Inscribed at lower right corner, in brown ink, "Rimbrandt"; on the verso, at center, in large numbers, in black chalk, "13"; in lower left corner, in graphite, "...L / ...X (partially cut off)"; and next to this, in brown ink, "B. No ["o" in superscript] 103". On the old Fairfax Murray mount, at lower right underneath drawing, in his hand, in graphite, "Study for picture at the Hermitage / St Petersburg / Utterson cn ["n" in superscript]".
Watermark: Fleur-de-lis in shield, surmounted by crown, (Strasbourg lily).
Collection J. Pierpont Morgan : Drawings by the Old Masters Formed by C. Fairfax Murray. London : Privately printed, 1905-1912, I, 182, repr. (as Rembrandt).
Jane Shoaf Turner, with contributions by Felice Stampfle, Dutch Drawings in the Pierpont Morgan Library: Seventeenth to Nineteenth Centuries, New York, 2006, cat. no. 241.
The drawing's connection with the painting of the same subject in the Hermitage, St. Petersburg--previously thought to be a genuine signed and dated Rembrandt from 1637, but no longer accepted as such--is not as direct as the old inscription on the mount implies.
Utterson, Edward Vernon, 1775 or 1776-1856, former owner.
Salting, George, 1835-1909, former owner.
Murray, Charles Fairfax, 1849-1919, former owner.
Morgan, J. Pierpont (John Pierpont), 1837-1913, former owner.