Willem Drost (Amsterdam 1633-1659 Venice)

This drawing, undoubtedly considered an original by Rembrandt when in the collection of Sir Joshua Reynolds, is a characteristic work by his pupil Willem Drost, who studied with the master in the late 1640s. Comparable in its reliance on areas of hatching to suggest shadow and volume and in the rendering of faces are several drawings that form the core of the artist’s oeuvre as a draftsman (see for instance W. Sumowski, Drawings of the Rembrandt School, III, New York, 1980, nos. 446, 447, 550, ill.); he used a similar arched framing line in a sheet at the Kupferstichkabinett, Berlin (inv. KdZ 5788; ibid., no. 552).

We are grateful to Peter Schatborn for confirming the attribution to Drost based on a digital image.