Jan Lievens

Collection P.H. (L.2086);
Eugene Rodriguez,
his sale, Amsterdam, F. Muller, 21 November 1929, no. 17 (as N. Maes);
Bernard Houthakker, Amsterdam (L.1272);
F.W.A. Knight,
his sale, Amsterdam, Sotheby Mak van Waay, 29 October 1979, no. 25 (as N. Maes);
Jacobus A. Klaver, Amsterdam (his mark, not in Lugt, on the mount)

Amsterdam, Houthakker Gallery, 1952, no. 50, and 1956, no. 70 (as N. Maes);
Amsterdam, Rijksprentenkabinet, De Verzameling van Bernard Houthakker, 1964 (catalogue by J.W. Niemeijer) (as N. Maes);
Amsterdam, Museum het Rembrandthuis, Jan Lievens, 1607-1674: prenten & tekeningen, 1988 (catalogue by Peter Schatborn), no. 11 (as Lievens);
Leiden, Stedelijk Museum De Lakenhal, Rembrandt and Lievens in Leiden, 1991 (catalogue by Christiaan Vogelaar et al.), no. 21;
Amsterdam, Rijksprentenkabinet, Tekeningen van oude meesters. De verzameling Jacobus A. Klaver, 1993 (catalogue by Marijn Schapelhouman and Peter Schatborn), no. 34;
Amsterdam, Museum het Rembrandthuis, and Kassel, Staatliche Museen, The Mystery of the Young Rembrandt, 2001-02 (catalogue by Ernst van de Wetering and Bernhard Schnackenburg), no. 20 (always as Lievens).

W. Sumowski, Drawings of the Rembrandt School, vol. 2, New York 1980, no. 539^xx (as Attributed to Gerard Dou);
Leiden, Stedelijk Museum De Lakenhal, Rembrandt's Mother: Myth and Reality, 2005 (catalogue by C. Vogelaar and G. Lorevaar), p. 103, fig. 85 (as Lievens);
A.K. Wheelock Jr. et al, Jan Lievens: A Dutch Master Rediscovered, exh. cat., Washington, National Gallery of Art, Milwaukee Art Museum, and Amsterdam, Rembrandthuis, 2008-9, p. 235, cat. 95 (not exhibited)

Overall condition of chalk extremely good and fresh. Front surface of paper is toned with light orangey-yellow wash. A little very light foxing. Window mounted. Slight thin areas, top and bottom right corners. Sold in a modern wooden frame.
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Inspired, perhaps, by the drawings of their mutual teacher Pieter Lastman, Rembrant and Lievens both made a small number of energetic drawings in a combination of red and black chalk, on paper toned with a light yellowish-ochre wash—a technique that Lastman used in several figure studies for paintings of the early 1620s.¹  Characterised by firm, rapidly drawn lines, dense shading, and considerable psychological intensity, these drawings by Rembrandt and Lievens form a small but distinctive group.

Even today, their attribution remains a subject for debate, with the exception of the Seated old man with a book, in Berlin (fig. 1),² on which Rembrandt based one of the figures in his 1627 painting, St. Peter and St. Paul.³  The present study of an old woman is strikingly close in handling to the larger Berlin drawing, as is also a very comparable Bust of an old man,⁴ but Benesch, Schatborn and other recent scholars have all seen in the strong contours and network of fine lines in the hair and face a different technique to that of the Berlin Seated old man, and have therefore given the two smaller drawings to Lievens.  Martin Royalton-Kisch, on the other hand, while still believing the present drawing to be by Lievens, now thinks the Bust of an old man may after all be an early Rembrandt, along with another very similarly executed drawing of a reclining horse, in the British Museum, which he had previously published as Lievens.⁵  On balance, it would seem that the very fine delineation of the facial wrinkles seen here does indeed argue for an attribution to Lievens rather than Rembrandt, but this drawing, and the others like it, remain amongst the most difficult to allocate with certainty to one of the two artists rather than the other.  What does, however, seem clear is that they must all have been executed circa 1627, around the same time as the painting by Rembrandt for which the Berlin drawing is a study.

The subject of this drawing is clearly the old woman traditionally known as "Rembrandt's mother."  The iconography of images of this person, who features prominently in the work not only of Rembrandt, but also of Lievens and Dou, was recently the subject of an entire exhibition.⁶  Here, as in almost all the representations of the same sitter, the old lady is depicted in exotic costume, and the image can be considered as much a character head or tronie as it can a portrait.⁷

1.  Pieter Lastman, The Man who taught Rembrandt, exhibition catalogue, Amsterdam, Museum het Rembrandthuis, 1991, nos. 30-36
2.  O. Benesch, The Drawings of Rembrandt, 1954-1957, no. 7
3.  National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne; Corpus of Rembrandt Paintings 1982-, no. A13
4.  Private Collection; Amsterdam 1988, exhibition catalogue, op. cit., no. 12
5.  M. Royalton-Kisch, "An Early Drawing by Jan Lievens," Master Drawings 29 (1991), pp. 410-415
6.  Leiden 2005 (see Literature) 
7.  A rare example of a work that seems to show the same sitter, but in native Dutch costume, is a drawing in Frankfurt, which has also sometimes been attributed to Lievens (see Sumowski, op. cit., no. 532 (as Dou), and Leiden 2005, exhibition catalogue, op. cit., no. 13 (as Lievens))