Young Lion Resting
Rembrandt van Rijn
(Leiden 1606 – 1669 Amsterdam)ca. 1638–42
black chalk, white chalk heightening, and graywash, on brown laid paper
11.5 x 15 cm
RR-100How to cite
Schatborn, Peter. “Young Lion Resting” (2017). In The Leiden Collection Catalogue, 3rd ed. Edited by Arthur K. Wheelock
Jr. and Lara Yeager-Crasselt. New York, 2020–23. https://www.theleidencollection.com/archive/ (archived December2023).
A PDF of every version of this entry is available in this Online Catalogue's Archive, and the Archive is managed by apermanent URL. New versions are added only when a substantive change to the narrative occurs.

© 2024 The Leiden CollectionYoung Lion Resting
Page 2 of 8Young Lion Resting belongs to a group of three powerful drawings of the same beast

Comparative Figures

closely related in style and technique that Rembrandt van Rijn executed in the late1630s. The other two drawings of this lion are in the British Museum (fig 1) and (fig2).[1] In both of those drawings Rembrandt depicted the lion from the side, whereas
he drew Young Lion Resting in three-quarter profile.[2] In each of these drawings
Rembrandt carefully worked up the head of the young lion in a similar manner, and ineach he captured a sense of the animal’s inner life by accentuating the eyes with firmstrokes. He also discretely applied gray washes to draw the viewer’s attention to thebeast’s head and forequarters. Slight differences among these drawings, however, doexist. Rembrandt rendered the bodies of the London lions in graceful, evocative lines,
whereas in the Leiden Collection drawing contour lines give the animal its final form.

Fig 1. Rembrandt van Rijn, A LionessDevouring a Bird, Lying Down withHer Head to the Left, ca. 1637,
charcoal with gray wash heightenedwith white on paper prepared withbrown wash, 126 x 239 mm, BritishMuseum, London, inv. no. Oo, 9.71, ©
Trustees of the British Museum

The master used similar lines to alter the position of the forepaws.
Despite their remarkably similar appearance, Rembrandt may have used somewhat
different materials to make these drawings. Marjorie Shelley, paper conservator at
the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, has determined that for Young LionResting Rembrandt used black chalk modified with oil or black chalk with a high clay
content, as well as white chalk and gray wash applied with the brush.[3] Martin
Royalton-Kisch has concluded that Rembrandt drew the lions in the British Museumwith charcoal and gray wash,[4] while Jeroen Giltaij believes he used black chalk.[5]North African lions were brought on ships of the Dutch East India Company to theNetherlands, where they were kept in menageries and shown at fairs.[6] Among theFig 2. Rembrandt van Rijn, A ChainedLioness, Lying on the Ground in Profileto the Right, ca. 1637, charcoal andgray wash touched with white oil painton paper prepared with brown wash,
125 x 180 mm, British Museum,London, inv. no. Oo, 9.75, © Trusteesof the British Museum

various animals Rembrandt drew, lions intrigued him the most. In addition to hisdrawings of other animals—including horses,[7] elephants,[8] pigs,[9] and birds ofparadise[10]—six autograph drawings of lions are known, including one at the Louvre(fig 3) and the aforementioned two at the British Museum.[11] He drew these animals
to acquaint himself with their appearance and character, so that later on he could
portray them from the imagination. For example, he included an elephant in thebackground of an etching of Adam and Eve, 1638,[12] after having drawn the animal
from life a couple of times the previous year. Rembrandt’s representations of Saint
Jerome in the wilderness always contain a lion, but the animal in his etching ofFig 3. Rembrandt van Rijn, Study of aLion at Rest, ca. 1640, pen and brown
ink and wash on paper, 138 x 207 cm,
Museé de Louvre, Paris, © RMNGrand Palais / Art Resource, NY

1634[13] is vastly different in appearance from the lion he depicted in these drawings,
which date a few years later. This difference in portrayal before and after Rembrandt
had seen actual lions emerges clearly in the etching Saint Jerome in an Italianate
Landscape of ca. 1653.[14]Rembrandt’s drawings of lions also served as examples for his pupils. Not
surprisingly, drawings of lions by pupils and followers of Rembrandt have sometimes
been wrongly attributed to the master himself.[15] Constantijn van Renesse (1626–80),© 2024 The Leiden CollectionYoung Lion Resting
Page 3 of 8

a pupil of Rembrandt around 1650, made a drawing with lions based on those drawn
by his teacher in a portrayal of Daniel in the Lions’ Den.[16]Young Lion Resting and the two London drawings are usually connected with
Rembrandt’s grisaille in Rotterdam, The Unity of the Country.[17] In this detailed
composition, a chained lioness lies below the coat of arms of the city of Amsterdam.
This design for a political print has been given dates that range from ca. 1637 to1642.[18] The inscribed date on the painting—164.—indicates that Rembrandt
finished it in the 1640s, though it is impossible to be more precise because the last
digit is no longer visible. Dendrochronological examination has shown that thepainting is executed on a panel from the same tree as the support of a painting inWashington D.C., Portrait of a Polish Nobleman, dated 1637.[19] It is possible thatthese three drawings inspired Rembrandt’s depiction of the lion in the Rotterdam
painting, which would suggest a date for the three drawings of about 1637.[20]Drawings of animals were listed separately in Rembrandt’s inventory of 1656: “Aditto [art book] full of drawings by Rembrandt, consisting of animals [drawn] fromlife.”[21] The art dealer Jan Pietersz Zomer (1641–1724) owned 19 drawings of lions
by Rembrandt that were recorded in the catalogue of his collection compiled in about
1722.[22] Rembrandt’s Recueil de Lions, engraved by Bernard Picart (1673–1733) andpublished in Amsterdam in 1729, contained eighteen lions—perhaps the same as
those published by Zomer. The two previously mentioned drawings in London bothfigure (in reverse) in Picart’s lion series.[24] The 1800 sale catalogue of the collectionof Cornelis Ploos van Amstel (1726–98) also lists 14 lions.[25] Drawings of lions were
exceptionally popular, as is evident from the numerous copies made after them.

- Peter Schatborn, 2017

© 2024 The Leiden CollectionYoung Lion Resting
Page 4 of 8Endnotes
1. Although the lion in this drawing has been described as the same animal as the one in the British
Museum sheets, Luke Hunter, President of Panthera, has suggested that this is a male cub, rather than alioness. Otto Benesch, The Drawings of Rembrandt, ed. Eva Benesch, 6 vols. (London and New York,1973), 3: no. 474, figs. 974 and 475, fig. 978; Martin Royalton-Kisch, Catalogue of Drawings byRembrandt and His School in the British Museum (London, 2010), nos. 29 and 30 (ca. 1638–42).
2. It is unclear whether he holds captured prey between his paws, as he does in one of the London sheets.
3. See Technical Summary.
4. Martin Royalton-Kisch, Catalogue of Drawings by Rembrandt and His School in the British Museum(London, 2010), nos. 29 and 30.
5. Jeroen Giltaij, “Review of Martin Royalton-Kisch, Drawings by Rembrandt and His Circle in the British
Museum, London, 1991,” Simiolus 23 (1995): 98.
6. A drawing of 1653 by Jan van Goyen (1596–1656) in the J. Paul Getty Museum depicts a large tent,
pitched just outside a village, with a sign depicting an elephant. Lions were no doubt presented to thepublic in the same way. See George R. Goldner, European Drawings I: Catalogue of the Collections(Malibu, 1988), 244–45, no. 108 (A Village Festival with Musicians Playing outside a Tent, 1653, blackchalk and gray wash, 17.0 x 27.7 cm.).
7. Otto Benesch, The Drawings of Rembrandt, ed. Eva Benesch, 6 vols. (London and New York, 1973), 2:
no. 461, fig. 549; Martin Royalton-Kisch, Catalogue of Drawings by Rembrandt and His School in theBritish Museum (London, 2010), no. 73, inv. Ff,4.121.
8. Otto Benesch, The Drawings of Rembrandt, ed. Eva Benesch, 6 vols. (London, 1973), 2: nos. 457, 458,and 459, figs. 546, 548, and 549.
9. Otto Benesch, The Drawings of Rembrandt, ed. Eva Benesch, 6 vols. (London, 1973), 4: nos. 777, 778,and 779, figs. 980, 981, and 982.
10. Otto Benesch, The Drawings of Rembrandt, ed. Eva Benesch, 6 vols. (London, 1973), 2: 456, fig. 544.
11. Otto Benesch, The Drawings of Rembrandt, ed. Eva Benesch, 6 vols. (London, 1973), 3: no. 474, fig.
974, and no. 475, fig. 978; 5: no. 1211, fig. 1511, no. 1214, fig. 1514, and no. 1246, fig. 1516.
12. Adam and Eve, 1638, etching, 162 x 116 mm (Bartsch 28).
13. Saint Jerome in the Wilderness, 1634, etching, 119 x 105 mm (Bartsch 100).
14. Saint Jerome in an Italianate Landscape, ca. 1653, etching, 259 x 210 mm (Bartsch 104).
15. Otto Benesch, The Drawings of Rembrandt, ed. Eva Benesch, 6 vols. (London, 1973), 4: no. 776, fig.
975; no. 781, fig. 976; no. 782, fig. 977; no. 979, fig. 783.
16. Daniel in the Lions’ Den, 1649–52, black chalk, pen, and brown ink, brush and brown wash, heightened© 2024 The Leiden CollectionYoung Lion Resting
Page 5 of 8with white, Museum Boijmans van Beuningen, Rotterdam, inv. MB 200. Werner Sumowski, Drawingsof the Rembrandt School, ed. and trans. Walter L. Strauss, 10 vols. (New York, 1979–92), 9: no. 2145.
17. The Unity of the Country, oil on panel, 74.6 x 101 mm, signed lower right: Rembrandt 164. (last digitmissing), Museum Boijmans van Beuningen, Rotterdam, inv. 1717.
18. Josua Bruyn, et al. A Corpus of Rembrandt Paintings, vol. 3: 1635–1642, Stichting Foundation
Rembrandt Research Project (The Hague, 1989), A 135: late 1630s, signed in the 1640s; Jeroen Giltaij,Guido Jansen, and Josua Bruyn, Een gloeiend palet: Schilderijen van Rembrandt en zijn School, Museum
BoijmansvanBeuningen(Rotterdam,1988),ca.

1638,early

1640s;

ErnstvandeWetering, Rembrandt: A Life in 180 Paintings (Amsterdam, 2008), ca. 1637.
19. Portrait of a Polish Nobleman, 1637, oil on panel, 97 x 66 cm, signed and dated at upper right:
Rembrandt ft./1637, National Gallery of Art, Washington D.C., 1937.1.78. See Arthur K. Wheelock
Jr., The Collection of the National Gallery of Art Systematic Catalogues: Dutch Paintings of theSeventeenth Century (Washington, D.C., 1995), 222–26, repro. A River Landscape with a Windmill inKassel is painted on the same piece of wood (oil on panel, 67 x 87.5 cm, Staatliche Kunstsammlungen,
Schloss Wilhelmshöhe, Kassel, inv. GK 242). Josua Bruyn, et al. A Corpus of Rembrandt Paintings, vol.
3: 1635–1642, Stichting Foundation Rembrandt Research Project (The Hague, 1989), B 12. This
painting was executed in two stages, first in a Rembrandtesque style in around 1640, possibly byRembrandt himself, and then overpainted about 1650–55, probably by Ferdinand Bol.
20. The lioness sheets would therefore date to around same time as the black chalk drawing of an elephantin Vienna, dated 1637. Black chalk, 233 x 354 mm, Albertina, Vienna, inv. 17558. Otto Benesch, TheDrawings of Rembrandt, ed. Eva Benesch, 6 vols. (London, 1973), 2: no. 457, fig. 546.
21. Walter L. Strauss, and Marion van der Meulen, The Rembrandt Documents (New York, 1979), 1656/12,no. 249.
22. Peter Schatborn, “Van Rembrandt tot Crozat: Vroege verzamelingen met tekeningen van Rembrandt,”
Nederlands Kunsthistorisch Jaarboek 32 (1981): 21–24.
23. Peter Schatborn, “Van Rembrandt tot Crozat. Vroege verzamelingen met tekeningen van Rembrandt,”
Nederlands Kunsthistorisch Jaarboek 32 (1981), 25–28.
24. Bernard Picart, Recueil de Lions (Amsterdam, 1729), nos. F 5 and F 6.
25. Sale, Amsterdam, 3 May 1800, VV, nos. 32–45. The four drawings from this group that have been
accepted as the work of Rembrandt do not correspond to the drawings used by Picart. See Peter
Schatborn, “Van Rembrandt tot Crozat: Vroege verzamelingen met tekeningen van Rembrandt,”
Nederlands Kunsthistorisch Jaarboek 32 (1981): 28.

Provenance© 2024 The Leiden CollectionYoung Lion Resting
Page 6 of 8

Jean-Jacques de Boissieu (1736–1810), France.[1]Robert Lebel (1901–86), Paris, by 1968. [2][Hazlitt, Gooden & Fox, London/New York, together with Artemis Fine Art, London/New York, 2000;
Hazlitt, Gooden & Fox, London/New York, 2005; Otto Naumann Ltd., New York, 2005].
From whom acquired by the present owner.

Provenance Notes

1. Based on the RKD photo archive mount, not currently available online. French draughtsman andengraver Jean-Jacques de Boissieu collected works on paper by Rembrandt and other seventeenthcentury Dutch artists and referenced them in his own artwork.
2. Based on the RKD photo archive mount, not currently available online. Lebel was also a major collectorof Dutch drawings.

Exhibition History
New York, Metropolitan Museum of Art, on loan with the permanent collection, 2006 [lent by thepresent owner].
Los Angeles, The J. Paul Getty Museum, “Drawing Life: The Dutch Visual Tradition,” 24 November
2009–28 February 2010, no. 7 [lent by the present owner].
Ithaca, Cornell University, Herbert F. Johnson Museum of Art, “An Eye For Detail: Dutch Painting
from The Leiden Collection,” January–May 2015 [lent by the present owner].
Paris, Museé du Louvre, “Masterpieces of The Leiden Collection: The Age of Rembrandt,” 22February–22 May 2017 [lent by the present owner].
Shanghai, Long Museum, West Bund, “Rembrandt, Vermeer and Hals in the Dutch Golden Age:
Masterpieces from The Leiden Collection,” 23 September 2017–25 February 2018 [lent by the presentowner].
Moscow, The Pushkin State Museum of Fine Arts, “The Age of Rembrandt and Vermeer: Masterpiecesof The Leiden Collection,” 28 March 2018–22 July 2018 [lent by the present owner].
St. Petersburg, The State Hermitage Museum, “The Age of Rembrandt and Vermeer: Masterpieces ofThe Leiden Collection,” 5 September 2018–13 January 2019 [lent by the present owner].
Abu Dhabi, Louvre Abu Dhabi, “Rembrandt, Vermeer and the Dutch Golden Age. Masterpieces fromThe Leiden Collection and the Musée du Louvre,” 14 February–18 May 2019 [lent by the presentowner].
© 2024 The Leiden CollectionYoung Lion Resting
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References
Slive, Seymour. The Drawings of Rembrandt: A New Study. London, 2009, 124, 235 n. 52.
Schatborn, Peter. Rembrandt and His Circle: Drawings in the Frits Lugt Collection. 2 vols. Paris, 2010,88, 89 n. 9.
Royalton-Kisch, Martin. Catalogue of Drawings by Rembrandt and His School in the British Museum.
London, 2010, no. 29, n. 4.
Surh, Dominique. “Young Lion Resting.” In Masterpieces of The Leiden Collection: The Age ofRembrandt. Edited by Blaise Ducos and Dominique Surh, 86, no. 33. Exh. cat. Paris, Musée du Louvre.
Paris, 2017.
Yeager-Crasselt, Lara. “Rembrandt and His Time: China and the Dutch Republic in the Golden Age.” InRembrandt and His Time: Masterpieces from The Leiden Collection. Edited by Lara Yeager-Crasselt, 9;14, no. 16. Translated by Li Ying. Exh. cat. Beijing, National Museum of China. Beijing, 2017
Yeager-Crasselt, Lara. “Study of a Woman in a White Cap.” In Rembrandt and His Time: Masterpieces
from The Leiden Collection. Edited by Lara Yeager-Crasselt, 52–53; 175, no. 16. Translated by Li Ying.
Exh. cat. Beijing, National Museum of China. Beijing, 2017.
Journal of National Museum of China 169, no. 8 (2017): back cover.
Long Museum, West Bund. Rembrandt, Vermeer and Hals in the Dutch Golden Age: Masterpieces fromThe Leiden Collection. Exh. cat. Shanghai, Long Museum, West Bund. Shanghai, 2017, 70–71.
Yeager-Crasselt, Lara. “The Leiden Collection and the Dutch Golden Age.” In The Age of Rembrandtand Vermeer: Masterpieces of The Leiden Collection. Edited by Polina Lyubimova, 18, 22; 29, 32.
Translated by Daria Babich and Daria Kuzina. Exh. cat. Moscow, The Pushkin State Museum of Fine
Arts; St. Petersburg, The State Hermitage Museum. Moscow, 2018.
Yeager-Crasselt, Lara “Study of a Woman in a White Cap.” In The Age of Rembrandt and Vermeer:Masterpieces of The Leiden Collection. Edited by Polina Lyubimova, 176–77; 243, no. 55. Translated byDaria Babich and Daria Kuzina. Exh. cat. Moscow, The Pushkin State Museum of Fine Arts; St.
Petersburg, The State Hermitage Museum. Moscow, 2018.
Van der Werff, Laurien. “‘Seecker jonge leeuw’: Historische Datum 30 January 1657, Notaris Jacob deWinter.” Alle Amsterdamse Akten. Gemeente Amsterdam Stadsarchief. Published October 3, 2018.
http://alleamsterdamseakten.nl/artikel/1608/seecker-jonge-leeuw/.
Yeager-Crasselt, Lara. “The Leiden Collection and the Dutch Golden Age.” In Rembrandt, Vermeer andthe Dutch Golden Age. Masterpieces from The Leiden Collection and the Musée du Louvre. Edited byBlaise Ducos and Lara Yeager-Crasselt, 25. Exh. cat. Abu Dhabi, Louvre Abu Dhabi. London, 2019.
[Exhibition catalogue also published in French and Arabic.]
Savatier Sjöholm, Olivia. “Rembrandt’s Drawings: Pedagogy Lessons and Vehicles of ArtisticDialogue.” In Rembrandt, Vermeer and the Dutch Golden Age. Masterpieces from The Leiden Collection© 2024 The Leiden CollectionPowered by TCPDF (www.tcpdf.org)

Young Lion Resting
Page 8 of 8and the Musée du Louvre. Edited by Blaise Ducos and Lara Yeager-Crasselt, 49, n. 21. Exh. cat. Abu
Dhabi, Louvre Abu Dhabi. London, 2019. [Exhibition catalogue also published in French and Arabic.]
Ducos, Blaise, and Lara Yeager-Crasselt, eds. Rembrandt, Vermeer and the Dutch Golden Age.
Masterpieces from The Leiden Collection and the Musée du Louvre. Exh. cat. Abu Dhabi, Louvre Abu
Dhabi. London, 2019, 54, 113, no. 43. [Exhibition catalogue also published in French and Arabic.]
Schatborn, Peter, and Erik Hinterding. Rembrandt: The Complete Drawings and Etchings. Cologne, 2019,19, 299, no. D474.
Coutré, Jacquelyn N., Ed. Leiden circa 1630: Rembrandt Emerges. Exh. cat. Kingston, Agnes
Etherington; Edmonton, Art Gallery of Alberta; Hamilton, Art Gallery of Hamilton. Kingston, 2019,
193, no. 98.

Technical Summary
The support, a sheet of brown laid paper, has been hinged to a decorated historic mount with its outermargins trimmed. The support has been laid down, and small areas extend beyond the mount edges. Although
the mount does not bear any collector’s marks, it appears the drawing was once adhered to it. Layers of paper
from an earlier mounting are present along the corners, and a layer of modern laid paper adhered to thecentral area serves as a barrier between the drawing and the mount.
The drawing is executed in a rich black chalk with white chalk heightening. Under magnification, the black
chalk appears to have been enriched with a liquid, possibly a gum, which increased its viscosity and enhanced
it blackness. Some strokes and marks have a slightly lustrous quality, whereas others have a drier, mattequality.
The drawing is unsigned and undated.
The drawing has not undergone conservation treatment since acquisition and remains in an excellent state ofpreservation.[1]Technical Summary Endnotes

1. Entry based on 2009 examination report by Marjorie Shelley, Sherman Fairchild Conservator in Charge,
Sherman Fairchild Center for Works on Paper and Photograph Conservation, Metropolitan Museum ofArt, New York.

© 2024 The Leiden Collection