Studies of the Head of Saskia and Others

This etching belongs to a small number of study sheets in which Rembrandt’s wife Saskia is the primary subject (NH 157-58, 161-62). They belong to the tradition of model-books, compilations of a variety of expressions and poses to be kept and referenced at a later date. This example depicts six heads, five of which are Saskia, from several view-points, either wearing a hat or a hood, or her head uncovered revealing her lustrous hair. The remaining study at the left is that of a turbaned old woman. The central portrait, gazing out at the viewer, is strikingly similar to her likeness in the etching Self-Portrait with Saskia (lot 7) of the same year, though in reverse. The hat worn in the vignette at the lower left, Saskia in the guise of a shepherdess, is reminiscent of the wide-brimmed hat worn in the silverpoint drawing of the Portrait of Saskia as a Bride, 1633 (Kupferstichkabinett, Staatliche Museen zu Berlin; inv. no. KdZ 1152). A drawing in pen and brown ink from the same period, depicting four studies of Saskia in various attitudes of sleep or repose and cradling an infant (Museum Boijmans van Beuningen, Rotterdam; acc. no. R 83), shares with this sheet a remarkable spontaneity and intimacy.