Description: Pen and brown ink, 129 x 176 mm. Two large brown stains in the centre, greyish spots in the upper part, and clusters of small dots at the lower left. Watermark: Crozier (close to Heawood 1204: 1640). Chain lines: 23 mm. Numbered in the lower right corner, in pen and brown ink, 66 (struck out) and 1815 (Sparre). Mark of the Royal Collection (Lugt 1638).

Christ extends his hand to a seated man behind a desk. There are other figures in the background, and one of them seems to be counting money. The drawing no doubt refers to the scene described by Matthew 9:9, the calling of the apostle.

This is a summary sketch, establishing with economy of means the main traits of a composition. The few straight lines, curves and abrupt angles combine to suggest both form and movement. The same principles are at work in a drawing of a group of horsemen in Rotterdam,  and the character of the drawn line is also the same. Benesch compared these drawings with other sketches of a similarly preliminary character, but with more vigorous hatching, dating them generally in the second half of the 1630s, with the present drawing put as late as 1637–39. He found in them a tendency towards dramatic expression. In oppo¬sition to Benesch’s proposal of about 1636–37 for the Rotterdam drawing, a date around 1632 was suggested by Haverkamp-Begemann, who connected the sheet with an etching of that year. 

As regards the present drawing, Benesch admitted the connection with drawings of the early 1630s, but considered it one of many cases in which Rembrandt returned to an earlier style after “a lustrum or a decade”. This notion was criticized by Sumowski as “over-differentiation”, and he proposed in this case to date the drawing to the beginning of the decade. Kruse believed it to be a school work, by the same hand as a drawing in Amsterdam representing the raising of Jairus’ daughter. This opinion was accepted by Henkel, and has been reproposed by Starcky. Benesch considered the Amsterdam drawing questionable, but accepted the one in Stockholm. Sumowski in 1956 considered the Stockholm drawing to be genuine (“zweifellos echte”), while suggesting Victors for the other drawing.  
Sumowski did not include the Amsterdam sheet among the drawings by Victors in his corpus Drawings of the Rembrandt School, but the attribution has been advanced again by Bevers, who also ascribes to Victors the Stockholm drawing and others proposed by Sumowski. He offers a convincing analysis of stylistic similarities. Most important, though, is the lack of a sense of space, which sets these drawings apart from Rembrandt’s preliminary sketches. [Magnusson, Dutch Drawings no. 460]

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Jan Victors | Matteus kallelse | Nationalmuseum