- Museum number
- 1918,0615.9
- Description
-
The Agony in the Garden; Christ prostrate before the angel, the three Apostles asleep behind to left and a castle on a steep hill beyond. c.1645
Pen and brown ink, touched with red chalk, with brown, grey and yellow wash.
Verso: laid down on mat with grey wash strip and pen and brown ink lines.
Watermark: crowned eagle with Basel staff, general resemblance to Heawood 1248 (1618) and 1249 (undated) and to Churchill 439 (Basel, 17th cent.).
- Production date
- 1645 (circa)
- Dimensions
-
Height: 186 millimetres
-
Width: 174 millimetres (chain lines vertical, 25 mm apart; arched top, but stuck to a rectangular sheet 188mm in height)
- $Inscriptions
-
- Curator's comments
- Entry from Martin Royalton-Kisch, 'Catalogue of drawings by Rembrandt and his school', 2010, Ferdinand Bol, cat. no.4:
Acquired in 1918 as the work of Rembrandt, most authorities have assigned the drawing to his pupil, Ferdinand Bol. It reflects Rembrandt's style of the mid-1630s but is inseparable from a drawing by Bol in Amsterdam of 'Hagar and the Angel' (Sumowski 89).[1] The treatment of the background foliage is especially close, and the similarities extend to the broad use of wash and some details of the figures. The technique of coloured washes is characteristic of Bol, and other drawings that have stylistic features in common include the 'St Jerome at Prayer' in the Metropolitan Museum, New York (Sumowski 190x).
The Amsterdam drawing is related to Bol's painting of the same subject in Gdansk, thought to have been painted in around 1650. The drawing, however, is usually dated earlier, and seen as an immediate reflection of Rembrandt's style of c.1635-40.[2] Yet a comparison with cat. no.3 (1836,0811.337), a study for Bol's etching of 1643, and the liquidity of Rembrandt's own style in the 1640s suggest that Bol's drawings may date from the same decade, and a date c.1645 is here tentatively proposed. If correct, the Amsterdam drawing might have been made as a preparatory sketch for the painting in Gdansk.
The subject of the 'Agony in the Garden' was not often depicted by Rembrandt and his followers. A sketch in Munich of 'Christ comforted by the Angel in Gethsemaneh' has recently also been assigned to Bol (Benesch 104, Sumowski 181x) and Rembrandt was himself to make an etching of the subject in the 1650s (Bartsch 75, Hind 293). Like the present work, this shows the sleeping apostles in the background, with soldiers approaching from Jerusalem to arrest Christ.
NOTES:
[1] Recently discussed by Schatborn in Exh. Berlin-Amsterdam, 1991-2[I], no.41, repr. in colour.
[2] Schatborn, loc. cit., suggests the second half of the 1630s. Sumowski, 1979, etc., prefers a date 'towards the end of the 1630s'.
LITERATURE :
Van Dyke, 1927, p.51 (Bol); London, 1931, p.139, no.Add.177 (Rembrandt, c.1635-40); Sumowski, 1979, etc., I, no.200x, repr. (Bol, early 1640s; compares 'Hagar and the Angel' in Amsterdam, Sumowski 89, and 'Dream of Jacob' in Berlin, Sumowski 202x; records that Valentiner, in unpublished proofs for his projected third volume, included the drawing as by Rembrandt).
- Location
- Not on display
- Exhibition history
-
1933, London, British Museum, no.94 (Rembrandt);
1938, London, British Museum, no.39a (c.1635-1640?);
1992, BM, Drawings by Rembrandt and his Circle (not in catalogue, as Bol).
- Acquisition date
- 1918
- Acquisition notes
- E.J. Poynter (L.874); his sale, Sotheby's, 2nd day, 25 April, 1918, lot 285 (as 'Jacob's Dream'), bt Colnaghi; presented to the British Museum by Otto Beit, 1918.
- Department
- Prints and Drawings
- Registration number
- 1918,0615.9
