Gerrit Willemsz. HORST
Muiden, c. 1612/13–Amsterdam, buried 15 October 1652
Dutch painter
From June 1626 onwards, Gerrit Horst trained with a certain Antoni Hendricksz. Lust (active 1626–36).1 He may have been an assistant in the workshop of Rembrandt (1606/7–69), but there is very little evidence of that in the works attributed to him.2 He specialized in historical and Biblical subjects (especially from the Old Testament), in which he seems to have been competing with artists such as Ferdinand Bol (1616–80), who was indeed a Rembrandt pupil and who worked in his style.3 But Horst also produced genre scenes and allegories. Sluijter suggests that Horst could have worked in the studio of the art dealer Hendrick Uylenburgh (1587–1661), after the compositions of Govert Flinck (1615–60). Flinck was the head of that studio after Rembrandt left. Late in life Horst also painted some still lifes.
LITERATURE
Bredius 1933; Valentiner 1933; Sumowski 1983–94, ii, pp. 1387–9, 1390–93 (nos 904–27), figs 1394–417; Bruyn 1987a, pp. 231, 234; Van der Willigen & Meijer 2003, p. 113; Bakker 2008, pp. 183–4, figs 15–22; Sluijter 2015, pp. 328–31; RKDartists&, no. 39837: https://rkd.nl/en/explore/artists/39837 (Jan. 15, 2018).
DPG214 – Isaac blessing Jacob
1638; canvas, 163.2 x 201.3 cm
Signed and dated on stool, lower left: Horst 1638; and inscribed indistinctly, lower right: Rembrandt./ 1653
PROVENANCE
?Gerard Vandergucht, London, 1756 (Lugt 939a), no. 57, ‘Hoest, Isaac blessing Jacob’, transcription by Richard Houlditch, V&A Library, no buyer or price;4 ?Christie’s (consigned from abroad), 8–10 July 1784 (Lugt 3756), 2nd day, lot 83: ‘Rembrandt, Jacob receiving the blessing, very capital. (£27.6.0)’;5 Desenfans sale, Christie’s, 13 May 1785 (Lugt 3882), lot 74 (‘Rembrandt – Jacob stealing the blessing’); Desenfans private sale, London, 8 April ff. 1786 (Lugt 4022), lot 191 (‘Rembrandt – Jacob stealing Esau’s Blessing. on canvas, 6' h x 7'6" [includes the frame]’), £50; Desenfans private sale, London, 8 June ff. 1786 (Lugt 4059a), lot 191 (‘Rembrandt – Jacob stealing Esau's Blessing, on canvas, 6' x 7'6"’[includes the frame]); Desenfans sale, Christie’s, 14 July 1786 (Lugt 4071), lot 69 (‘Rembrandt – Jacob stealing Esau’s Blessing’). Sold (or bt in), Bechard [?], £30 9s.; not in Evening Mail inventory, 1790–91; undated list of ‘Pictures to be sold’ (early 1790s), no. 354 (Skylight Room: ‘Rembrandt – Stealing of the blessing’. 100 gs); ?Desenfans sale, London, 16 June 1794 (Lugt 5226), lot 1 (‘Rembrandt – Jacob stealing Esau’s blessing 7ft. 9 by 5ft. 3, on canvas’); Desenfans sale, London, Skinner and Dyke, 27 Feb. 1795 (Lugt 5281), lot 98 (‘Rembrandt – Jacob stealing the Blessing’); Bourgeois Bequest, 1811; Britton 1813, p. 8, no. 58 (‘Dining room – contd / no. 14, Isaac & Esau. 3 figures & some in back gd. C[anvas] Rembrandt’; 6'8" x 8'2").
REFERENCES
Cat. 1817, p. 9, no. 147 (‘SECOND ROOM – East Side; Isaac blessing Jacob; Rembrandt’); Haydon 1817, p. 384, no. 147;6 Cat. 1820, p. 9, no. 147 (Isaac blessing Jacob; Rembrandt); Cat. 1830, no. 272; Jameson 1842, ii, p. 487, no. 272 (perhaps by Jan Victor);7 Denning 1858, no. 272 (Ferdinand Bol/School of Rembrandt); not in Denning 1859; Sparkes 1876, p. 136, no. 272 (School of Rembrandt); Richter & Sparkes 1880, pp. 180–81, no. 272 (Jan Victors);8 Richter & Sparkes 1892 and 1905, p. 58, no. 214; Cook 1914, p. 135, no. 214; Cook 1926, p. 127; Cat. 1953, p. 23 (Gerrit Willemsz. Horst); Paintings 1954, pp. 14 [59]; Bernt 1970, ii, pl. 404 (the Berlin picture, Related works, no. 1a); Wright 1976, p. 93; Murray 1980a, p. 69; Murray 1980b, p. 16; Richardson 1982, pp. 231, 239 (fig. 11; 1638); Sumowski 1983–94, ii (1983), pp. 1387, 1390, no. 908; Bruyn 1987a, p. 231; Ydema 1991, pp. 123–4, fig. 127 (presumably merely to add an Oriental touch to the scene; Anatolian carpet); Liedtke 1995, p. 145, under no. 47; Bruyn 1996, p. 173 (note 20); Beresford 1998, p. 132; Ingamells 2008, p. 210, under DPG607; Sluijter 2015, pp. 328–9, fig. VI-12, Jonker & Bergvelt 2016, pp. 110–11; RKD, no. 287664: https://rkd.nl/en/explore/images/287664 (12 Jan. 2018).
EXHIBITION9
TECHNICAL NOTES
Beva-lined onto linen canvas; the original tacking margins are absent and the picture is 1.3 cm short of the stretcher on all sides. Prior to its 1994 treatment, the painting had undergone heavy structural work including glue lining and partial strip-lining. The nature of the adhesive used for the old lining meant that it contracted with age; this, combined with its weight, caused tension and damaged the painting. Although the painting has since been treated, it still bears the signs of this damage. There are two mended tears. The paint film is very abraded. The painting’s widespread blanching – particularly noticeable in the red drapery of Jacob’s costume – was reduced a little during the 1994 campaign. The signature ‘Horst’ was discovered in 1952. This had been previously painted over with ‘Jan Victor’ A further false signature ‘Rembrandt 1653’ is also visible on the right hand side. Previous recorded treatment: 1880, relined and re-stretched on new stretcher; 1914, repaired and cleaned, Holder; 1952–3, partially cleaned and adjusted retouchings, Dr Hell; 1993–4, re-lined, cleaned and restored, treated blanching AMSEE by J. Diamond.
RELATED WORKS
1a) Gerrit Willemsz. Horst, Isaac blessing Jacob, canvas, 155 x 218 cm. Formerly Kaiser Friedrich-Museum, Berlin, 807 (lost during the Second World War) [1].10
1b) Gerrit Willemsz. Horst, Isaac blessing Jacob, monogrammed G.H., canvas, 108 x 122 cm. Present whereabouts unknown (W. Hirschbühl, Hedingen, Switzerland, as Rembrandt).11
1c) Gerrit Willemsz. Horst or Abraham van Dijck, Isaac blessing Jacob, canvas, 125 x 108 cm. Nationalmuseum, Stockholm, NM347.12
2a) Gerrit Willemsz. Horst, The Sacrifice of Manoah, panel, 71.1 x 54.6 cm. Present whereabouts unknown (Sotheby’s, New York, 28 Jan. 1999).13
2b) Gerrit Willemsz. Horst, Jacob shown the Bloody Cloak of Joseph, later signed Rembrandt, canvas, 153 x 167 cm. Hermitage, St Petersburg, 747 [2].14
3a) Gerbrand van den Eeckhout, Isaac blessing Jacob, signed and dated G V eeckhout / ANº 1642, canvas, 100.6 x 128.3 cm. MMA, New York, Bequest of C. P. Huntington, 1900, 25.110.16 [3].15
3b.I) Govert Flinck, Isaac blessing Jacob, c. 1633–4, canvas, 124 x 151 cm. Rijksdienst Cultureel Erfgoed, on loan to the Catharijneconvent, Utrecht, RMCC s 131 [4].16
3b.Ia) Jan Gillisz. van Vliet after Jan Lievens, Esau before Isaac, who realizes that He has blessed the Wrong Son (after a painting of c. 1626), c. 1630–35, etching and engraving, 470 x 387 mm, BM, London, S.158 [5].17
3b.II) Govert Flinck, Isaac blessing Jacob, signed and dated G. Flinck 1638, canvas, 117 x 141 cm. RM, Amsterdam, SK-A-110.18
3c.I ) Jan Victors, Isaac blessing Jacob, c. 1640–50 (?), canvas, 136 x 190 cm. National Museum, Warsaw, m. Ob.37.19
3c.II) Jan Victors, Isaac blessing Jacob, c. 1650, canvas, 165 x 203 cm. Louvre, Paris, 1285.20
Other subjects with comparable compositions
4a.I) Ferdinand Bol, David on his Deathbed, 15.8 x 21.7 cm, pen and brown ink with brown wash, white bodycolour. Musée des Beaux-Arts, Besançon, D.2756.21
4a.II) Ferdinand Bol, David’s Dying Charge to Solomon, signed and dated f. bol. fecit 1643, canvas, 171 x 230 cm. National Gallery of Ireland, Dublin, 47.22
4b) Attributed to Ferdinand Bol, Isaac and Esau, c. 1636, panel, 57.3 x 69.9 cm. Private collection, Switzerland [6].23
4c) Attributed to Willem Drost, The Unmerciful Servant, canvas, 176.5 x 216.2 cm. Wallace Collection, London, P86.24
4d) Rembrandt, Danae, 1636–43, canvas, 185 x 203 cm. Hermitage, St Petersburg, 723.25
4e) Rembrandt, Interior with Saskia in Bed, pen and brown ink, brown and grey wash, some additions in red and black chalk, 142 x 177 mm. Fondation Custodia, Paris, 266.26
4f) Cornelis de Vos, David presenting the Sceptre to Solomon, canvas, 174 x 243 cm. Private collection (Galerie Jan De Maere 2011).27
5) Walter Charles Horsley, Old Time Tuition at Dulwich College, before 1906, canvas, 84.1 x 107.3 cm. DPG607 [7].28
Depictions of similar objects
6a) Armour: Govert Flinck, A Young Negro Archer, panel, 66.2 x 50.8 cm. Wallace Collection, London, P238.29
6b) Sheath: Rembrandt, Abraham’s Sacrifice, 1635, canvas, 193.5 x 132.8 cm. Hermitage, St Petersburg, 727.30
6c) Costume: Aert de Gelder, Portrait of a Man in a Red Coat, canvas, 50 x 44 cm. Louvre, Paris, RF 1984-153.31
6d) Kris: Unknown artist, The Death of Lucretia, mid-1640s, canvas, 174.0 x 219.71 cm. Detroit Institute of Arts, 89.44.32
7a) Turkish bow: bow case, quiver and arrows, 16th century. Germanisches Nationalmuseum, Nuremberg, W 1218, W 1217, W 1220.33
7b) Mughal or Persian quiver: leather quiver, India or Iran, 18th–19th century, with silver band around bottom in hammered floral pattern; two belt loops and two leather straps for suspension from a belt or saddle, l 55.8 cm, w 15 cm. Museum of Anthropology, Columbia, Mo., Grayson Collection, MAC 1994-0643A.34
Copy
8) George Scharf, in his sketchbook in the National Portrait Gallery, London, 57 NPG7/3/4/2/68, p. 21, annotated to the right of the image ‘Dulwich Gallery / GS Nov. 8th 1859’, ‘Canvas, Large, lifesize’ and ‘No 272’ [8].35
The painting appears in Desenfans’ first sale in 1785 and seems to have been in his collection continuously until his death in 1807. It was not in his ‘Polish’ sale in 1802. It was attributed to Rembrandt until 1842 (probably based on the false ‘Rembrandt’ signature, which is still visible). In 1842 Mrs Jameson suggested Jan Victors (1619–76/7), probably based on a false Victors signature that was removed in 1952–3. Richter and Sparkes agreed with the attribution to that artist. Horst’s signature reappeared with the removal of the ‘Jan Victors’ signature.36 It is considered to be Horst’s best painting.37
The subject comes from the Book of Genesis 27:22–3, in which Jacob, at the instigation of his mother Rebecca, impersonates his older brother Esau to obtain the prophetic blessing of his blind father Isaac. This blessing guaranteed to Jacob not only a superior rank in the family, a double portion of the paternal inheritance, and priestly office, but the inheritance of Abraham, where the recipient’s children would be God’s chosen people. Rebecca had overheard her husband sending Esau out to hunt, as he wished to eat before blessing him. She instructed Jacob to kill two goats and prepared a meal for Isaac. She gave Jacob a garment of Esau’s, and as Esau was ‘a hairy man’, she wrapped the kids’ skins around Jacob’s hands and neck. Jacob then brought the meal to his father.
Rebecca can be seen at the right on the far side of the bed to which her ailing husband is confined. Isaac raises one hand in blessing, while the other feels the kids’ skins on Jacob’s hands. To complete the impersonation of Esau the hunter, Horst has added a quiver of arrows on Jacob’s back, an unusual but not unique touch. This quiver, however, caused Bruyn to re-identify the composition as Isaac blessing Esau (Genesis 27:42): the figure with the quiver could not be Jacob, because he was not a hunter. Against his argument, as he said himself, is the appearance of Rebecca, not mentioned in the Bible at that point, but he considered this part of an iconographical convention.38 There are, however, two details that can prove which brother is shown. Jacob’s hands were covered with kids’ skins to deceive his father’s touch, and the food prepared for Isaac was made from the kids. In our opinion both are visible, so this is Jacob.
Isaac blessing Jacob was a very popular theme with Rembrandt’s pupils (Related works, nos 3a) [3]; Gerbrand van den Eeckhout (1621–74)), and 3c.I, II (Victors)), although Rembrandt did not paint the subject himself:39 the nearest he came to the image was a depiction of Saskia in bed (Related works, no. 4e; see also 4d). It has been suggested that in Rembrandt’s workshop the theme was a subject for competition.40 It seems that the first to have depicted the subject is Govert Flinck, in the years 1633–4, before he entered the Rembrandt-Uylenburgh studio (Related works, 3b.I, II) [5]. That picture seems to have been based on a composition of Jan Lievens (1607–74) of c. 1626, known only from a print by Jan Gillisz. van Vliet (1600/1610–68; Related works, no. 3b.Ia) [4].41 There are many large paintings with variations on the image of a bearded old man in bed, with the kneeling Jacob and Rebecca in front of or behind the bed, in an interior that is often richly decorated with Eastern curtains, carpets, furniture and armour. The same ingredients – the man in bed, the old lady, the young man, in a richly decorated Eastern interior – feature for instance in David’s Dying Charge to Solomon by Ferdinand Bol and in David presenting the Sceptre to Solomon by Cornelis de Vos (1584–1651) (Related works, nos 4a–4f) [6].
Horst treated the subject on at least two other occasions, most notably in a picture formerly in Berlin that again showed Jacob with a quiver of arrows (Related works, no. 1a) [1].42 The features of Jacob in the Dulwich painting reappear on one of Joseph’s brothers in Jacob shown the Bloody Cloak of Joseph (Related works, no. 2b) [2].43
Horst gave his history painting an Old-Testament look by using a heavily decorated quiver, very much like ones with a Persian provenance (cf. Related works, no. 7b). The eye-catching Anatolian carpet had the same function.44 We know that Rembrandt had a collection of exotic objects that could be used to give an air of authenticity to this kind of Old Testament subject (he often used his fantasy as well).45 Gerard Dou (1613–75) in one of his pictures used the same round shield as Rembrandt, in whose collection it probably featured.46
Although this painting is not of the highest quality – Bruyn called Horst a ‘well-meaning but anaemic Rembrandt follower’,47 and Sluijter, perhaps more accurately, saw him as ‘a mediocre follower of the early Flinck and Bol’48 – it is very intriguing, both for its iconography and for its style in comparison to the many other depictions of the subject by painters working in the orbit of Rembrandt.
A 19th-century painting by Walter Charles Horsley (1855–1934) also at Dulwich, Old Time Tuition at Dulwich College (DPG607; Related works, no. 5) [7], could very well have been inspired by Horst’s Biblical scene.49 Of course there are differences and the composition is in reverse, but Dulwich and this ‘Rembrandt’ would have been an association easy to make, and DPG214 a composition waiting for a 19th-century answer.
DPG214
Gerrit Willemsz. Horst
Isaac blessing Jacob, 1638
Dulwich (Southwark), Dulwich Picture Gallery, inv./cat.nr. DPG214
1
Gerrit Willemsz. Horst
Isaac blessing Jacob
canvas, oil paint 155 x 218 cm
Formerly Berlin, Kaiser-Friedrich-Museum, inv.nr. 807 (lost in 1945)
2
school of Rembrandt
Joseph's blood-stained coat is brought and shown to Jacob (Genesis 37:32-35), c. 1650-1655
Sint-Petersburg, Hermitage, inv./cat.nr. GE-747
3
Gerbrand van den Eeckhout
Isaac lying in bed blesses Jacob who, disguised in Esau's clothes, brings food to his father; Jacob's hands and neck are covered with goatskins (Genesis 27:27-32), 1642 (dated)
New York City, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, inv./cat.nr. 25.110.16
4
Govert Flinck
Isaac sitting in bed blesses Jacob who, disguised in Esau's clothes, brings food to his father (Genesis 27:27-29), c. 1633-1634
Utrecht, Museum Catharijneconvent, inv./cat.nr. RMCC s.131
5
Jan Gillisz. van Vliet after Jan Lievens
Ezau and Isaac
London (England), British Museum, inv./cat.nr. S.158
6
attributed to Ferdinand Bol
Isaac and Esau, c. 1636
Private collection
7
Walter Charles Horsley
Old-time Tuition at Dulwich College, before 1906
Dulwich (Southwark), Dulwich Picture Gallery, inv./cat.nr. DPG607
8
George Scharf (II)
Copy of Rubens's Portrait of Katherine Manners (?) (DPG143) and of Horst's Isaac Blessing Jacob (DPG214), 1859
London (England), National Portrait Gallery, inv./cat.nr. NPG7/3/4/2/68, p. 21
Notes
1 Bredius 1933, pp. 5–6.
2 Bruyn 1987a, pp. 231, 234.
3 Foucart 1980 rejects a ‘real’ competition, as suggested by Scheltema and Thoré-Bürger; however it is possible that Rembrandt gave his pupils the same subject to paint.
4 ‘Hoest’ is most probably a corruption of ‘Horst’, which means that a signature must have been visible; letter from Burton Fredericksen to Xavier Salomon, 2 Dec. 2009 (DPG214 file).
5 Letter from Josua Bruyn to John Sheeran, 1 Aug. 1985 (DPG214 file): ‘conceivable (but hard to verify)’.
6 ‘Rembrandt Van Rhyn. Isaac blessing Jacob. Figures as large as life. Isaac is sitting on the bed, which is covered with rich carpeting; Rebekah is behind, instructing her favourite son by motions, who is kneeling and receiving the surreptitious blessing.’
7 ‘Rembrandt? […] From the school of Rembrandt, perhaps by Jan Victor. No picture corresponding in size is in Smith’s Catalogue of Rembrandt’s Works. Two pictures of the same subject are mentioned, p. 4.’ For Smith see note 39 below.
8 ‘Jan Victors […] This picture is much damaged by re-painting, but in those parts where the original colour is still to be noticed, for instance in the quiver on the back of Isaac, it clearly betrays the style of J. Victors. Rembrandt treated the same subject in one of his finest pictures, dated 1656, […] at Cassel; this picture was imitated not only by Victors, but also by other scholars of Rembrandt – Lievens, Bol, Backer, Flinck, Eckhout, S. Koninck, and de Gelder.’
9 The painting was supposed to have gone to Japan (Tokyo/Chiba/Yamaguchi 1992), but it never went.
10 RKD, no. 288388: https://rkd.nl/en/explore/images/288388 (April 20, 2020); Sumowski 1983–94, ii (1983), pp. 1390, 1399, no. 909; Bernt 1970, ii, fig. 404.
11 Sluijter 2015, pp. 328–9, fig. VI-11; Sumowski 1983–94, ii (1983), pp. 1390, 1397, no. 907.
12 Cavalli-Björkman 1992, pp. 266–7, no. 92 (L. Hjelmstedt); Cavalli-Björkman 1990, p. 176, no. NM 347. According to Bruyn, the painting is by Abraham van Dijck (and the subject is Isaac blessing Esau): Bruyn 1996, pp. 170 (fig. 5), 171.
13 School of Rembrandt according to RKD, no. 47668: https://rkd.nl/en/explore/images/47668 (Jan. 6, 2018).
14 School of Rembrandt according to RKD, no. 61201: https://rkd.nl/en/explore/images/61201 (Jan. 6, 2018); Sumowski 1983–94, iv (c. 1989), pp. 2950 (no. 1938; Anonymous Rembrandt School), 3005 (fig.); HdG, vi, 1915, pp. 15–16, no. 16 (Rembrandt; cat. 1901, no. 793).
15 RKD, no. 58157: https://rkd.nl/en/explore/images/58157 (Jan. 6, 2018); Bikker 2004, pp. 76–7; Liedtke 1995, p. 145, no. 47.
16 RKD, no. 2796: https://rkd.nl/en/explore/images/2796 (Jan. 5, 2018); Hillegers 2017, pp. 44, 58 (fig. 2.14), 60; Sluijter 2015, pp. 99–101, fig. IIB-6; Blankert & Blokhuis 1997, pp. 235–7, no. 41.
17 RKD, no. 288397: https://rkd.nl/en/explore/images/288397 (March 11, 2018); Sluijter 2015, p. 100 (fig. IIB-7), 442 (note 23); see also https://www.britishmuseum.org/collection/object/P_Sheepshanks-158 (July 6, 2020).
18 RKD, no. 2797: https://rkd.nl/en/explore/images/2797 (6 Jan. 2018); see also http://hdl.handle.net/10934/RM0001.COLLECT.8428 (6 Jan. 2018); Sluijter 2015, p. 105, fig. IIB-14.
19 Starcky & Rottermund 2011, p. 65, no. 29 (A. Ziemba).
20 Joconde (11 Nov. 2012); Foucart & Foucart-Walter 2009, p. 288, no. 1285; Bikker 2004, pp. 76–7; Sumowski 1983–94, iv (c. 1989), pp. 2602, 2645, no. 1746.
21 Sluijter 2015, pp. 336–8, fig. VII-6; Joconde (21 April 2015); Potterton 1986, pp. 13–14, under no. 47 (fig. 19). See next note.
22 Sluijter 2015, pp. 336–8, fig. VII-5; Potterton 1986, pp. 13–14, no. 47 (Bol); see also Brown 1992b, p. 230, no. 26. Painting and drawing were formerly attributed to Horst, e.g. by Sumowski & Strauss 1979–, v, (1981), pp. 2832–3, no. 1277. Bruyn (1987a, p. 231) in his review of Sumowski 1983–94, ii, (1983) attributes both to Ferdinand Bol.
23 Ferdinand Bol according to RKD, no. 215305: https://rkd.nl/en/explore/images/215305 (April 20, 2020); Van de Wetering 2011, p. 282, fig. 10; Sluijter 2015, pp. 336–8, fig. VII.7.
24 Ingamells 1992, pp. 89–95, no. P86.
25 RKD, no. 40824: https://rkd.nl/en/explore/images/40824 (6 Jan. 2018); Van de Wetering 2011, p. 282, fig. 8; Bruyn 1989, pp. 209–23, no. A 119.
26 RKD, no. 11495: https://rkd.nl/en/explore/images/11495 (Jan. 6, 2018); Schatborn 2010, i, pp. 47–51, no. 10, ii, p. 20, no. 10.
27 RKD, no. 121245: https://rkd.nl/en/explore/images/121245 (Jan. 6, 2018); Mai & Vlieghe 1992, pp. 368–9, no. 50.1 (K. Van der Stichelen).
28 RKD, no. 297562: https://rkd.nl/en/explore/images/297562 (April 20, 2020); Ingamells 2008, p. 210, DPG607.
29 Ingamells 1992, pp. 120–22, no. P238.
30 RKD, no. 40898: https://rkd.nl/en/explore/images/40898 (Jan. 6, 2018); Bruyn 1989, pp. 101–13, no. A 108.
31 RKD, no. 3604: https://rkd.nl/en/explore/images/3604 (Jan. 6, 2018).
32 This painting has been attributed to Rembrandt, to the Studio/Workshop of Rembrandt, to Rembrandt School of the 1640s, to Jan Victors, to Horst and to Willem Drost (1633–59). See https://www.dia.org/art/collection/object/death-lucretia-64222, with literature (Jan. 6, 2018).
33 http://objektkatalog.gnm.de/objekt/W1217; http://objektkatalog.gnm.de/objekt/W1218; http://objektkatalog.gnm.de/objekt/W1220 (Jan. 8, 2018).
34 https://as-file.col.missouri.edu/fmi/webd/Grayson%20Objects (July 6, 2020).
35 RKD, no. 288806: https://rkd.nl/en/explore/images/288806 (March 18, 2018). Jonker & Bergvelt 2016, p. 111, copy (with the wrong inventory number).
36 Murray 1980a, p. 69.
37 Sluijter 2015, p. 328.
38 Bruyn 1996, p. 173 (note 20).
39 Smith (mistakenly) mentions two pictures in his œuvre catalogue of Rembrandt: Smith 1829–42, vii (1836), p. 4, nos 10 and 11: ‘No. 10. Jacob surreptitiously obtaining his Father’s Blessing. The venerable Patriarch is represented reclining on his couch, dressed in a velvet cap and a fur robe, and is in the act of feeling the hands of his son, who kneels at the foot of his bed, and is seen in a profile view, habited in the rich robes of his brother Esau; at the same time his affectionate mother stands at the head of the bed, anxiously awaiting the completion of the imposture. Engraved anonymous. 2 ft. 1 in. by 2 ft. 5 in. – C[anvas]. Collection of Mr. Jetswart Amst. 1749 234 flo. 21l. No. 11. A Picture representing the above subject is in the Marlborough collection.’ No. 10 is of course too small for DPG214; the dimensions of no. 11 are unknown. A lot of pictures went in the 18th and 19th century under the name of Rembrandt; they even received false Rembrandt signatures, like DPG214.
40 Foucart 1980; see note 3 above.
41 Sluijter 2015, p. 100, fig. IIB-7.
42 See Sumowski 1983–94, iii (1986), p. 1390, nos 907 and 909.
43 Sumowski 1983–94, , iv (c. 1989), p. 2950, no. 1938 (Anonymous Rembrandt School); HdG, vi, 1915, pp. 15–16, no. 16 (Rembrandt).
44 Ydema 1991, pp. 123–4, fig. 127.
45 About Rembrandt’s collection in general: Van den Boogert 1999b; Van der Veen 1992, pp. 130–31; Scheller 1969. For Rembrandt’s fantasy in the field of weaponry (and sometimes exactness) Van Gelder & Van der Veen 1999b, p. 71.
46 Broos 1999, pp. 94–97, figs 52 (Rembrandt) and 56 (Dou). The suggestion is also made that Rembrandt gave his pupils authentic objects as study material: Van Gelder & Van der Veen 1999b, pp. 77–81.
47 Letter from Josua Bruyn to John Sheeran, 1 Aug. 1985 (DPG214 file).
48 For recent overviews of the work of Flinck and Bol, Dickey 2017 and Middelkoop, Van Sloten & Larsen 2017.
49 As was suggested by the juxtaposition of the photographs of the Horsley and the Horst in the Beresford catalogue: Beresford 1998, pp. 132–3; see also Ingamells 2008, p. 210: ‘perhaps Horsley enjoyed the parallel with Isaac blessing Jacob’.