Attributed to Gerbrand van den Eeckhout

A. Wyatt Thibaudeau (cited by Benesch);
Coster (cited by Benesch);
J. Richardson, Jr. (L.2170, and on the remains of his mount);
Sir Joshua Reynolds (L.2364);
E. Utterson (L.909);
Anonymous sale, Muller, Amsterdam, 1912;
Eldridge R. Johnson, Moorestown, New Jersey

W.R. Valentiner, Rembrandt, Des Meisters Handzeichnungen, Klassiker der Kunst XXXI, Stuttgart/Berlin/Leipzig 1925, no. 52 (as Rembrandt);
H. Comstock, in International Studio, December 1926, p. 34;
E.W. Bredt, Rembrandt-Bibel, 1927, vol. I, p. 27;
E. Bock and Jacob Rosenberg, Staatliche Museen zu Berlin. Die Niederländischen Meister, 2 vols., Frankfurt -a-M, 1931, vol. I, p. 245, under inv. 4081 (as Rembrandt);
O. Benesch, The Drawings of Rembrandt, London 1954, and second edition, enlarged and edited by E. Benesch, London and New York 1973, vol. II, no. A13 (as attributed to Rembrandt), reproduced, 2nd edn., fig. 620. 

Laid down on the remains of Richardson's mount. Paper surface somewhat dirty, but otherwise overall condition reasonably good and strong. Framed.
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The challenges faced by those wishing to distinguish the very best drawings by Rembrandt's most accomplished pupils from autograph works by the master, already discussed in relation to the previous lot, are once again brought into focus here.  This powerful, dynamic work, which, like the previous drawing, tells its story with narrative brilliance and passion, is nonetheless not consistent in terms of drawing style with Rembrandt's own works from the late 1630s or early 1640s, the period from which it must surely date.

Rembrandt's drawings from these years are often calligraphic, but this tendency is here taken further than we ever see in the drawings of the master, and is combined with a furious, repeated hatching that is also unfamiliar in Rembrandt.  Perhaps the closest stylistic parallels with this sheet are to be found in a drawing of The Departure of Rebecca from her Parents' Home, formerly attributed to Rembrandt but now thought to be by Gerbrand van den Eeckhout, and another of The Adoration of the Magi, now in Berlin, which Holm Bevers has also recently been reattributed from Rembrandt to Eeckhout.¹  Also in some ways comparable (though more, perhaps, in terms of composition than in details of handling) is another drawing of the same subject as this, in Brussels, which is a study by Eeckhout for a signed painting, executed very much later, in 1661.²

The present drawing is, however, very clearly much earlier in date, but in the light of comparison with the previous lot, which certainly cannot have been executed at the same moment as this drawing, the question remains as to whether it dates from earlier or later - i.e. from around 1635-37, or from the early 1640s.  The most telling comparison in this regard would appear to be with The Star of Kings, a signed drawing by Rembrandt in the British Museum, which Martin Royalton-Kisch dates, entirely convincingly, circa 1645-47.³  The animated characterisation, calligraphic, space-defining pen strokes, and energetic, structural hatching are all rather similar to what we see here in Eleazer and Rebecca at the Well, so although Eeckhout was not still a pupil of Rembrandt when The Star of Kings was drawn, it is hard to imagine that he was not aware of it, or other drawings like it, when he made this confident and impressive drawing.

A copy of this drawing is in Berlin.⁴

1. Benesch, op. cit., nos. 147 and 160 respectively; see also H. Bevers, Rembrandt. Die Zeichnungen im Berliner Kupferstichkabinett, Berlin 2006, pp. 193-4, reproduced

2. W. Sumowski, Drawings of the Rembrandt School, vol. 3, New York 1980, no. 637, reproduced

3. M. Royalton-Kisch, Drawings by Rembrandt and his Circle in the British Museum, exh. cat., London, British Museum, 1992, cat. no. 44, reproduced

4. Bock and Rosenberg, loc. cit.