Description: Pen and brown ink, brown wash, 234 x 203 mm. Ruled framing lines in brown ink. Inner framing lines drawn freehand by the artist. Watermark: The letters PR. Chain lines: 23–25 mm. Inscribed at the bottom, in pen and black ink, L’ange quitte Menöé et sa famme, et s’elance au milieu de la flamme quil avait excitée (P. J. Mariette). Numbered in the lower right corner, in pen and brown ink, 79 (struck out), and 1807 (Sparre).

The subject is from Judges 13:20. The angel appears in the sacrificial fire to Manoah and his wife. Manoah is struck with fear that the sight of the “man of God” will kill them. The same composition is varied in two more drawings, in Dresden and the Reinhart Collection, as well as in a painting in Dresden with Rembrandt’s signature and the date 1641.  

The drawings reflect Rembrandt’s style of the early 1650s, and Saxl, Benesch and others have suggested that they should be connected with a projected second version of the same subject. However, the authenticity of the painting has repeatedly been doubted, and Sumowski and later Gerson suggested that it was a work by Jan Victors. Benesch originally thought that the painting had been modified following the drawings, but later came to consider it a work by a pupil. (In the posthumous version of his catalogue, the first view is repeated.) Similarly, Bauch and Clark suggested a later date for the painting, considering it a studio work dependent on the drawings.

While most authors have accepted all three drawings as autograph, Sumowski considered the Reinhart drawing the work of a pupil, corrected by Rembrandt, as there is some reworking in the upper left corner. He also classified the Dresden sheet as a school drawing after the painting. Regarding the Reinhart drawing, Sumowski was followed by Benesch, who grouped it with other drawings, several of which, including the one in the Reinhart Collection, Sumowski later attributed to Drost.

For most critics, the powerful chiaroscuro has placed the present drawing firmly in Rembrandt’s oeuvre. However, the Rembrandt Research Project has shown that the signature and date on the painting in Dresden are not genuine, and that it has been cut down and the angel painted anew further down. Its original appearance must have been very like our drawing. They also attributed it to Drost, on the strength of comparisons with other paintings by him, and suggested that all three drawings were made by Drost in preparation for the now mutilated painting. It is argued convincingly that the drawings show two stages in the development of the composition, and that the Dresden and Stockholm drawings in particular are very close in style.

The composition is indebted to Rembrandt’s The Angel Leaving Tobit, painted c. 1637.  The angel’s expressive flight as he leaves Tobit is inspired by Marten van Heemskerck’s woodcut of the same subject. Although the position of the angel is similar in the drawings, there it seems to be modelled on one of the wooden manikins used in artists’ studios, to which wings and an appearance of fluttering garments have been added with a few strokes. Rembrandt returned to the subject in an etching of 1641 (Bartsch 43). 

Bikker has argued strongly against attributing the painting in Dresden to Drost and throws doubt on the attribution of the drawings, but he does not discuss the Stockholm drawing. [Magnusson, Dutch Drawings no. 135]

Utforska konstnärer och föremål som finns i Nationalmuseums samlingar.

Explore the artists and artworks of Nationalmuseum Sweden.

Willem Drost | Manoas offer | Nationalmuseum