Hello, my name is Olenka Horsbatch and I'm curator of Dutch and Flemish and German prints and drawings
here in the department of prints and drawings at the British Museum
and welcome to my corner
Today I'll be speaking to you about one of the most important
Dutch artists of the 17th century Rembrandt van Rijn.
One of the most remarkable things about Rembrandt is how he drew from life
he was a keen observer of the everyday and that is reflected across all aspects of his art
but in one aspect in particular, in his depiction of women, does his keen study of nature
really come across and his representations of women belong to some of his most famous works
some of his most important works and interestingly early on already in his lifetime
and shortly after his death, towards the end of the 17th century
it was his representation of women that elicited the most criticism
and the most sort of fierce scathing accounts of the artist.
This is a drawing by Rembrandt, a black chalk drawing, depicting Diana at her bath
and this is one of the first drawn representations by Rembrandt of a nude model
a nude woman and this is absolutely done from life around 1630.
What's so remarkable here is his attention to detail, his representation of the flesh
the contorted pose of Diana here,who's kind of huddled in a moment caught at her bath
and Rembrandt depicts this mythological subject matter of Diana at her bath
with, sort of, he distilled the narrative moment down to its essential point
it's just the nude women woman huddled and what's remarkable is that if it wasn't for this detail
that he includes in the background, a quiver, a bow hanging from a tree just very roughly sketched in
we wouldn't identify this as Diana at all this would just be a woman
and it's this interplay between history and myth and everyday life that's so prevalent in Rembrandt's art
across all media and I think it's what makes his work so accessible to us today.
In this much later drawing, this is from the 1650s, so just about ten years before his death in 1669
Rembrandt makes this brush and wash drawing of a woman sleeping
and it's very very different from the Diana.
In his late period he moves away from the detailed representation of surface textures
and he distilled things down even further so here just with very subtle, very brilliant flicks of the brush
he's able to convey this wonderful intimacy and this sort of this wonderful mood that he represents here.
So, commonly known as woman sleeping, this is thought to be Hendrickje Stoffels
who was Rembrandt's live-in housekeeper turned common-law wife essentially
and it's this kind of biographical narrative that we have that I think comes across
in this beautiful and this very graceful drawing and you get the sense that he's watching her sleep in the home
so he's turning into the domestic sphere and he is depicting the things around him
and see if a sort of through very little detail indeed he's able to suggest her face and suggest her features
without detailing everything and then he kind of loosens up
and the brush strokes towards the edge of the drawing become almost caligraphic they're so fluid.
So he's playing with depicting detail and sort of suggesting the tender moment that's seen here.
We turn to Rembrandt's representation of one of the most common subjects in Western art
the depiction of Adam and Eve also known as the fall of man
and here we see the two figures we see Adam and Eve almost in a quarrel
Eve is holding the apple and Adam sort of raises a finger in to admonish her
and the way Eve's body is depicted, the way the two figures are depicted is so interesting here
because very often artists in the 16th and 17th centuries will use the subject matter of Adam and Eve
as an opportunity to depict a really beautiful nude woman and that of course has narrative connotations
it has meaning in the narrative; the idea that it was Eve's beauty that drew Adam to sin
is a common sort of interpretation of the subject matter
but here the two figures are not idealized and it's especially Eve's, the figure of Eve
her face as well as her body that is so contrary to conventional depictions that is so interesting here.
Probably my favorite detail of this print is this tiny little elephant in the background
and we know that Rembrandt saw an elephant we even know that elephant's name Hansken.
There was an elephant that came to Amsterdam in the 1640s and Rembrandt went to draw this elephant
and several of these drawings survive, one of which is in our collection.
This idea that Rembrandt is constantly drawing from life, drawing from all aspects of life
depicting women in his studio, in his home, depicting exotic and foreign animals
and here he incorporates that into this very important religious narrative
where questions of beauty and nudity have theological significance
so by doing so it's not just an artistic statement it takes on theological meaning
it takes on almost personal meaning as he's depicting his version of the fall his version of Adam and Eve.
Prints and drawings are not permanently on view as works on paper
are incredibly sensitive to light they are however available for consultation and study
in our prints and drawings study room where I'm currently standing.
To see our Rembrandt's or any other object in our collection
please do make an appointment and you can find the relevant information on our website.
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