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Alternate Views

Shah Jahan

c. 1656-1661

Rembrandt van Rijn

(Dutch, 1606-1669)

Netherlands, 17th century

Pen and brown ink and brush and brown wash

Support: Light brown Japanese paper laid down on beige(1) laid paper

Sheet: 22.5 x 17.1 cm (8 7/8 x 6 3/4 in.); Secondary Support: 27.6 x 22.4 cm (10 7/8 x 8 13/16 in.)

Leonard C. Hanna, Jr. Fund 1978.38

Location

not on view

Fun Fact

The Mughal ruler portrayed in this drawing carries a fly swatter in his left hand.

Description

Rembrandt’s drawing portrays Shah Jahan, the ruler of the Mughal Empire from 1628-58. It is one of twenty-three drawings that Rembrandt made after Indian miniatures, which he had very likely studied in an album then in Holland. By the 18th century, the album had been dismantled, and the model for this drawing now resides at the Schloss Schönbrunn, Vienna. Rembrandt imposed his characteristic realist tendencies on a more detailed, formal, and stylized model, bringing the shah to life with especially fine pen strokes on the face and shoes mixed with evanescent brown ink washes around the figure that introduce a dynamic interplay of light, shade, and figure. Above the shah’s head, he scratched away parts of the ink and paper to create a nimbus shape that frames the profile. His meticulous technique and use of a rare and expensive Japanese paper suggest that he regarded his drawings after Mughal paintings as exceptional.

Inscriptions

Inscription

On verso of secondary support, upper center, in graphite: Portrait of; upper center, in brown ink: Portrait of Sháh Jahán Emperor of Hindustan [inscription in English] / Shah Jahan Padshah [inscription in Persian]; upper right, in graphite: Ouseley / written by Sir Gore Ou[seley] 1809; lower left, in graphite: 334; fragment of old mount (now removed), in blue pencil: 3[crossed out with black ink]; fragment of old mount (now removed), in gray ink: Portrait of Sháh Jehán / Emperor of Hindûstan; in black ink: 5[written over 5 in graphite] Indian Prince [underlined]

Provenance

?-1747

Jonathan Richardson, Sr., London, 1665-1745 (Lugt 2184); his mount; his sale, Cock, London, 22 January-11 February 1747, lot 70 "a book of Indian Drawings, 25 in number"

?-1926

Peregrine Cust, 6th Lord Brownlow, Belton House, Grantham, 1899-1978; his sale, Sotheby's, London 29 June 1926, lot 25, to Duveen

1926-?

with Joseph Duveen, London

?-1932

Wilhelm Reinhold Valentiner, Detroit, 1880-1958; his sale, Mensing, Amsterdam, 25 October 1932, lot 12

?-1978

Robert von Hirsch, Frankfurt and Basel, 1883-1977; his sale, Sotheby's, London, 20 June 1978, lot 38; to Cleveland Museum of Art

1978-

Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH

Citations

Valentiner, Wilhelm Reinhold. Die Handzeichnungen Rembrandts. New York: E. Weyhe, 1925. p. 34, no. 643

Benesch, Otto. Rembrandt, Werk und Forschung. Wien: Gilhofer u. Ranschburg, 1934. p. 56

Benesch, Otto, and Johannes Wilde. Rembrandt: Selected Drawings. London: Phaidon, 1947. Vol 1, p. 44, no. 229; Vol 2, plate 229

Benesch, Otto. The Drawings of Rembrandt. [A Critical and Chronological Catalogue]. London: Phaidon Press, 1954-57. Vol 5, p. 338, no. 1193, fig. 1417

Clark, Kenneth. Rembrandt and the Italian Renaissance. London: Murray, 1966. pp. 166-67

Benesch, Otto, and Eva Benesch. The Drawings of Rembrandt. London: Phaidon Press, 1973. Vol 5, p. 321, no. 1193, fig. 1491

Cleveland Museum of Art, “The Cleveland Museum of Art Acquires Six Works from Von Hirsch Collection,” August 1, 1978, Cleveland Museum of Art Archives. archive.org

Lunsingh Scheurleer, P., "Mogol-miniaturen door Rembrandt nagetekend." De Kroniek van het Rembrandthuis 32, no. 1 (1980): pp. 10-40. pp. 30-32, fig. 18

Johnson, Mark M. Idea to Image: Preparatory Studies from the Renaissance to Impressionism. Cleveland, Ohio: Cleveland Museum of Art, 1980. Mentioned and Reproduced: p. 14-15, 39; fig. 6

Broos, B. P. J., "Rembrandts Indische Miniaturen." Spiegel Historiael 15 (April 1980): pp. 210-18. pp. 210-11, fig. 1

Neils, Jenifer. “The Twain Shall Meet.” The Bulletin of the Cleveland Museum of Art, vol. 72, no. 6, 1985, pp. 326–359. Reproduced: p. 353, fig. 54 www.jstor.org

Haverkamp Begemann, Egbert, and Carolyn Logan. Creative Copies: Interpretative Drawings from Michelangelo to Picasso. New York, NY: The Drawing Center, 1988. Mentioned and Reproduced: p. 127-29, no. 34

Pal, Pratapaditya. Romance of the Taj Mahal. London: Thames and Hudson, 1989. Mentioned and Reproduced: p. 195-97, fig. 208.

Royalton-Kisch, Martin. Drawings by Rembrandt and His Circle in the British Museum. London: British Museum Press, 1992. p. 143

Blankert, Albert. Rembrandt: A Genius and His Impact. Melbourne: National Gallery of Victoria, 1997. under no. 38, fig. 93a

Cleveland Museum of Art, Diane DeGrazia, and Carter E. Foster. Master Drawings from the Cleveland Museum of Art. Cleveland, OH: Cleveland Museum of Art in association with Rizzoli International Publications, New York, 2000. Mentioned: cat. no. 68, p. 9, pp.168-169, p. 293; Reproduced: p. 169

Filipczak, Zirka Z. “Rembrandt and the Body Language of Mughal Miniatures.” Nederlands Kunsthistorisch Jaarboek (NKJ) / Netherlands Yearbook for History of Art, vol. 58, 2007, pp. 162–187. p. 168, fig. 5; p. 169; p. 170

Green, Dominic. "The Twain Did Meet." Art & Antiques, (April 2018): 88-93. Reproduced: p. 92 (right)

Robinson, William W. "A Book of Indian Drawings, by Rembrandt, 25 in Number." In Rembrandt and the Inspiration of India. Stephanie Schrader, ed., 43-60. Los Angeles: The J. Paul Getty Museum, 2018. pp. 52-53Reproduced: P. 53, fig.38

Schrader, Stephanie, ed. Rembrandt and the Inspiration of India. Los Angeles: The J. Paul Getty Museum, 2018. Reproduced: p. 80, pl.1, and cover

Exhibition history

Rembrandt and the Inspiration of India. J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles, CA (organizer) (February 13-June 24, 2018) p. 80.

Rembrandt-Ausstellung zu Ehren Ihrer Majestät Königin Wilhelmine der Niederlande, anlässlich des Jubiläums ihrer fünfzigjährigen Regierungszeit. Katz Galerie, Basel (July 24–September 30, 1948), no. 29.

Year in Review: 1978. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (February 13-March 18, 1979).

Idea to Image: Preparatory Studies from the Renaissance to Impressionism. The Cleveland Museum of Art (organizer) (February 19-March 23, 1980).

Seventeenth Century Netherlandish Graphics. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (April 27-August 1, 1982).

The Twain Shall Meet. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (October 30, 1985-January 5, 1986).

Romance of the Taj Mahal. The Asia Society Museum, New York, NY; Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Los Angeles, CA (organizer) (December 17-March 11, 1989); The Toledo Museum of Art, Toledo, OH (April 28-June 24, 1990); Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, Richmond, VA (August 23-November 25, 1990).

Master Drawings from the Cleveland Museum of Art. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (August 27-October 17, 2000); The Morgan Library & Museum, New York, NY (May 23-August 19, 2001); Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, Houston, TX (October 14, 2001-January 6, 2002).

Rembrandt Paintings in America. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (February 19-May 28, 2012).

Rembrandt and the Inspiration of India. J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles, CA (organizer) (March 13-June 24, 2018).

Cite this page

{{cite web|title=Shah Jahan|url=https://clevelandart.org/art/1978.38|author=Rembrandt van Rijn|year=c. 1656-1661|access-date=04 June 2020|publisher=Cleveland Museum of Art}}

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