Studio of Rembrandt Harmensz. van Rijn

Possibly John Blackwood (1696–1777);

Possibly his sale, London, Langford, 1749, lot 4 (as manner of Rembrandt), for 2 guineas to Greathead;

Probably Nathaniel Hone (1718–1784); 

His deceased’s sale, London, Hutchins, 7–14 February 1785;

Richard Temple-Nugent-Brydges-Chandos-Grenville, 1^st Duke of Buckingham and Chandos (1776–1839), Avington Park, Hampshire, possibly by 1805 and then at Stowe House, Buckinghamshire, by 1838;

John Calvert Wombwell (1819–1890);

His sale, London, Christie’s, 29 June 1854, lot 89 (as Rembrandt; with erroneous provenance from the collection of the late Prince Michael Radziwill, Warsaw);

Sir George Douglas Clerk of Penicuik, 8^th Bt (1852–1911), London and Penicuik House, Midlothian;

By whom anonymously offered, London, Christie’s, 7 May 1904, lot 101 (as Rembrandt), unsold;

Acquired by the family of the previous owner, after 1950;

Thence by descent until sold (‘The Property of a Lady’), London, Christie’s, 4 July 2019, lot 6, for £262,500;

Where acquired. 

E.W. Brayley and J. Britton, The Beauties of England and Wales…, London 1805, vol. VI, p. 106 (as Rembrandt);

J. Smith, A Catalogue Raisonné of the works of the most eminent Dutch, Flemish and French Painters, London 1836, vol. VII, pp. 20–21, no. 54 (as Rembrandt van Rhyn);

Stowe: A description of the house and gardens of His Grace the Duke of Buckingham and Chandos, London 1838, p. 63, no. 256 (as Rembrandt);

G.F. Waagen, Treasures of Art in Great Britain, London 1854, vol. II, p. 308 (as Rembrandt, The Angel of the Lord announcing the birth of Samson to his parents);

C. Vosmaer, Rembrandt. Sa vie et ses œuvres, The Hague 1877, p. 514 (as Rembrandt);

M. Foster Sweetser, Rembrandt, Boston 1878, pp. 61 and 153;

J.W. Mollett, Rembrandt, London 1879, p. 89 (as Rembrandt);

W. von Bode, The Complete Work of Rembrandt, Paris 1897, p. 180, under no. 249 (as a later replica);

C. Hofstede de Groot, A Catalogue Raisonné of the works of the most eminent Dutch Painters of the Seventeenth Century, vol. VI, London 1916, p. 61, under no. 70 (as a later replica);

C. White, D. Alexander and E. d’Oench, Rembrandt in Eighteenth Century England, Yale 1983, p. 111, no. 87.

Engraved

In mezzotint, in reverse, by Anthony Walker for John Boydell, 1765 (as Rembrandt).