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School of Rembrandt

mid seventeenth century

Christ and the Woman taken in Adultery

study of a man and a woman (verso), pen and brown ink, brown and grey washes, corrections in white heightening

202 x 259 mm.

Provenance

C.R. Rudolf, sale, Sotheby’s, Amsterdam, 6th June 1977, lot 100, there purchased by the present owner

This unusual drawing has long been considered the work of a member of the Rembrandt School. In the Rudolf sale it was ascribed to Aert de Gelder. More recently it has been attributed to Philips de Koninck, with whose drawings it does share many stylistic characteristics. But Werner Sumowski considered it to by a late mannerist artist preceding the influence of Rembrandt.

What is certain is its vigour and confident execution with a real sense of space and recession. The composition with the figure of Christ writing in the sand is taken from the celebrated print of the same subject after Pieter Bruegel the Elder.