The drawing is related to the signed and dated black chalk study of an elephant in the Albertina, Vienna (Inv. no. L.174). Two further undated drawings of elephants in the same technique are in the British Museum, London (Inv. no. Gg.2-259), and a second study in the Albertina (Inv. no. 8900). The elephant included in Rembrandt's etching of "Adam and Eve", dated 1638, is thought to have been based on these studies from life.
Inscribed on the verso, in graphite, at upper center, "1637"; and at lower center, "No 13".
Watermark: Foolscap with seven points over number 4 and three balls (similar to Heawood, no. 2003).
Salting, George, 1835-1909, former owner.
Murray, Charles Fairfax, 1849-1919, former owner.
Morgan, J. Pierpont (John Pierpont), 1837-1913, former owner.
Collection J. Pierpont Morgan : Drawings by the Old Masters Formed by C. Fairfax Murray. London : Privately printed, 1905-1912, I, 205, repr.
Stampfle, Felice and Egbert Haverkamp-Begemann. Rembrandt Drawings from American Collections. Cambridge, MA: Fogg Art Museum; New York: Pierpont Morgan Library, 1960, no. 27, repr.
Jane Shoaf Turner, with contributions by Felice Stampfle, Dutch Drawings in the Pierpont Morgan Library: Seventeenth to Nineteenth Centuries, New York, 2006, cat. no. 213.