DOI Artikel:
Kozieł, Andrzej: Rembrandt van Rijn and Michael Willmann, or a story of dispelling a certain myth
DOI Seite / Zitierlink:https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.14573#0176
162
ANDRZK.I KOZIRŁ
✓ 1 ft~ (У
8. Josef Gregory after Michael Willmann, The Massacre o f the Innocents, 1794, etching, 198 x 313 mm, Prague, Narodni galerie.
Photo after A. Kozieł, Rysunki Michaela Willmanna (1630-1706), Wrocław 2000, fig. 230
Innocents, Lamentation), even though created outside Rembrandt's workshop, still they seem to belong, as
the matters of style and subject are concemed, to the particular séries of drawings documenting the practice
of the master's pupils38. Not only must Willmann have studied thoroughly the drawings resulting from the
didactic practice performed in the workshop in Jodenbreestraat, but also he must have been well-informed
about the character of thèse exercises and the topics of that time. Willmann's studies over such scènes as The
Incredulity of Thomas, Adoration of the Shepherds, Christ Washing St. Peter's Feet, Twelve-year-old Christ
in the Tempie, The Bearing of the Cross, Lamentation, Christ and the Woman taken in Adultery, or even
Scènes with Maie Figures are strictly adéquate to the thèmes undertaken as compositional practice in the
master's workshop in Amsterdam just around the year 165 039. For Rembrandt's pupils it was his own draw-
ing and graphie models as well as the drawings of single figures or of some paratheatrical groups of a few
people "from nature", made under the master's personal guidance, that came as help for them in finding the
relevant historical scènes arrangements. However, the not wealthy Willmann in his own individual practice
was forced to rely completely on the purchased set of engraving "prototypes". A nude study naar het leven
was replaced then by copying some relevant figures from the engraving, and the very arrangement of the
entire composition took a shape resembling a collage made up with figures and scène fragments "eut out"
from the prints. These, mentioned by Sandrart, secret "methods of Jacob Backer so as of Rembrandt and of
some others", which Willmann was about to follow in his self-studies, oceurred to be the practice of teach-
8 Striking indeed seems to be the lack of this type relations between the drawings of Jacob Backer and his apprentices. The
drawing of David and Batsheha, acknowledged by Sumowski as Willmann's early work, following the stylistics of Backer's draw-
ings (S u m o w s к i, Gemàlde..., vol. 1, p. 82, note 11 ), appeared to be the work by Backer himself (Kozieł, Rysunki..., p. 290).
39 Compare some of the chosen examples of the drawings with the specified topics, created in Rembrandt's circle just at that
time: О. В e n e s с h, The Drawings of Rembrandt, vol. 1-6, enlarged and edited by E. Benesch, London-New York 1973, cat.
nos. 51 la, 867, 1010; Sumowski, The Drawings..., cat. nos. 146X, 581XX, 848X, 974X, 1052, 1106, 1142X, 1213X, 1353-55,
1377X, 1384X, 1419X, 2085X; P. Schatb o r n, Tekeningen van Rembrandt zijn onbekende leerlingen en navolgers / Drawings
by Rembrandt his anonymous pupils and followers, 's-Gravenhage 1985, cat. nos. 25, 28, 62, 86, and Rembrandt. Die Dresdener
Zeichnungen 2004, ed. Th. К e t e 1 s e n, Kôln 2004, cat. nos. 1,13, 85, 93.
ANDRZK.I KOZIRŁ
✓ 1 ft~ (У
8. Josef Gregory after Michael Willmann, The Massacre o f the Innocents, 1794, etching, 198 x 313 mm, Prague, Narodni galerie.
Photo after A. Kozieł, Rysunki Michaela Willmanna (1630-1706), Wrocław 2000, fig. 230
Innocents, Lamentation), even though created outside Rembrandt's workshop, still they seem to belong, as
the matters of style and subject are concemed, to the particular séries of drawings documenting the practice
of the master's pupils38. Not only must Willmann have studied thoroughly the drawings resulting from the
didactic practice performed in the workshop in Jodenbreestraat, but also he must have been well-informed
about the character of thèse exercises and the topics of that time. Willmann's studies over such scènes as The
Incredulity of Thomas, Adoration of the Shepherds, Christ Washing St. Peter's Feet, Twelve-year-old Christ
in the Tempie, The Bearing of the Cross, Lamentation, Christ and the Woman taken in Adultery, or even
Scènes with Maie Figures are strictly adéquate to the thèmes undertaken as compositional practice in the
master's workshop in Amsterdam just around the year 165 039. For Rembrandt's pupils it was his own draw-
ing and graphie models as well as the drawings of single figures or of some paratheatrical groups of a few
people "from nature", made under the master's personal guidance, that came as help for them in finding the
relevant historical scènes arrangements. However, the not wealthy Willmann in his own individual practice
was forced to rely completely on the purchased set of engraving "prototypes". A nude study naar het leven
was replaced then by copying some relevant figures from the engraving, and the very arrangement of the
entire composition took a shape resembling a collage made up with figures and scène fragments "eut out"
from the prints. These, mentioned by Sandrart, secret "methods of Jacob Backer so as of Rembrandt and of
some others", which Willmann was about to follow in his self-studies, oceurred to be the practice of teach-
8 Striking indeed seems to be the lack of this type relations between the drawings of Jacob Backer and his apprentices. The
drawing of David and Batsheha, acknowledged by Sumowski as Willmann's early work, following the stylistics of Backer's draw-
ings (S u m o w s к i, Gemàlde..., vol. 1, p. 82, note 11 ), appeared to be the work by Backer himself (Kozieł, Rysunki..., p. 290).
39 Compare some of the chosen examples of the drawings with the specified topics, created in Rembrandt's circle just at that
time: О. В e n e s с h, The Drawings of Rembrandt, vol. 1-6, enlarged and edited by E. Benesch, London-New York 1973, cat.
nos. 51 la, 867, 1010; Sumowski, The Drawings..., cat. nos. 146X, 581XX, 848X, 974X, 1052, 1106, 1142X, 1213X, 1353-55,
1377X, 1384X, 1419X, 2085X; P. Schatb o r n, Tekeningen van Rembrandt zijn onbekende leerlingen en navolgers / Drawings
by Rembrandt his anonymous pupils and followers, 's-Gravenhage 1985, cat. nos. 25, 28, 62, 86, and Rembrandt. Die Dresdener
Zeichnungen 2004, ed. Th. К e t e 1 s e n, Kôln 2004, cat. nos. 1,13, 85, 93.