Guilder Print, ca. 1648, etching, engraving, and drypoint, second state of two, 28 x 39.3 cm. The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, inv. no. 29.107.35 (artwork in the public domain) [side-by-side viewer]
Rembrandt van Rijn,  The Hundred Guilder Print, detail (fig. 2),  ca. 1648,
Fig. 3 Detail of Rembrandt van Rijn, The Hundred Guilder Print (fig. 2) [side-by-side viewer]
Martin Schongauer,  Christ Carrying the Cross, detail (fig. 1),  ca. 1475–80,
Fig. 4 Detail of Martin Schongauer, Christ Carrying the Cross (fig. 1) [side-by-side viewer]
Martin Schongauer,  Christ Carrying the Cross, detail (fig. 1),  ca. 1475–80,
Fig. 5 Detail of Martin Schongauer, Christ Carrying the Cross (fig. 1) [side-by-side viewer]
Rembrandt van Rijn,  The Hundred Guilder Print, detail (fig. 2),  ca. 1648,
Fig. 6 Detail of Rembrandt van Rijn, The Hundred Guilder Print (fig. 2) [side-by-side viewer]
Martin Schongauer,  Christ Carrying the Cross, detail (fig. 1),  ca. 1475–80,
Fig. 7 Detail of Martin Schongauer, Christ Carrying the Cross (fig. 1) [side-by-side viewer]
Lucas van Leyden,  The Adoration of the Magi, 1513,  The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York
Fig. 8 Lucas van Leyden, The Adoration of the Magi, 1513, engraving, 30 x 43.3 cm. The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, inv. no. 35.66 (artwork in the public domain) [side-by-side viewer]
Martin Schongauer,  Christ Carrying the Cross, detail (fig. 1),  ca. 1475–80,
Fig. 9 Detail of Martin Schongauer, Christ Carrying the Cross (fig. 1) [side-by-side viewer]
Rembrandt van Rijn,  The Hundred Guilder Print, detail,  ca. 1648,  The British Museum, London
Fig. 10 Detail of Rembrandt van Rijn, The Hundred Guilder Print, ca. 1648, etching, engraving, and drypoint, second state of two, 28.1 x 39.5 cm. The British Museum, London, inv. no. F, 7.5 (artwork in the public domain) [side-by-side viewer]
Rembrandt van Rijn,  The Hundred Guilder Print, detail (fig. 2),  ca. 1648,
Fig. 11 Detail of Rembrandt van Rijn, The Hundred Guilder Print (fig. 2) [side-by-side viewer]
Martin Schongauer,  A Shield with Wings Conjoined in Base, Supported,  1469–82,  The British Museum, London
Fig. 12 Martin Schongauer, A Shield with Wings Conjoined in Base, Supported by a Peasant, 1469–82, engraving diameter 7.3 cm. The British Museum, London, inv. no. 1895,0915.293 (artwork in the public domain) [side-by-side viewer]
Rembrandt van Rijn,  Abraham and Isaac, 1645,  The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York
Fig. 13 Rembrandt van Rijn, Abraham and Isaac, 1645, etching and burin, 15.5 x 13 cm. The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, inv. no. 29.107.26 (artwork in the public domain) [side-by-side viewer]
Rembrandt van Rijn,  Christ Crucified Between the Two Thieves (The Th, 1653,  The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York
Fig. 14 Rembrandt van Rijn, Christ Crucified Between the Two Thieves (The Three Crosses), 1653, drypoint, third state of five, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, inv. no. 41.1.32 (artwork in the public domain) [side-by-side viewer]
Rembrandt van Rijn,  Sheet of Studies of Grieving Mary,  1635–36,  Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam
Fig. 15 Rembrandt van Rijn, Sheet of Studies of Grieving Mary, 1635–36, pen and brown ink and red chalk 20.1 x 14.3 cm. Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam, inv. no. RP-T-1947-213 (artwork in the public domain) [side-by-side viewer]
Martin Schongauer,  Christ Carrying the Cross, detail (fig. 1),  ca. 1475–80,
Fig. 16 Detail of Martin Schongauer, Christ Carrying the Cross (fig. 1) [side-by-side viewer]
Rembrandt van Rijn,  The Raising of Lazarus: The Larger Plate,  ca. 1632,  The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York
Fig. 17 Rembrandt van Rijn, The Raising of Lazarus: The Larger Plate, ca. 1632, etching and burin, 36.8 x 25.5 cm. The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, inv. no. 17.37.194 (artwork in the public domain) [side-by-side viewer]

Footnotes

  1. 1. B. P. J. Broos, Index to the Formal Sources of Rembrandt’s Art (Maarssen: Gary Schwartz, 1977) and Ben [B. P. J.] Broos, “Rembrandt and His Picturesque Universe: The Artist’s Collection as a Source of Inspiration,” in Rembrandt’s Treasures, ed. Bob van den Boogert, exh. cat. (Amsterdam: Rembrandt House Museum / Zwolle: Waanders Publishers, 1999), 91–139. My thanks to An van Camp, Erik Hinterding, Martin Royalton-Kisch, and Elizabeth Eisenberg.

  2. 2. Ben Broos in his compilation of Rembrandt’s sources noted references to Rembrandt’s reliance on Schongauer in two etchings by the master The Flight into Egypt: A Sketch (Hollstein 54), loosely indebted to the Colmar printmaker’s The Flight into Egypt (Lehrs 7), and more convincingly The Death of the Virgin (Hollstein 99), which is reliant on the earlier Death of the Virgin (Lehrs 16). He also mentioned a drawing, Christ Carrying the Cross (Teylers Museum Haarlem), now tentatively attributed to Willem Drost, that was likely inspired by Schongauer’s Christ Carrying the Cross; see Michiel C. Plomp, The Dutch Drawings in the Teyler Museum (Haarlem, Ghent, and Doornspijk: Teyler Museum, Snoeck Ducaju & Zoon, and Davaco Publishers,1997), vol. 2, no. 117. The references to Schongauer’s prints will be given here with Lehrs numbers, referring to Max Lehrs, Geschichte und kritischer Katalog des Deutschen, Niederländischen und Französichen Kupferstichs im XV Jahrhundert, vol. 5 (Vienna: Gesellschaft für Vervielfältigende Kunst, 1925).

  3. 3. Peter Schtaborn in Holm Bevers, Peter Schatborn, and Barbara Welzel, Rembrandt: The Master and His Workshop: Drawings and Etchings (New Haven and London: Yale University Press in association with London National Gallery Publications, 1991), 35–36; and Holm Bevers, Rembrandt: Die Zeichnungen im Berliner Kupferstichkabinett: Kritischer Katalog (Ostfildern: Hatje Cantz, 2006), 47–49.

  4. 4. “237. Een papiere kas vol printen van Hubse Marten, Holbeen, Hans Broesmer en Israel van Ments.”: Rembrandt’s inventory (1656), Gemeentearchief Amsterdam, arch. no. 5072, inv. no. 364, fol. 29–38 v, dd July 25 and 26, 1656, cited in Appendix 2 in Rembrandt’s Treasures, 147–52. Schongauer was known starting in the fifteenth century as Hübsch Martin.

  5. 5. The references for the Rembrandt prints mentioned here will be given with Hollstein numbers, referring to Christopher White and Karel G. Boon, Rembrandt van Rijn, vol. 18 of Hollstein’s Dutch and Flemish Etchings, Engravings and Woodcuts (Amsterdam: Van Gendt & Co., 1969).

  6. 6. On this print, see Christopher White, Rembrandt as an Etcher: A Study of the Artist at Work, 2nd ed. (New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 1999), 54–64; and Martin Royalton-Kisch in Rembrandt the Printmaker, by Erik Hinterding, Ger Luijten, and Martin Royalton-Kisch (Amsterdam: Rijksmuseum and Zwolle: Waanders, 2000), 253–58.

  7. 7. According to White and Boon (Hollstein 5), in the second state parallel shading was added to the neck of the ass and the burr of the drypoint in the center was either scraped away or worn down.

  8. 8. White, Rembrandt, 57–62. I would argue that the drawing in the Louvre (Benesch 543; White, Rembrandt, fig. 75; Martin Royalton-Kisch in Rembrandt the Printmaker, no.6), the authenticity of which has been questioned, and which is usually considered to be a study for the group to the left of Christ, relates more closely to the group on the right because a number of the same figures which appear in the other sketches for that group appear here as well, namely the woman with two strips of cloth hanging down her back who is kneeling, the old bearded man with a fur cap, and the young bearded man who is crouching here but standing in the center of the drawing in Berlin (Benesch 188; White, Rembrandt, fig. 70); in addition, Christ’s arm in the Louvre drawing is raised in their direction as it is in the final version of the print.

  9. 9. White, Rembrandt, 57, n.6; Ludwig Münz discussed these sources in A Critical Catalogue of Rembrandt’s Etchings and the Etchings of His School Formerly Attributed to the Master (London: Phaidon Press, 1952), 1:101. Jan Veth rightly found connections with Lucas van Leyden’s painting Healing the Blind Man of Jericho in the Hermitage Museum, St. Petersburg; see Veth, “Rembrandts zoogenaamde Jodenbruid uit de kollektie Van der Hoop,” Oud Holland 24 (1906): 42–43. http://dx.doi.org/10.1163/187501706X00050

  10. 10. A drawing for this figure, Blind Old Man Guided by a Woman exists in the Louvre, but there the woman is looking at him and her body is in a different position relative to the man.

  11. 11. Jan Piet Filedt Kok et al., The New Hollstein Dutch and Flemish Etchings, Engravings and Woodcuts 1450–1700: Lucas van Leyden (Rotterdam: Sound & Vision Interactive, 1996). Münz disagreed with Veth’s connection of the Pharisees with Lucas van Leyden’s painting in the Hermitage (see note 9 above); see Münz, Critical Catalogue, no. 9.

  12. 12. Inventory number F, 7.5. The impression is less well wiped in some areas and overly wiped in others; horizontally through the center there is a band with ink striations which seems to have been produced by the artist swiping a stiff, ink-laden rag across the plate. Oddly enough, this band of ink corresponds quite closely to the placement of the horizontal section of the cross in Schongauer’s print and the marked texture of that swipe of ink also evokes the remarkable texture of Schongauer’s cross. Might this have been an intentional reference to the Schongauer that Rembrandt made in this impression.

  13. 13. The shape of the combined easel and canvas in the first state of Rembrandt’s Portrait of Jan Asselijn (Hollstein 277) of about the same time bears a similar shape; my thanks to Stephanie Dickey for pointing out this resemblance.

  14. 14. Peter Schatborn, Dutch Figure Drawings from the Seventeenth Century (The Hague: Government publishing office, 1981), 54–55, cat. 82.

  15. 15. On the question of the dating see J. Bruyn et al., A Corpus of Rembrandt Paintings (The Hague and Boston: Martinus Nijhoff, 1982–89), 1:300–306; and Gary Schwartz, Rembrandt, His Life, His Paintings (New York: Viking, 1985), 83–86.

  16. 16. Further references to the engraving may still be found; other possibilities that I have not had time to thoroughly consider here include The Triumph of Mordechai (Hollstein 40) and the mounted soldier in The Baptism of the Eunuch (Hollstein 98).

Bibliography

Benesch, Otto. The Drawings of RembrandtEnlarged and Edited by Eva Benesch. 6 vols. London: Phaidon, 1954–47. Enlarged edition, 1973.

Bevers, Holm, Peter Schatborn, and Barbara Welzel. Rembrandt: The Master and His Workshop; Drawings and Etchings. New Haven and London: Yale University Press in association with London National Gallery Publications, 1991.

Bevers, Holm. Rembrandt: Die Zeichnungen im Berliner Kupferstichkabinett: Kritischer Katalog. Ostfildern: Hatje Cantz, 2006.

Broos, B. P. J. Index to the Formal Sources of Rembrandt’s Art. Maarssen: Gary Schwartz, 1977.

Broos, Ben [B. P. J.]. “Rembrandt and His Picturesque Universe: The Artist’s Collection as a Source of Inspiration.” In Rembrandt’s Treasures, edited by Bob van den Boogert, 91–139. Exh. cat. Amsterdam: Rembrandt House Museum / Zwolle: Waanders Publishers, 1999.

Bruyn, J., et al. A Corpus of Rembrandt Paintings. 3 vols. The Hague and Boston: Martinus Nijhoff, 1982–89.

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Review: Peer Review (Double Blind)
DOI: 10.5092/jhna.2013.5.2.10
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Nadine Orenstein, "Rembrandt Looks to Schongauer," Journal of Historians of Netherlandish Art 5:2 (Summer 2013) DOI: 10.5092/jhna.2013.5.2.10