REMBRANDT SCHOOL | STUDY OF A GROUP OF FIVE MEN, POSSIBLY CHRIST WITH APOSTLES

Albin Schram (1926-2005), ,Lausanne

by inheritance to the present owners

This animated study of a group of figures, possibly depicting Christ with some of the apostles, or maybe the Capture of Samson, is close to Rembrandt's drawing style of the mid-1630s, soon after he moved to Amsterdam and began to establish himself as one of the city's most sought-after painters. There is, though, an angularity and wildness in the broad pen strokes, and a slight lack of structural clarity, that suggests the drawing is the work of one of Rembrandt's talented students, rather than by the master himself. 

Amongst Rembrandt's leading students during this period, the two whose drawing styles seem closest to the present sheet are Govert Flinck and Jan Victors. Scholarly opinion is divided as to which of these artists was more likely to have made this accomplished drawing, but the comparisons with the works of Victors seem a little more compelling. In particular, Haman Begging Esther for Mercy¹, on the verso of a sheet in the Rijksmuseum, and Isaac Blessing Jacob, a drawing connected with a painting by the artist, seem very similar in style to this sheet.²

Albin Schram (1926-2005) was a voracious but discerning collector of works on paper and autograph documents. The story goes that his fascination with these records of human interactions and artistic creation was sparked when his mother presented him with a romantic letter written by Napoleon Bonaparte to his future wife Josephine de Beauharnais in an attempt to patch up an argument. The superb collection of late 19th and early 20th century works on paper from the Schram collection, including drawings by artists such as Camille Pissarro, Edgar Degas, August Macke, Emil Nolde and Alfred Kubin, was sold at Sotheby's last month, under the title: The Artist's Sketchbook: Where Inspiration finds Form.

1. Amsterdam, Rijksmuseum, inv no. RP-T-1889-A-2059; H. Bevers, 'Drawings by Jan Victors: The Shaping of an Oeuvre of a Rembrandt Pupil,' Master Drawings, vol. 49, no. 3 (2011), pp.374-5, fig. 6

2. Bevers, op. cit., p. 383, fig. 31