EIGHTEEN YEARS have intervened between Martin Royalton-Kisch’s 1992 exhibition catalogue Drawings by Rembrandt and his Circle in the British Museum and the British Museum’s complete catalogue of drawings by Rembrandt and his circle by the same author, here under review. The 1992 catalogue included all drawings then thought to be by Rembrandt plus a selection of newly attributed sheets from his school. It replaced the earlier British Museum publication on the subject by Arthur M. Hind (1915) and was a ‘work-in-progress’ on the way to a complete catalogue raisonné, reflecting the modern approach to the study of Rembrandt’s work. It followed the catalogues of the major collections of Rembrandt drawings in Amsterdam, Rotterdam and Paris, all published in the 1980s.1 The compilers of all four catalogues strove to reassess the corpus of Rembrandt drawings compiled by Otto Benesch in the mid-1950s, revising Benesch’s liberal and not always conclusively reasoned attributions and thus reducing the number of drawings that can be considered autograph. Werner Sumowski, meanwhile, made the most crucial contribution in the field of drawings by Rembrandt’s pupils and assistants.2

Royalton-Kisch’s catalogue is a novelty in our modern computer world: it has been published online only, the first in the series of catalogues devoted to the British Museum’s collection of drawings not to emerge in book form. It remains a matter of debate whether the advantages outweigh any disadvantages, as the author states. Of course, the user is not forced to spend a lot of money on a book – the online catalogue is free of charge; the quality of the images is excellent and, if one saves an image on one’s own computer one can even zoom in and study details. The catalogue is part of the admirable policy of the British Museum to put the entire collection on the web and to place images and information at the user’s disposal. However, a catalogue raisonné is not a database of objects, it is something different. It is true that an online catalogue can be augmented and changed, but a book has its own aesthetic qualities, and, once published, reflects the author’s opinion at a fixed moment. This reviewer can also attest to the fact that his eyes have suffered not insignificantly after having spent many hours looking at a computer screen.

The introduction covers the history of the British Museum’s collection, a brief sketch of its character and remarks about problems of authenticity. These chapters are nearly the same as in the earlier publication. However, many catalogue entries have been altered in consequence of the reassessment of Rembrandt’s drawings during the years between 1992 and September 2009, when Royalton-Kisch finished his new catalogue.3 Where Benesch listed 106 drawings in the British Museum as authentic, in his 1992 catalogue Royalton-Kisch accepted eighty-four sheets, a reduction of about 20 per cent. In the new online publication he has reduced the number of drawings even further, now accepting seventy sheets as authentic, in some cases with slight reservations.

Each entry contains a wealth of information about technique, provenance and condition. The comments are clearly written and discuss the drawings’ subject and style. Much additional information is provided in brackets in the literature for each entry. Royalton-Kisch compares the British Museum’s sheets with drawings kept elsewhere, especially those in the so-called ‘core group’ of ‘documented’ drawings, to underpin his attributions.4

The catalogue consists of six chapters. The first consists of seventy drawings by Rembrandt. Another chapter (cat. nos.71–72) is devoted to drawings by pupils with cor­rections by Rembrandt (or probably by him). This is followed by fourteen drawings (nos.73–86) with the label ‘Rembrandt (Attributed to)’. Most of the sheets in the last category had been given to the master in 1992 but are now doubted by Royalton-Kisch. The next chapter is devoted to drawings that are, or seem to be, copies after Rembrandt originals (nos.87–97). Anonymous drawings from the circle and/or school of Rembrandt (nos.98–136) follow. The rest of the catalogue is dedicated to drawings by Rembrandt’s known pupils.

Most scholars will agree with Royalton-Kisch’s attributions in the first section, although some remain doubtful. This reviewer is not so sure about Rembrandt’s authorship in the following cases: Mattathias and the officers of Antiochus at Modin (no.8; Gerbrand van den Eeckhout?);5 The angel preventing Abraham from sacrificing Isaac (no.10; school of);6 A woman lying awake in bed (no.15; workshop drawing, c.1635–40);7 and Three studies of an old man in a high fur cap (no.33; Ferdinand Bol).8

The main shift from Rembrandt to the category ‘attributed to’ occurs in the landscapes. This is not surprising since there is no other subject within Rembrandt’s drawn œuvre for which there are so few documented sheets. In 1992 Royalton-Kisch declared eighteen landscapes authentic, if in some cases with slight reservations. Now he has reduced this to nine sheets. The chalk drawings are less problem­atic than those in pen. These small-scale sheets originally belonged to sketchbooks that the master took with him on his trips. Three of them are in the British Museum (nos.62, 63 and 65; the last one has been heavily reworked by a later hand with grey wash), and their style is very similar. It seems that Rembrandt’s pupils did not draw many landscapes in this medium. However, this reviewer would date all or most of the chalk landscape drawings to c.1647–48, not c.1645 (nos.62–63) or c.1650 (no.65).9 As for the pen-and-ink landscapes that Royalton-Kisch attributes to Rembrandt, I have doubts about the following: Landscape with a farm and two hay-barns (no.66), a drawing with washes in watercolour (good school work),10 and A road passing an inn surrounded by trees (no.70; probably by Pieter de With).11

As noted, many landscape drawings have been relegated to the section ‘Rembrandt (Attributed to)’. This category leaves open the question whether a work is by Rembrandt or not (in Royalton-Kisch’s words: ‘may or may not be Rembrandt’; no.79). Attributions can be subtle, personal and subjective, and perhaps one should be careful in pronouncing the final word on each and every drawing, but it would have been useful if the author had offered a more precise analysis of the handling of certain sheets. For example, the strong hatching and somewhat stiff lines in Sketch of the bend in the Amstel near Kostverloren (no.81) are untypical of Rembrandt but typical of his pupil Willem Drost.12 Royalton-Kisch argues that this drawing cannot be accepted as Rembrandt’s work without reservations and acknowledges the analogies with works by Drost or attributed to him. However, he does not find this persuasive and leaves the work under Rembrandt’s name, but without a detailed analysis of its style and handling. The treatment of the landscape and especially the foliage in some of Drost’s drawings is so sim­ilar, for example in his documented drawing The angel departing from the family of Tobit (Kunsthalle, Bremen)13 and in his Judah and Tamar (Museum Boijmans van Beuningen, Rotterdam),14 that we can propose an attribution to this artist without much hesitation. Sometimes Royalton-Kisch relies exclusively on an aesthetic judgment (‘Yet the reticence and delicacy of the drawing, which have been appreciated by most writers, should not be undervalued’; Farm buildings near a canal; no.80), which in my view does not contribute to the debate on authenticity.

The following chapters are devoted to drawings that are, or seem to be, copies after Rembrandt and sheets by anonymous followers. Many of these show traces of underdrawings in graphite or black chalk (nos.88–90, 96–99, 110, 127 and 129). Royalton-Kisch dates most of them to Rembrandt’s lifetime, and even states that ‘the combination of a graphite underdrawing and slack lines in pen and brown ink is typical of copies after Rembrandt made in his studio [my italics]’ (no.110). However, this reviewer would argue that most or all such drawings that have these characteristics were produced not in Rembrandt’s studio but at a later date. They were presumably produced after 1658 (when Rembrandt’s collection was sold), or more probably after his death in 1669, apparently by collectors or dealers. Rembrandt did not use underdrawings in his pen-and-ink sketches, and his pupils obviously followed the master’s technique. If they copied, they did so freely, without the help of underdrawing.

The last chapter is dedicated to drawings by Rembrandt’s pupils and from his circle. Nearly all his pupils are well represented in the British Museum. Royalton-Kisch’s attributions are largely based on Sumowski’s reconstruction of the drawn œuvre of the Rembrandt school, but one finds many corrections and additions. For instance, Royalton-Kisch convincingly augments the work of Abraham van Dijck with three interesting drawings, including the Youth seated in a window (Van Dijck.1; Fig.34), which in the nineteenth century was regarded as a particularly beautiful drawing by Rembrandt. The Flinck group has also been augmented, although I do not share Royalton-Kisch’s doubts about A seated old man and a woman (Jacob and Rachel?), which he keeps in the category ‘attributed to Rembrandt’ (no.74), and Christ walking on the waves (Flinck.7).15 The relationship of the latter with Rembrandt’s etchings from c.1632 is not obvious, and I hesitate to accept Royalton-Kisch’s conviction that ‘Rembrandt’s pen and ink style of the early Amsterdam period, from 1631–4, is not clearly documented’. It seems that Rembrandt did not draw much at all in the first half of the 1630s and that his activities as a draughtsman increased only after he had left Hendrick Uylenburgh’s workshop in May 1635 to established his own workshop in his new home in the Nieuwe Doelenstraat. Flinck’s drawing style clearly reflects the style of his master from the years after 1635.

My few critical remarks do not diminish the great merits of this catalogue. The author should understand my comments as evidence of my admiration for his work and gratitude that he has devoted so much labour to this difficult task. Everyone familiar with drawings by Rembrandt and his pupils knows how complex connoisseurship is in this particular field. One can only congratulate the author on his tremendous efforts, ensuring that one of the best collections of drawings by Rembrandt and his circle in the world is now published in full.

1    P. Schatborn: Catalogue of the Dutch and Flemish Drawings in the Rijksprentenkabinet, Rijksmuseum. Drawings by Rembrandt, his anonymous pupils and followers, The Hague 1985; J. Giltaij: The Drawings by Rembrandt and His School in the Museum Boymans van Beuningen, Rotterdam 1988; and M. de Bazelaire and E. Starcky: exh. cat. Rembrandt et son école: Dessins du Musée du Louvre, Paris (Musée du Louvre) 1988–89.
2    W. Sumowski: Drawings of the Rembrandt School, New York 1979–92.
3    In reviews of the 1992 catalogue, scholars raised doubts about some of Royalton-Kisch’s attributions; see E. Haverkamp-Begemann: Kunstchronik 45 (1992), pp.461–67; I. Gaskell: Apollo 136/365 (1992), pp.55–57 (a critical reflection on connoisseurship; unacknowledged in the online catalogue’s bibliography); P. Schatborn: Oud Holland 108 (1994), pp.20–24; and J. Giltaij: Simiolus 23 (1995), pp.92–102.
4    For this ‘core group’ of Rembrandt drawings, see M. Royalton-Kisch and P. Schatborn: ‘The Core Group of Rembrandt Drawings, II: The List’, Master Drawings 49 (2011), pp.323–46.
5    See, for comparison, The centurion of Capernaum kneeling before Christ (Frits Lugt Collection, Paris), which has recently been given to Gerbrand van den Eeckhout in P. Schatborn: Rembrandt and his Circle. Drawings in the Frits Lugt Collection, Bussum and Paris 2010, no.60; and H. Bevers: ‘The Early, Rembrandtesque Drawings of Gerbrand van den Eeckhout’, Master Drawings 48 (2010), pp.39–72, esp. pp.48–49.
6    See E. Haverkamp-Begemann: ‘Review of Benesch 1954-57’, Kunstchronik 14 (1961), pp.10–28, 50–57 and 85–91, esp. p.22; and idem, op. cit. (note 3), p.464. Following Haverkamp-Begemann, I would also place the drawing after Rembrandt’s 1635 painting of The angel preventing Abraham from sacrificing Isaac (St Petersburg) and before the pupil’s version of it from 1636 (Munich). Flinck seems to be the painter of the Munich version (see also M. Dekiert: Rembrandt. Die Opferung Isaaks, Munich 2004; not acknowledged in Royalton-Kisch’s catalogue), and he might also be the one who made the drawing.
7    See Giltaij, op. cit. (note 3), p.98.
8    See Schatborn, op. cit. (note 3), p.22; see also Schatborn in H. Bevers, L. Hendrix, W.W. Robinson and P. Schatborn: exh. cat. Drawings by Rembrandt and His Pupils. Telling the Difference, Los Angeles (J. Paul Getty Museum) 2009, no.10.2 (this appeared after the completion of Royalton-Kisch’s online catalogue). Royalton-Kisch’s remark that the condition of the sheet affected the appearance of the lines is not convincing.
9    For the dating of the chalk landscapes, see H. Bevers: Staatliche Museen zu Berlin. Die Zeichnungen alter Meister im Berliner Kupferstichkabinett. Rembrandt. Die Zeichnungen im Berliner Kupferstichkabinett. Kritischer Katalog, Ostfildern 2006, p.124 and no.33.
10    See Sumowski, op. cit. (note 2), no.2316** (as Jan Ruijscher); and Schatborn, op. cit. (note 3), p.23 (as school of Rembrandt).
11    Good comparisons are the signed Landscape with fishermen by a pond in the Frits Lugt Collection, Paris; Sumowski, op. cit. (note 2), no.2390; and Schatborn, op. cit. (note 5), no.161; and the Clump of trees between a canal and a road in Berlin, which was recently attributed to De With by this reviewer and Schatborn; see O. Benesch: The Drawings of Rembrandt, London 1954–57, 2nd ed., enlarged and edited by E. Benesch, London and New York 1973, no.1284; Schatborn, op. cit. (note 5), under no.163.
12    The attribution was first proposed in P. Schatborn: ‘Met Rembrandt naar buiten’, De Kroniek van het Rembrandthuis 42 (1990), pp.31–39, esp. pp.34–36; and idem, op. cit. (note 3), pp.23–24.
13    See Sumowski, op. cit. (note 2), no.546; and A. Röver-Kann: exh. cat. Rembrandt, oder nicht? Zeichnungen von Rembrandt und seinem Kreis aus den Hamburger und Bremer Kupferstichkabinetten, Bremen (Kunsthalle) 2000–01, no.10.
14    See Sumowski, op. cit. (note 2), no.560*; and­ Giltaij, op. cit. (note 1), no.61.
15    See for no.74, Giltaij, op. cit. (note 3), p.100; and, recently, P. Schatborn: ‘The Early, Rembrandtesque Drawings by Govert Flinck’, Master Drawings 48 (2010), pp.4–38, esp. pp.16–17 and 29 (this appeared after the completion of Royalton-Kisch’s catalogue).