Among Rembrandt's sketches of rustic farmhouses and cottages, this drawing is unusually finished in execution and formal in composition. Rembrandt drew the scene with fine pen lines of fairly even width. He applied wash sparingly and rendered the texture of the thatch roof with heavily inked strokes reminiscent of a drypoint burr. In so doing, he created a work related in feeling to his etchings. Rembrandt situated the cottage parallel to the picture plane and framed it symmetrically by adding at the right of the original sheet a strip of paper, on which he extended the tree branches, the fences, and the distant horizon. In its reinterpretation of Italian Renaissance principles of composition, this drawing reveals parallels with paintings Rembrandt made in the years 1648–50, most notably the Supper at Emmaus of 1648 (Musée du Louvre, Paris).
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Artwork Details
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Title:Cottage among Trees
Artist:Rembrandt (Rembrandt van Rijn) (Dutch, Leiden 1606–1669 Amsterdam)
Date:ca. 1650
Medium:Pen and brown ink, brush and brown wash, on paper washed with brown
Dimensions:6 3/4 x 10 7/8 in. (17.1 x 27.6 cm); vertical strip 6 3/4 x 1 1/4 in. (17.2 x 3.2 cm) added by artist to the sheet at right.
Classification:Drawings
Credit Line:H. O. Havemeyer Collection, Bequest of Mrs. H. O. Havemeyer, 1929
Accession Number:29.100.939
Inscription: [in pen and brown ink at lower left]: WE [monogram of William Esdaile] (Lugt 2617)
Marking: Stamped lower left with the collector's mark of Sir Thomas Lawrence (Lugt 2445). Verso: on the former backing stamped with the collectors' marks of Sir Francis Seymour Haden (Lugt 1227) and John Heywood Hawkins (Lugt 1472).
Jan Pietersz Zoomer; Sir Thomas Lawrence (British); William Esdaile (British); his sale, Christie's, London, June 17, 1840, lot 119 (£7 to Geddes); Andrew Geddes (British, Scottish); John Heywood Hawkins; his sale, Sotheby's, London, April 29, 1850, lot 1022 (£1 to Meyer); Sir Francis Seymour Haden (British); his sale, Sotheby's, London, June 15–19, 1891, lot 587 (£130 to Durand-Ruel); Galerie Durand-Ruel; John Postle Heseltine (British); H. O. Havemeyer
Fogg Museum, Harvard Art Museums. "Rembrandt Drawings from American Collections," March 15, 1960–April 16, 1960.
Morgan Library & Museum. "Rembrandt Drawings from American Collections," April 27, 1960–May 29, 1960.
New York. The Metropolitan Museum of Art. "Masterpieces of Fifty Centuries," November 14, 1970–June 1, 1971.
New York. The Metropolitan Museum of Art. "Dutch Drawings of the Seventeenth Century in The Metropolitan Museum of Art," April 10–June 9, 1985.
New York. The Metropolitan Museum of Art. "Drawings and Prints: Selections from the Permanent Collection," November 5–January 28, 2002.
Albertina, Vienna. "Rembrandt Harmensz. van Rijn: Paintings, Drawings, Etchings," March 16, 2004–June 27, 2004.
New York. The Metropolitan Museum of Art. "Drawings and Prints: Selections from the Permanent Collection," October 4, 2005–January 9, 2006.
The Metropolitan Museum of Art. "Rembrandt and His Circle: Drawings and Prints, A Selection in Honor of the Artist's 400th Birthday," July 10–October 15, 2006.
New York. The Metropolitan Museum of Art. "Drawings and Prints: Selections from the Permanent Collection," September 17, 2007–January 6, 2008.
New York. The Metropolitan Museum of Art. "Selections from the Department of Drawings and Prints: Rembrandt," April 30–July 28, 2019.
Rembrandt Harmensz van Ryn. Original drawings by Rembrandt second series. Edited by Friedrich Lippmann, vols. II, III, The Hague, 1890, cat. no. 143.
Cornelis Hofstede de Groot Die handzeichnungen Rembrandts. Haarlem, 1906, cat. no. 1037.
William Reinhold Valentiner "Rembrandt drawings in the Havemeyer Collection." in Metropolitan Museum Studies. The Metropolitan Museum of Art, vol. 3, New York, 1930-1931, fig. no. 9, ill.
William M. Ivins Jr. The Unseen Rembrandt. 1942, fig. no. 35, 36, ill.
Walter Mehring European Drawings from the Collections of The Metropolitan Museum of Art: A Portfolio of Collotype Reproductions [Vol. 1: Italian Drawings; Vol. 2: Flemish, Dutch, German, Spanish, French, and British drawings; Vol. 3: "New Series": Italian, Flemish, Dutch, German, Spanish, French, and British drawings]. The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 3 vols., New York, 1942–44, cat. no. 11 (vol.2), fig. no. 11, ill.
Otto Benesch Rembrandt, selected drawings. Phaidon Press, London & NY, 1947, dates it ca. 1650, cat. no. 174.
Hans Tietze European Master Drawings in the United States. J. J. Augustin, New York, 1947, cat. no. 71, pp. 142=143, ill.
Theodore Rousseau Jr. "Rembrandt." in The Metropolitan Museum of Art Bulletin. The Metropolitan Museum of Art, vol. 11, no. 3, November 1952, p. 90, ill.
Otto Benesch The Drawings of Rembrandt: [a critical and chronological catalogue]. vols. 1-6, London, 1954-1957, vol. 6, cat. no. 1249, fig. no. 1475, p. 355, ill.
Jacob Bean 100 European Drawings in the Metropolitan Museum of Art. New York: New York Graphic Society, 1964, cat. no. 88, ill.
Seymour Slive Drawings of Rembrandt. New York, 1965, cat. no. 148, ill.
Linda Boyer Gillies "European Drawings in the Havemeyer Collection" Connoisseur. vol. 172, no. 693, November 1969, fig. no. 13, p. 155, ill.
Otto Benesch (enlarged and edited by Eva Benesch) The Drawings of Rembrandt. Complete Edition in Six Volumes. vol. 2, London, 1973, cat. no. 1249, fig. no. 1554, p. 343, ill.
Helen Bobritzky Mules "Dutch Drawings of the Seventeenth Century in The Metropolitan Museum of Art." in The Metropolitan Museum of Art Bulletin. The Metropolitan Museum of Art, vol. 42, no. 4, New York, 1985, pp. 30, 31.
Robert C. Cafritz, David Rosand, Lawrence Gowing Places of Delight: The Pastoral Landscape. Exh. cat., National Gallery of Art and The Phillips Collection, Washington D.C. Washington, D.C., 1988–1989, fig. no. 123, pp. 132, 136, ill.
Peter Schatborn, Erik Hinterding Rembrandt: The Complete Drawings and Etchings. Taschen, Cologne, 2019, cat. no. D544, p. 350, ill.
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