ATTRIBUTED TO WILLEM DROST (Amsterdam 1633-1659 Venice)

Benesch grouped this drawing with three sheets which he attributed to Rembrandt: The Adoration of the Shepherds, from the de Grez collection in the Musées des Beaux-Arts de Belgique, Brussels; The Rest on the Flight into Egypt, British Museum, London, and The Adoration of the Shepherds, National Gallery of Art, Washington (see Benesch, op. cit., nos. A 78, A 94 and A 117, figs. 1740, 1757 and 1788). He furthermore compared it to a drawing showing The naming of Saint John the Baptist in the Louvre, Paris (ibid., no. 1007, fig. 1290). The Adoration of the Shepherds from the de Grez collection was later given to Willem Drost by Werner Sumowski (Drawings of the Rembrandt School, New York, 1979, III, no. 566, ill.) and Peter Schatborn has recently suggested that the present drawing should be given to that artist too. A copy after the present sheet is in the Louvre (inv. 22936; see F. Lugt, du Musée du Louvre. Inventaire Général des Dessins des écoles du Nord. École Hollandaise, III, Rembrandt ses élèves, ses imitateurs, ses copistes, Paris, 1933, no. 1226, ill.).

We are grateful to Peter Schatborn and Martin Royalton-Kisch for their assistance in cataloguing this drawing and for suggesting an attribution to Willem Drost.