Joseph Interpreting the Prisoners' Dreams

Prints and Drawings

c. 1638

Govaert Flinck
Dutch, 1615-1660

For many years, this drawing was believed to be by Rembrandt. Recent efforts to distinguish Rembrandt’s drawings from those of his pupils have led scholars to reattribute this work to Govert Flinck, who studied with Rembrandt in the 1630s and later achieved great critical and financial success. Here Flinck represented a scene from the life of Joseph, the Old Testament figure whose adventures inspired many drawings, paintings, and even plays in Rembrandt’s time.

Status: Currently Off View
Department: Prints and Drawings

Artist: Govaert Flinck
Title: Joseph Interpreting the Prisoners' Dreams
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.: 1637–1639
Medium: Pen and brown ink, with brush and brown wash, on ivory laid paper
Inscriptions: Old inscription of several words obscured by later over-writing, verso, upper left, in pen and brown ink
Dimensions: 17.3 × 20.6 cm (6 13/16 × 8 1/8 in.)
Credit Line: Clarence Buckingham Collection
Reference Number: 1967.144
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/27042/manifest.json

Otto Benesch, The Drawings of Rembrandt (London: Phaidon, 1954), I: 25, no. 80, fig. 84, (as Rembrandt).
Jakob Rosenberg, “Review of O. Benesch, Drawings by Rembrandt, Vols. I and II by Otto Benesch,” The Art Bulletin 38, no. 1 (March, 1956), p. 67 (as follower of Rembrandt).
New York, the Pierpont Morgan Library, “Rembrandt: Drawings from American Collections,” Mar. 15-Apr. 16, 1960, under no. 4, p. 12; also Cambridge, Mass., Fogg Art Museum, Harvard University, Apr. 27-May 29, 1960 (as Rembrandt).
Werner Sumowski, Bemerkungen zu Otto Beneschs Corpus der Rembrandt-zeichnungen, II (Bad Pyrmont: 1961), p. 4, no. 80 and p. 7, under no. C 12 (as doubtfully by Rembrandt).
William H. Schab Gallery, Great Old Master Prints and Drawings XLII (Fall 1966), pp. 144–45, cat. 167 (ill.), (as Rembrandt).
Egbert Haverkamp-Begemann, “Rembrandt as a Teacher,” in Evolution generale et developpements regioneaux en histoire de l’art, Actes du XXIIe Congrès International D’Histoire de L’art, Budapest, 1969, ed. György Rózsa (Budapest: Akadémiai Kiadó, 1972), p. 107 (as Rembrandt).
Michiel C. Plomp, The Dutch Drawings in the Teyler Museum (Haarlem/ Ghent/ Doornspijk: Snoeck Ducaju & Zoon, 1997), p. 293, (as Rembrandt).

Art Institute of Chicago, Rembrandt After Three Hundred Years: An Exhibition of Rembrandt and His Followers, Oct. 25–Dec. 7, 1969, pp. 162 and 207 (ill.), cat. 103 (as Rembrandt); also the Minneapolis Institute of Arts, Dec. 22, 1969–Feb. 1, 1970; and the Detroit Institute of Arts, Feb. 24–Apr. 5, 1970.
Los Angeles, J. Paul Getty Museum, Drawings by Rembrandt and His Pupils: Telling the Difference, Dec. 8, 2009–Feb. 28, 2010, pp. 65–67 and 252, cat. 4.2 (ill.), as Flinck.
The Art Institute of Chicago, “Rubens, Rembrandt, and Drawing in the Golden Age”, September 28, 2019 - January 5, 2020, pp. 68 (ill.), 71, 296, cat. 19, cat. by Victoria Sancho Lobis, et. al.

Baron Grahame; sold, Mar. 15, 1878, lot 136. Edward John Poynter (1836–1919), London [stamp (Lugt 874), recto, lower left, in black]; sold, Sotheby’s, London, Apr. 24–25, 1918, lot 281. Victor Koch, London, by 1954 [Benesch 1954]; sold to William H. Schab, New York, 1966; sold to the Art Institute of Chicago, 1967.

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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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Inscriptions

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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. Learn more.

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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.

Learn more.