Studio: international art (51.1911)

Drawings by Rembrandt

should cast his eyes around him and use the
material which the home and the street provided
with such abundance ? His wife, his children, his
servants, his neighbours were all requisitioned as
models, and whenever he went forth it was with
sketch-book or mind open to receive impressions.
Look at this sketch of Two men seated at a Door-
way, and note the naturalness of both attitude and
expression—a street scene such as might be
witnessed any day at the artist's own front door;
or at this portrait of a mendicant, sketched in
profile, with a mantle over his shoulder—a
summary record of the beggar-man at the corner,
and whom he passed, maybe, for many a year ; or
at this Woman binding up her Foot in the presence
of two of her friends, whose stooping figures so
well express their solicitude ; or, again, at this
drawing of A Sleeping Man, whom the painter
once found reclining by the roadside under the
shade of a tree, and depicted at his ease. Do not
these reflect the mind of a man who is ever
searching after truth ?

An important sub-section of Rembrandt’s
drawings from nature is that embracing his
numerous studies of animals. Horses and lions
were frequently introduced into his early pictures,
and in 1641 he produced a number of etchings
representing the latter. But these, in the opinion
of leading authorities, are far from perfect as
regards drawing, and it was not until some years
later that Rembrandt attained perfection in this
branch of his art. About 1650 he began to devote
considerable time to his work as an animalier, and
with signal success. “The horses in his Bon
Samaritain and Concorde du Fays," says M. Emile
Michel, “ bear witness to the decisive progress
which he made in the representation of these
animals. . . . We may also point out that the

drawing of the asses, oxen or cows in the sketches,
engravings or pictures of this period, is more
correct than in his first works. Finally, it was
likewise about this time that Rembrandt had
occasion to study lions. We have already stated
with what clumsiness these beasts were depicted in
his St. Gerome and the Hunting Scenes of the
outset of his career. The sojourn of a menagerie
at Amsterdam having probably enabled him to
observe them near at hand, he passionately set to
work to draw them, and there exist more than
twenty studies of lions made at this time. It
would appear, however, that he had some
difficulty in familiarising himself with their forms,
for some of these drawings are still rather
insignificant, and give one no idea either of the

nobility of the movements or of the majesty of the
appearance of these animals. In others, on the
other hand, their character is rendered in a
striking manner. Such, for instance, are those
two crouching lions owned by M. Bonnat—
drawings formerly celebrated in England, and
which Landseer was never tired of studying at the
house of Mr. Russell, in whose possession they
then were; or that lion with eyes voluptuously
closed and in the act of crunching a bone which
he holds between his paws; or else, at the British
Museum, that other lion, emaciated by the trials
of captivity, but whose sadness and persistent
dignity well agree with the two Latin verses
inscribed at the bottom of the master’s sketch :

Jam piger et longo jacet exarmatus ab aevo ;

Magna tamen facies et non adeunda senectus.

The lioness eating and the one in repose, which
also belong to the British Museum, are no less
remarkable.”

The last two drawings I have seen, and
certainly they are very lifelike studies ; but I have
sought in vain for the drawing with the Latin
inscription, and it does not seem to be known to
the attendants in the Print Room of our National
Museum. However, whatever may be the
qualities of the sketch to which M. Michel refers,

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