New Drawings Discovered: Morgan Library, Rijksmuseum, Copenhagen — Lost Works Clarified

A new deep-research session has uncovered four additional Drost drawings across three museums, clarified the details of his lost works, and provided new biographical insights. The Morgan Library's "Angel Departing from the Family of Tobit," the Rijksmuseum's "David Preventing Abishai from Killing Saul," and the Copenhagen SMK's "Noli me Tangere" join the growing corpus of attributed Drost drawings. RKD research confirms Drost painted three of the four Evangelists in the lost series with Loth.

• The Angel Departing from the Family of Tobit (Morgan Library I, 197, 19.3 × 24.5 cm): Attributed to Drost, pen and brown ink with rubbed passages and white corrections. Provenance traces from Jonathan Richardson (1665–1745) through Sir J.C. Robinson and C. Fairfax Murray to J. Pierpont Morgan (1909). Previously catalogued as Rembrandt, now recognized as Drost (WD-D11)

• David Preventing Abishai from Killing Saul (Rijksmuseum RP-T-1953-139, 17.7 × 26 cm): Attributed to Drost, reed pen and brown ink with opaque white and scraping. Previously catalogued as Rembrandt (Benesch 650a). Purchased in 1953 from dealer L. Franklyn, London (WD-D12)

• Noli me Tangere (SMK Copenhagen KKS7049, 19.7 × 18.5 cm): Pen and brown ink with touches of white. Dating c. 1650–52. This drawing relates directly to a Drost painting of the same subject and is cited in the Harvard catalog as a key work for establishing Drost's graphic style (WD-D10)

• Self-Portrait etching redated to 1652: Essential Vermeer confirms the etching is signed "w drost 1652" and depicts Drost as "a young man drawing." This makes it the earliest securely dated work by Drost

• Lost Works clarified: RKD confirms Drost painted THREE of the Four Evangelists in the lost series with Johann Carl Loth, who painted the fourth. This is more specific than Houbraken's general "collaborated" claim

• Additional Rijksmuseum drawings attributed to Drost: "Two Seated Old Men, One with a Globe," "A Woman at her Toilette," "The Angel Appears to Elijah," and "Tobias and the Angel with the Fish"

• Berlin Kupferstichkabinett drawings: "Oriental in Turban and Wide Coat" (111 × 74 mm) and "Quintus Fabius Maximus" (111 × 74 mm, reed-pen and bistre) — classical subject showing Drost's range

• Adolf Boy connection: Drost is recorded as an influence on the painter Adolf Boy, a little-known Dutch artist, per both Wikipedia and RKD records