Noah's Ark

Prints and Drawings

c. 1660

Rembrandt van Rijn
Dutch, 1606-1669

Among his most expressive uses of the reed pen, this drawing is a fully realized depiction of Noah’s family boarding the ark prior to the great flood described in the Old Testament’s Book of Genesis. The vessel occupies the entire width of the sheet, and Rembrandt emphasized the act of departure by placing figures in the lower left corner who gesture inward, as if indicating where they will soon go. Rembrandt drew a borderline—albeit somewhat haphazardly—around the perimeter of his composition, indicating his satisfaction with his interpretation of the well-known biblical subject. This type of multifigure scene with a literary source provided the standard so many of his pupils aimed to match.

Status: Currently Off View
Department: Prints and Drawings

Artist: Rembrandt van Rijn
Title: Noah's Ark
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.: 1660
Medium: Pen and brown ink and brush and brown ink wash on cream laid paper
Dimensions: 20.3 × 24.8 cm (8 × 9 13/16 in.)
Credit Line: Clarence Buckingham Collection
Reference Number: 1953.36
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/90522/manifest.json

Eugéne Dutuit, Tableaux et Dessins de Rembrandt, Supplément à l’oeuvre complet de Rembrandt (Paris: A. Lévy, 1885), p. 105 (as Old Testament subject with seven figures).
Wilhelm R. Valentiner, Die Handzeichnungen Rembrandts (New York: E. Weyhe, 1925), vol. 1, p. 10, pl. 6 (ill.).
Otto Benesch, Rembrandt Werk und Forschung (Vienna: Gilhofer & Ranschburg, 1935), p. 62.
Jakob Rosenberg, Rembrandt (Cambridge, 1948), vol I: 213, fig. 278.
Harold Joachim, “Three Drawings by Rembrandt,” The Art Institute of Chicago Quarterly, vol 48:1 (February 1954), pp. 11–13 (ill.).
Otto Benesch, The Drawings of Rembrandt (London: Phaidon, 1957), vol 5, no. 1045, fig. 1329.
Ira Moskowitz, Great Drawings of All Time (New York,: Shorewood Publishers, Inc., 1962), vol. II, no. 597 (ill.).
Walther Scheidig, Rembrandt als Zeichner (Leipzig: E. A. Seemann, 1962), p. 67, pl. 170.
Hans-Martin Rotermund, Rembrandts Handzeichnungen und Radierungen zur Bibel (Stuttgart, 1963), pp. 10 and 311, no. 6 (ill.).
Hans-Martin Rotermund, trans. Shierry M. Weber, Rembrandt’s Drawings and Etchings for the Bible (Philadelphia and Boston: Pilgrim Press, 1969), pp. 11, 311, no. 6 (ill. p. 29).
Deirdre C. Stam, Charles C. Cunningham, John M. Maxon, Rembrandt After Three Hundred Years: A Symposium—Rembrandt and His Followers (Chicago: Art Institute of Chicago, 1973), pp. 107, 134, and 141.
John Maxon, The Art Institute of Chicago (New York: Harry N. Abrams, Inc., 1970), pp. 144–145 (ill.).
Shelley Perlove and George S. Keyes (editors), Seventeenth-Century European Drawings in Midwestern Collections: The Age of Bernini, Rembrandt, and Poussin (Notre Dame, Ind.: University of Notre Dame Press, 2015), pp. 116 , 164 no. 65, 165 (ill.).

Bern, Switzerland, Kunstmuseum Bern, Rembrandt, Apr. 18–May 30, 1937, p. 45, cat. 204.
Rotterdam, Museum Boymans, Rembrandt, May 18–Aug. 5, 1956, cat. 248, pl. 68; also Amsterdam, Rijksmuseum, Aug. 8–Oct. 21, 1956.
New York, Pierpont Morgan Library, Rembrandt Drawings from American Collections, Mar. 15–Apr. 16, 1960, pp. 53–54, cat. 75, pl. 68; also Cambridge, Mass., Fogg Art Museum, Harvard University, Apr. 27–May 29, 1960.
New York, Wildenstein and Company, Master Drawings from The Art Institute of Chicago, Oct. 17–Nov. 30, 1963, n.p., cat. 33, pl. 13b.
Jerusalem, Israel Museum, Rembrandt: The Bible in Art and Archaeology, Drawings and Etchings, May 11–Jun. 28, 1965, n.p., cat. 3 (ill.).
Art Institute of Chicago, Rembrandt After Three Hundred Years, Oct.25–Dec.7, 1969, pp. 177 and 230 (ill.), cat. 139; also the Minneapolis Institute of Arts, Dec. 22, 1969–Feb. 1, 1970; and the Detroit Institute of Arts, Feb. 24–Apr. 5, 1970.
Boston, Museum of Fine Arts, Rembrandt’s Journey: Painter, Draftsman, Etcher, Oct. 26, 2003–Jan. 18, 2004, pp. 259, 263 (ill.)–65 and 329, cat. 178; 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. 30, 73, 76-77 (ill.), 78, 309, cat. 24, cat. by Victoria Sancho Lobis, et. al.

Mathieu-Guillaume-Thérèse de Villenave (1762–1846), Paris [stamp (Lugt 2598), recto, lower left, in blue]; sold, Alliance des Arts, Dec. 6, 1842 [stamp (Lugt 61), recto, lower left, in blue]. Possibly F. van den Zande; sold, Hôtel des Commissaires Priseurs, Paris, Apr. 30, 1855, lot 3042 [Dutuit 1885 and Cambridge, Mass. 1960]. M. Denesle. Sold, Paris, Mar. 30, 1860. Guillaume de Gontaut (1859–1939), Marquis de Biron; sold, Galerie Georges Petit, Paris, June, 9–11 1914, lot 50. Paul Mathey (1844–1929), Paris [Benesch 1957]. Alfred Strölin (1871–1954) or his son Alfred Strölin (1912–1974), Paris and Lausanne, by 1925 [Valentiner 1925]; sold to the Art Institute of Chicago, 1953.

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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.

Learn more.