Landscape with Cottage, Trees, and Stream

Rembrandt exhibits his rapid handling of pen and ink in this view of rural life made from direct observation. With short, darting strokes and thick, looping lines, he achieves a sense of spatial recession, light, and atmosphere. A later hand added the gray wash to the stream running across the sheet.

E. Desperet, Paris (Lugt 721, on recto). His sale, June 7–20, 1865, Hôtel des Commissaires-Priseurs, Paris, Lot 276, as La Chaumière au trois arbres. Jacob de Vos Jacobzoon, Amsterdam (Lugt 1450, on backing paper). His sale, May 22–24, 1883, Brakke, Amsterdam, Lot 400, bought for 265 florins by Thibaudeau for Heseltine. John Postle Heseltine, London (Lugt 1507, on backing paper). P. and D. Colnaghi. Knoedler. Frick, 1913.

Source: The Frick Collection: Drawings, Prints & Later Acquisitions. Volume IX. New York: The Frick Collection, 2003.