ATTRIBUTED TO WILLEM DROST | A WARRIOR BEING ARMED FOR THE FIGHT

John MacGowan (d. 1803), Edinburgh (L.1496);

The Earl of Northwick,

thence by descent to Capt. E.G. Spencer-Churchill,

his sale, London, Sotheby's, 5-6 July, 1921, lot 92 (as Rembrandt; withdrawn from the sale);

With P. & D. Colnaghi, London

London, Royal Academy, Exhibition of Dutch Art 1450-1900, 1929, cat.no. 641 (as A Messenger appealing to Achilles to return to Battle, by Rembrandt)

W.R. Valentiner, Rembrandt. Des Meisters Handzeichnungen, Klassiker der Kunst 31, Stuttgart and Berlin 1934, vol. 2, cat. no. 570 (as Saul Arming David, by Rembrandt);

The Vasari Society for the Reproduction of Drawings by Old Masters, second series, vol. 10, 1929, no. 2;

O. Benesch, The Drawings of Rembrandt, vol. 6, revised ed., London 1973, p. 374, cat. C78 (as a copy after an unknown original by Rembrandt)

Benesch, (loc. cit.) postulates that this is a copy after an unknown drawing by Rembrandt of c.1655. There is another version including the main figures in the Kupferstichkabinett, Dresden (see Valentiner, op.cit., cat. no. 152). The subject has been variously described as A Messenger appealing to Achilles to return to Battle, and Saul Arming David, but Benesch rejects both these interpretations.  Of Rembrandt's known pupils, the handling seems closest to the style of Willem Drost.