Rembrandt, or one of his followers, made this quick, spontaneous sketch from life. It appears to be a woman of African descent carrying a live chicken under her left arm, its head restrained with her mittened hand and its tail feathers protruding to the rear. She probably belonged to the small community of free Black people who lived in Rembrandt’s neighborhood around Jodenbreestraat and worked as a domestic servant, likely transported to the Netherlands as an enslaved person, but existing in the gray area between forced servitude (which was illegal in Holland at the time) and freedom.
The drawing was cut down from a larger sheet by a previous owner, perhaps Joseph van Haecken (1699-1749), whose collector’s mark is stamped in the lower left corner.
