Rembrant van Rijn, “A Scene from the Old Testement”

Rembrandt van Rijn, “A Scene from the Old Testement”

The pride of Leo Lewin’s collection consisted of two original drawings by Rembrandt, one depicting a scene in a tavern, the other a scene from the Old Testament. Both were purchased from the collection of Wilhelm von Bode, the longtime director of Berlin’s museums. Considering Lewin’s extensive experience in collecting and the prices paid at that time for works by the Dutch artist, it can be presumed that this was not a random purchase. Therefore, it can be speculated that the Breslau collection contained more works by so-called “old masters” or famous artists.

In 1926, the drawing depicting a scene from the Old Testament was offered at the Vienna art salon Nebehay’s. In the same year, it was acquired by the renowned art historian Cornelius Hofstede de Groot. He was an art historian, collector, museum curator, and one of the foremost experts on Rembrandt’s work in his era. In 1896, he became the director of the print room at the Rijskmuseum in Amsterdam, a position he held for two years. Later, he settled in The Hague, where he worked as an independent critic and dedicated himself to the study of Rembrandt’s work, along with Wilhelm von Bode. The catalog of drawings by this artist compiled by Cornelius Hofstede de Groot and published in 1906 soon became a model work on the painter’s oeuvre. Hofstede de Groot donated Rembrandt’s drawing “Scene from the Old Testament” to the Groninger Museum. It has been exhibited at numerous shows since then, including in 1930 in Berlin and in 1934 in Rotterdam.

The second of the mentioned drawings, depicting a scene in a tavern, is now housed in the Pushkin Museum in Moscow. From Lewin’s collection, the composition passed into the hands of the German collector Franz Koenigsa, who sold it to the collection of the Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen in Rotterdam. During the occupation of the Netherlands, the drawing was transported to Germany, and in the final stages of the war, it ended up in Russia.

Drawing information:

ink on paper, dimensions: 31.5 x 20.4 cm, Groninger Museum, Groningen.

Literature:

Dutch Drawings from the Collection of Dr. C. Hofstede de Groot. Groninger Museum voor Stad en Lande, red. Jaap Bolten, Utrecht 1967, s. 93-94