Kostverloren Castle in Decay

Prints and Drawings

c. 1652

Rembrandt van Rijn
Dutch, 1606-1669

Rembrandt and his contemporaries shared a fascination with the Kostverloren estate, in part because of the successive misfortunes that its owners seemed to endure. Already by Rembrandt’s time it had taken on its name, which translates as “lost expenses” or, more colloquially, “money pit.” The site faced another setback when much of the castle was destroyed in a fire. After this damage—and before its eventual repair—Rembrandt entered the grounds of the castle and recorded its diminished state. His emphasis on decay is made clear by the felled tree in foreground; its strident horizontality sets off the faded majesty of the castle’s once-grand structures.

Status: Currently Off View
Department: Prints and Drawings

Artist: Rembrandt van Rijn
Title: Kostverloren Castle in Decay
Place: Holland (Artist's nationality:)
Date Dates are not always precisely known, but the Art Institute strives to present this information as consistently and legibly as possible. Dates may be represented as a range that spans decades, centuries, dynasties, or periods and may include qualifiers such as c. (circa) or BCE.: 1647–1657
Medium: Pen and brown ink, with brush and brown wash, heightened with touches of opaque white watercolor, on cream laid paper
Dimensions: 10.9 × 17.5 cm (4 5/16 × 6 15/16 in.)
Credit Line: Clarence Buckingham Collection
Reference Number: 1961.49
IIIF Manifest The International Image Interoperability Framework (IIIF) represents a set of open standards that enables rich access to digital media from libraries, archives, museums, and other cultural institutions around the world. Learn more.: https://api.artic.edu/api/v1/artworks/12909/manifest.json

Emile Michel, Rembrandt, sa Vie, son Oeuvre, et son Temps (Paris: Librairie Hachette, 1893), p. 579.
C. Hofstede de Groot, Die Handzeichnungen Rembrandts (Haarlem: De Erven F. Bohn, 1906), no. 320, p. 77-78.
F. Lippmann and C. Hofstede de Groot, Original Drawings by Rembrandt Harmensz van Rijn: reproduced in the colours of the originals by Emrik & Binger at Haarlem (The Hague, 1911), series IV, part I, no. 23 (ill.).
Max Eisler, Rembrandt als Landschafter (Munich: F. Bruckmann A.-G., 1918), p. 8, pl. 44; pp. 86–88.
Frits Lugt, Mit Rembrandt in Amsterdam (Berlin: Bruno Cassirer, 1920), pp. 107–12, fig. 66.
Hermann Friese, K. Lilienfeld, and Heinrich Wichmann, Rembrandts Handzeichnungen (Dresden: Hermann Freise, 1925), vol. III, p. 22, no. 128.
Otto Benesch, Rembrandt Werk und Forschung (Vienna: Gilhofer & Ranschburg, 1935), p. 47.
Otto Benesch, The Drawings of Rembrandt (London: Phaidon, 1957), vol. VI, no. 1270 (ill.).
Terence Mullaly, “£17,485 is Paid for Interior by De Hooch,” Daily Telegraph and Morning Post (Mar. 23, 1960), p. 15 (ill.).
Art Institute of Chicago Annual Report (1960–1961), pp. 11 and 19 (ill.).
The Art Quarterly (Autumn 1961), pp. 306 (ill.) and 312.
Seymour Slive, Drawings by Rembrandt, II (New York: Dover Publications, Inc., 1965), pl. 466.
I. H. van Eeghen, Rembrandt aan de Amstel (Amsterdam: Genootschap Amstelodamum, 1969), n.p. (fig. VI).
Boudewijn Bakker, Mària van Berge-Gerbaud, Erik Schmitz, and Jan Peeters, Landscapes of Rembrandt: His Favorite Walks, exh. cat. Gemeentearchief Amsterdam and Institut Néerlandais, Paris (Bussum: Thoth Publishers, 1998), p. 289, ill. p 93 (color) and p. 288. [did we lend to this show?]
Stijn Alsteens, Mària van Berge-Gerbaud, Marie-Christine Boucher, Hans Buis, Quentin Buvelot, José de Los Llanos, and Sophie-Charlotte Renouard de Bussiere, Regards sur l’art hollandais du XVIIe siècle, exh. cat., Institut Néerlandais (Paris: Fondation Custodia, 2004), under no. 75, note, 4, p. 356.
Susan Donahue Kurestsky, et. al., Time and Transformation in Seventeenth-Century Dutch Art, exh. Cat. (Poughkeepsie, New York: Frances Lehman Loeb Art Center, Vassar College, 2005), p. 159 (ill.).
Shelley Perlove and George S. Keyes (editors), Seventeenth-Century European Drawings in Midwestern Collections (South Bend, Indiana: University of Notre Dame Press, 2014), pp. 117, 168 no. 67, 169 (ill.)

Rotterdam, Museum Boymans, Rembrandt, May 18–Aug. 5, 1956, p. 130, cat. 173; also, Amsterdam, Rijksmuseum, Aug. 8–Oct. 21, 1956.
New York, Wildenstein and Company, Master Drawings from The Art Institute of Chicago, Oct. 17–Nov. 30, 1963, n.p., cat. 30, pl. 13a.
Amsterdam, Rijksmuseum, Rembrandt 1669/1969, Sept. 13–Nov. 30, 1969, p. 245, cat. 127 (ill.).
Art Institute of Chicago, Great Drawings from The Art Institute of Chicago: The Harold Joachim Years 1958–1983, July 24–Sept. 30, 1985, pp. 80–81, cat. 31 (ill.); also Saint Louis Art Museum, Mar. 25–May 4, 1986.
Boston, Museum of Fine Arts, Rembrandt’s Journey: Painter, Draftsman, Etcher, Oct. 26, 2003–Jan. 18, 2004, pp. 279–80 (ill. p.. 279) and 330, cat. no. 193; also the Art Institute of Chicago, Feb. 14–May 9, 2004.
The Art Institute of Chicago, “Rubens, Rembrandt, and Drawing in the Golden Age”, September 28, 2019 - January 5, 2020, pp. 258, 260 (Ill.), 308, 334,(ill.), cat. 105, cat. by Victoria Sancho Lobis, et. al.

King Friedrich August II of Saxony (1797–1854), Dresden [stamp (Lugt 971), recto, lower right, in black]; and by descent, to at least 1925 [Friese, Lilienfeld, and Wichmann 1925]. Willem J. R. Dreesmann (1885–1954), Amsterdam; sold, F. Muller & Co., Mar. 22–25, 1960, lot 26, to Richard Zinser, New York; sold to the Art Institute of Chicago, 1961.

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Date Dates are not always precisely known, but the Art Institute strives to present this information as consistently and legibly as possible. Dates may be represented as a range that spans decades, centuries, dynasties, or periods and may include qualifiers such as c. (circa) or BCE.

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IIIF Manifest The International Image Interoperability Framework (IIIF) represents a set of open standards that enables rich access to digital media from libraries, archives, museums, and other cultural institutions around the world.

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