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Portrait of a Man in a Red Coat

Rembrandt van Rijn (Leiden 1606 – 1669 Amsterdam)
date
1633
medium
oil on oval panel
dimensions
63.7 x 50.8 cm
signed information

signed and dated in light brown paint, lower right: “Rembrandt. fec. / 1633.”

inventory number
RR-108
Print

Manuth, Volker. “Portrait of a Man in a Red Coat” (2017). In The Leiden Collection Catalogue, 4th ed. Edited by Arthur K. Wheelock Jr. and Elizabeth Nogrady with Caroline Van Cauwenberge. New York, 2023–. https://theleidencollection.com/artwork/portrait-of-a-man-in-a-red-coat/ (accessed November 12, 2024).

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Judging from the formal portraits produced by seventeenth-century artists, one would have to conclude that the Dutch were a pretty dour people, particularly the men. Invariably dressed in black with stiff starched collars, the sitters in these portraits rarely invoke inner warmth or a sense of joy. This broad overgeneralization, which to a certain extent excludes Frans Hals (1582/83–1666), seems rather apt for the greatest portraitist of the era, Rembrandt van Rijn. Rembrandt had a remarkable ability to capture a lifelike presence in his commissioned portraits, but, for the most part, one comes away admiring the sincerity and inner strength of his sitters, not their ease of lifting one’s spirits through the glints in their eyes.

Set against this backdrop, Rembrandt’s Portrait of a Man in a Red Coat is like a breath of fresh air. Here is a man not averse to twirling his moustache upward to cast a friendly demeanor as he looks directly out at the viewer, the crinkles around his eyes and his arched eyebrows indicating that smiles easily cross his face. Even the tips of his white starched collar rise up positively to greet the world. His robust features and ample body further suggest a person who enjoys the fullness of life, both spiritually and physically. Adding to this sense is the bold red doublet he wears, one that Rembrandt brushes with an appropriate freedom of touch, particularly in articulating the horizontal braided clasps along the garments central divide.

Like Rembrandt’s Minerva in Her Study (RR-107), Portrait of a Man in a Red Coat was for a long time largely unknown. It surfaced in an English collection only at the beginning of the twentieth century (see Provenance). After Wilhelm Valentiner first published the portrait in 1930 as one of his “rediscovered Rembrandt paintings,” it circulated on the art market and was almost inaccessible to Rembrandt researchers. Largely on the basis of photographs, some authors doubted the work’s authenticity. The painting remained in relative obscurity until 1992, when its owner at the time drew it to the attention of the Rembrandt Research Project (RRP). After thorough examination of the original in 1994 and 1997, the RRP judged the portrait, on both technical and stylistic grounds, to be an authentic work by Rembrandt.

Stylistically as well as technically, Portrait of a Man in a Red Coat is in keeping with Rembrandt’s portraits of the early 1630s, at which time he sought to achieve great spatial depth and plasticity in his figures. Here, he achieved this effect by rendering physiognomic details, such as the hair and facial wrinkles, with utmost meticulousness, while executing the braided fastenings on the red jacket in a much sketchier manner. Another typical feature is the way he set off the contour of the most brightly lit form (in this case the collar) from the dark background. On the other hand, he juxtaposed the shaded portion of the collar with the bright part of the background. Another means of heightening the illusion of depth was to leave the sitter’s foremost arm partly in shadow. The strongly illuminated shoulder forms a repoussoir, at the same time amplifying the effect of the light hitting the collar and the face. Finally, the form of the signature and the way it is rendered with a mixture of dark paint and lead white are typical of Rembrandt in this period.

The oak of the panel comes from the Baltic-Polish region and corresponds to a type of wood frequently used in Rembrandt’s studio. Dendrochronological research has shown that the tree could not have been felled before 1629, which means that in theory the panel—after a period of at least two years for aging or drying—could have been ready for use after 1631. The panel consists of two parts: a wider plank (37.8 cm) and a narrower one (13 cm). For his portraits and tronies Rembrandt often used panels composed of planks of different widths so that the seam would not run through the face. Although the oval format was popular for portraits around 1633, Portrait of a Man in a Red Coat seems originally to have had an upright rectangular shape, which was later changed into an oval. The back of the panel is planed and cradled, whereas a panel that was originally oval would show beveling that followed its oval shape. It is probable that the portrait was originally surrounded by an oval “window,” such as Rembrandt often painted on rectangular supports (see Self-Portrait with Shaded Eyes, RR-110), and that the panel was later cut into an oval shape along the inner edge of this painted “window.”

Rembrandt generally designed his compositions with a free sketch rather than with an elaborate underdrawing. A close comparison of the paint surface and the X-radiograph in this portrait makes it is clear that Rembrandt painted the background first, leaving a reserve for the figure. The contours of the figure, especially in the area of the hair and the collar, often deviate from the reserve. Rembrandt has here made a number of painted corrections, or pentimenti, as in, for example, the shape of the right shoulder, which was originally higher.

An unusual aspect of this painting is the sitter’s conspicuous red coat, very different from the black attire generally seen in portraiture of the 1630s. A red coat with red braided fastenings on the front and the sleeves was at that time associated with the military, and for this reason Valentiner assumed that the sitter was a member of the military. In support of this theory, he referred to similar braided clasps in the portrait of Philips van Dorp (1587–1652), an officer in the service of the States General, known from a print by Salomon Saverij (1594–ca. 1678) (). Saverij’s etching bears an inscription claiming that it was made after a (lost) portrait by Rembrandt of 1634. Red coats (including one with braided fastenings) are listed in a 1638 inventory of Floris II, Count of Culemborg, one of the highest ranking officers in the Northern Netherlands. A Portrait of an Unknown Officer by Isaack Jacobsz van Hooren (1620–52) of 1646 depicts the sitter in a red coat with braided clasps along with other military accessories, including a plumed hat, gorget, and rapier attached to the bandolier .

Significantly, these last pictorial elements are lacking in Rembrandt’s Portrait of a Man in a Red Coat, and without them it is impossible to say with certainty that the sitter was actually a member of the military. The coat’s red color and braiding and the wide, starched linen collar also occur in contemporary fashions, not only in the Netherlands, but also in France, England and Germany. For example, a gouache dated around 1634 by the French engraver Abraham Bosse shows a dancing man wearing a similar costume (), as does the elegant painter in his studio in a print dating from 1642 (). The painter wears a collar identical to the one worn by the man in Rembrandt’s Portrait of a Man in a Red Coat. The hairstyle—with pipe curls over the ears and a lock of hair on the forehead—and the moustache with its twisted ends reflect Spanish fashions, but, as with the man’s wardrobe, these styles were to be found all over Europe. The international character of the man’s appearance has led to speculations that the sitter was either a foreigner or a Dutchman who moved in international circles.

The manner in which the man turns to the right suggests that the portrait originally had a female pendant, which Valentiner assumed to be the Portrait of a Young Woman, likewise dated 1633. This hypothesis was rightly questioned in the Corpus. Its authors point out that although the dimensions of the two works are nearly the same, the woman’s portrait is painted on a different kind of wood, the panel consists of three planks, and it was originally oval in shape. Furthermore, the authors argued that the woman’s portrait is unlikely to have been the painting’s pendant because it was executed by a studio assistant and not by the master. Other reasons exist for rejecting the woman’s portrait as this painting’s companion piece: her dark clothes, with the white cap and the large pleated ruff, are typical of the conservative Dutch middle class and contrast with the stylish and colorful costume of her supposed mate.

A much more suitable candidate for the pendant to Portrait of a Man in a Red Coat is a female portrait, also dated 1633, in the Museum of Fine Arts in Houston (). The sitter’s black gown with slashed sleeves is set off by a colorful ribbon around her waist. The gown, the collar, and the hairstyle likewise conform to the fashions then prevailing in France. Moreover, the oval support of the female portrait in Houston is nearly identical in size to Portrait of a Man in a Red Coat. Originally it, too, was probably rectangular in shape and only later made into an oval. Although the woman is more subtle and more delicately modeled than the man in Portrait of a Man in a Red Coat, pendants portraying young women are often more delicately executed than those of their male counterparts. Not only do their facial features and skin require different handling of the paint, but also the light coming from the left falls frontally on the woman’s face. The man’s face, which is turned to the right, is partly in shadow, and, as a result, his physicality is emphasized. With or without this purported pendant, however, this distinctive gentleman has a compelling presence that fully engages the viewer. Perhaps someday we will learn more about him and his life’s story.

- Volker Manuth, 2017
For further discussion about this artwork, see Rembrandt and The Leiden Collection; and The Signing of Paintings by Rembrandt and His Contemporaries.
Endnotes

  1. Wilhelm R. Valentiner, “Rediscovered Rembrandt Paintings,” Burlington Magazine 57 (1930): 260, 265. Neither Horst Gerson (Rembrandt: Paintings [Amsterdam, 1968], 280–81, 494, no. 151) nor Kurt Bauch (Rembrandt: Gemälde [Berlin, 1966], 19, no. 364) had seen the original painting when they published their respective catalogues.

  2. Neither Schwartz in 1984 nor Slatkes in 1992 included the painting in their catalogues of Rembrandt’s paintings. Gary Schwartz, Rembrandt, His Life, His Paintings: A New Biography with All Accessible Paintings Illustrated in Colour (New York, 1985). Leonard Slatkes, Rembrandt: Catalogo completo dei dipinti (Florence, 1992). Tümpel in 1986 (as well as in the English edition of 1993) rejects the painting as an autograph Rembrandt and attributes it instead to a pupil. See Christian Tümpel, Rembrandt: All Paintings in Colour (Antwerp, 1993), 431–32, no. A83.

  3. Ersnt van de Wetering et al., A Corpus of Rembrandt Paintings, vol. 4: Self-Portraits, ed. Ernst van de Wetering (Dordrecht, 2005), 4: Addendum 4, 638–46.

  4. Cf. Josua Bruyn et al., A Corpus of Rembrandt Paintings, vol. 2: 1631–1634, Stichting Foundation Rembrandt Research Project (The Hague, 1986), 2: A 45, A 48, A 58, A 59, A 78.

  5. This mixture of paints was probably used to tone down what would otherwise be too harsh a contrast with the background, which is bright in this place. For other examples, see Ernst van de Wetering et al., A Corpus of Rembrandt Paintings, vol. 4: Self-Portraits, Stichting Foundation Rembrandt Research Project (Dordrecht, 2005), 4: Addendum 4, 640–41, and Josua Bruyn et al., A Corpus of Rembrandt Paintings, vol. 2: 1631–1634, Stichting Foundation Rembrandt Research Project (The Hague, 1986), 2: chapter 5, 99–106.

  6. Only the broader panel was able to be examined by Peter Klein. For this and the following information on the panel, see Ernst van de Wetering et al., A Corpus of Rembrandt Paintings, vol. 4: Self-Portraits, ed. Stichting Foundation Rembrandt Research Project (Dordrecht, 2005), 4: Addendum 4, 640–42.

  7. Rembrandt painted his first portrait on an oval support in 1632: Portrait of Harder Rijcksen, 1632, oil on panel, 64 x 47 cm, Suermondt-Ludwig-Museum, Aachen, on loan from the Peter and Irene Ludwig Stiftung. Josua Bruyn et al., A Corpus of Rembrandt Paintings, vol. 2: 1631–1634, Stichting Foundation Rembrandt Research Project (The Hague, 1986), 2: no. A 60 (as unknown sitter). On the popularity of the oval format for portraits in the 1630s, see Pieter J. J. van Thiel, Prijst de lijst: De Hollandse schilderijlijst in de zeventiende eeuw (Exh. cat. Amsterdam, Rijksmuseum) (The Hague, 1984), 118.

  8. Painted framings of this kind, which occur quite often in Rembrandt’s work, possibly served as a guide for the frame maker. Comparable framing (painted or even scratched in the wet paint) occurs in other Rembrandt paintings. See, for example, Christ and the Woman Taken in Adultery of 1644 in London (Ernst van de Wetering et al., A Corpus of Rembrandt Paintings, vol. 5: Small-Scale History Paintings, ed. Ernst van de Wetering [Dordrecht, 2011], 5: no. 3); The Holy Family of 1645 in St. Petersburg (Ernst van de Wetering et al., A Corpus of Rembrandt Paintings, vol. 5: Small-Scale History Paintings, Stichting Foundation Rembrandt Research Project [Dordrecht, 2011], 5: no. 4); the Self-Portrait of 1669 in The Hague (Ernst van de Wetering et al., A Corpus of Rembrandt Paintings, vol. 4: Self-Portraits, Stichting Foundation Rembrandt Research Project [Dordrecht, 2005], 4: no. 29); and the Self-Portrait as St. Paul of 1661 in Amsterdam (Ernst van de Wetering et al., A Corpus of Rembrandt Paintings, vol. 4: Self-Portraits, Stichting Foundation Rembrandt Research Project [Dordrecht, 2005], 4: no. 24).

  9. Wilhelm R. Valentiner, “Rediscovered Rembrandt Paintings,” Burlington Magazine 57 (1930): 260, 265.

  10. Gelders Archief, Arnhem, no. 0370, Archief van de heren en graven van Culemborg, no. 393: Inventaris van sijne Genadens cleederen die bevonden zijn in sijner Genadens cleederencamer tot Culemborch op de IIde September 1638: “Een root sattijnen wambaes geborduert met goude banden van goudt en silver; Ein Hongerlein van rott laken vol gebort met gouden galunn en lyßen, met pels gevoert; Een roode kasaque met goude knoppen” (A red satin doublet embroidered with gold and silver laces; A fur-lined coat in the Hungarian style of red cloth embroidered with gold galloon and frogging; A red cassock with gold buttons).

  11. Isaack Jacobsz van Hooren, Portrait of an Unknown Officer, 1646, oil on panel, 16.6 x 12.7 cm, sale, Christie’s Amsterdam, 29 November 1988, lot 164.

  12. A surviving example made of red velvet, which dates from ca. 1632 and was allegedly worn by Count Tilly (1559–1632) in the Thirty Years’ War, is preserved in the Bayerisches National Museum in Munich. See Max von Boehn, Mode and Manners, trans. Joan Joshua, 2 vols. (New York, 1971), 2: 73 ill. On the influence of military dress on fashion, see Ruth Bleckwenn, “Beziehungen zwischen Solda­tent­racht und ziviler modischer Kleidung zwi­schen 1500 und 1650,” Zeit­schrift für histori­sche Waffen- und Kostümkunde 16 (1974): 107–18.

  13. As mentioned in Ernst van de Wetering et al., A Corpus of Rembrandt Paintings, vol. 4: Self-Portraits, Stichting Foundation Rembrandt Research Project (Dordrecht, 2005), 4: Addendum 4, 646 n. 10.

  14. In France, such collars were usually trimmed with a wide edge of bobbin lace.

  15. In 1966 Bauch (Kurt Bauch, Rembrandt: Gemälde [Berlin, 1966], 19, no. 364) hypothesized that this picture was a portrait of the painter Jacob Adriaensz Backer (1608–51). This suggestion was rightly rejected, as Backer was only 25 years old in 1633 and therefore younger than the man depicted. Furthermore, Backer, with his Mennonite background, would never have donned such a colorful coat. The Mennonites, who were antimilitary and particularly conservative with regard to their outward appearance, dressed mostly in simple, dark clothing.

  16. Wilhelm R. Valentiner, “Rediscovered Rembrandt Paintings,” Burlington Magazine 57 (1930): 265

  17. Josua Bruyn et al., A Corpus of Rembrandt Paintings, vol. 2: 1631–1634, Stichting Foundation Rembrandt Research Project (The Hague, 1986), 2: C 81. Relying on the sapwood statistics for Eastern Europe, Peter Klein established an earliest felling date of 1628 for this panel. Adding to that a minimum seasoning time of two years, this portrait could not have been painted before 1630.

  18. Jaap van der Veen, however, has correctly observed that this argument is not conclusive because sometimes the master would paint a portrait and a pupil its pendant. See Jaap van der Veen, “Hendrick Uylenburgh’s Art Business, Production, and Trade Between 1625 and 1655,” in Uylenburgh & Son: Art and Commerce from Rembrandt to De Lairesse, ed. Friso Lammertse and Jaap van der Veen (Exh. cat. London, Dulwich Picture Gallery; Amsterdam, Museum Het Rembrandthuis) (Zwolle, 2006), 145. See, for example, the pendants of a seated man and woman of ca. 1632 in the Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna, both painted on identical walnut panels. The portrait of the man, attributed to Rembrandt, is unlike that of the woman. See Josua Bruyn et al., A Corpus of Rembrandt Paintings, vol. 2: 1631–1634, Stichting Foundation Rembrandt Research Project (The Hague, 1986), 2: A 45 and C 80.

  19. Josua Bruyn et al., A Corpus of Rembrandt Paintings, vol. 2, 1631–1634, Stichting Foundation Rembrandt Research Project (The Hague, 1986), A 84. The opinion that this portrait of a woman could be the companion piece to the Portrait of a Man in a Red Coat was also noted by George Keyes in Rembrandt in America: Collecting and Connoisseurship, ed. George Keyes, Tom Rassieur, and Dennis P. Weller (Exh. cat. Raleigh, North Carolina Museum of Art; Cleveland, Cleveland Museum of Art; Minneapolis, Minneapolis Institute of Arts) (New York, 2011), 117, 138, n. 7.

  20. Compare the dress of the dancing lady in Abraham Bosse’s gouache (see fig. 3).

  21. The most important reason for this assumption is the oddly slanting position of the female figure in the oval picture field, as a result of which the earrings do not hang vertically, which indicates that the panel was cut down to its oval shape only after it was painted. This support is not beveled all around either. See Josua Bruyn et al., A Corpus of Rembrandt Paintings, vol. 2: 1631–1634, Stichting Foundation Rembrandt Research Project (The Hague, 1986), 2: A 84. Unfortunately, this is one of the very few paintings by Rembrandt that has not yet undergone dendrochronological examination. It is therefore impossible to ascertain whether the panels came from the same tree.

  22. Even in pendants in which the woman is older than the man, as seen in the portraits of Dirck Jansz Pesser (Josua Bruyn et al., A Corpus of Rembrandt Paintings, vol. 2: 1631–1634, Stichting Foundation Rembrandt Research Project [The Hague, 1986], 2: A102, Los Angeles County Museum of Art) and Haesje van Cleyburg (ibid., A103, Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam), both of 1634, Rembrandt typically painted the male portrait in a much broader style than that of the woman.

Iconclass Terms
  • Sir Philip John William Miles (1825–88), 2nd Baronet, Leigh Court, Somerset; by descent to his grandson, Captain Lionel Gerard Ames (1889–1971).
  • [Vicars Brothers, London, 1929.]
  • [Howard Young Galleries, New York, by 1930.]
  • David Loew (1897–1973), Beverly Hills.
  • [David Findlay, New York, 1954.]
  • Amon G. Carter, Sr., Fort Worth, Texas, 1954; by descent to his widow, Minnie Meacham Smith (sale, Sotheby’s, New York, 30 January 1998, no. 18; to Alfred Bader).
  • Alfred Bader (1924–2018), Milwaukee, WI [through Otto Naumann Ltd., New York; (to The Bellagio Gallery of Fine Art)].
  • The Bellagio Gallery of Fine Arts, Las Vegas, 1999 (sale, Christie’s, New York, 26 January 2001, no. 81 [to Noortman Master Paintings]).
  • [Noortman Master Paintings, Maastricht.]
  • From whom acquired by the present owner in 2008.
  • Detroit, Detroit Institute of Arts, “The Thirteenth Loan Exhibition of Old Master Paintings by Rembrandt,” 2–31 May 1930, no. 23 [lent by Howard Young Galleries].
  • Newark, Newark Museum, “Art and Home: Dutch Interiors in the Age of Rembrandt,” 30 September 2001–20 January 2002; Denver, Denver Art Museum, 2 March–26 May 2002, no. 17a [lent by Noortman Master Paintings].
  • Kyoto, National Museum, “Rembrandt Rembrandt,” 3 November 2002–8 January 2003, no. 19; Frankfurt-am-Main, Städelsches Kunstinstitut, 1 February–11 May 2003, no. 21 [lent by Noortman Master Paintings].
  • Vienna, Albertina, “Rembrandt,” 24 March–27 June 2004, no. 82 [lent by Noortman Master Paintings,].
  • London, Dulwich Picture Gallery “Rembrandt & Co.: Dealing in Masterpieces,” 27 June–3 September 2006; Amsterdam, Museum Het Rembrandthuis, “Rembrandt en Uylenburgh, handel in meesterwerken,” 16 September–10 December 2006, no. 89 [lent by Noortman Master Paintings].
  • Houston, Museum of Fine Arts, on loan with the permanent collection, June 2008–July 2011 [lent by the present owner].
  • Greenwich, Conn., Bruce Museum, on loan with the permanent collection, September–October 2011 [lent by the present owner].
  • Raleigh, North Carolina Museum of Art “Rembrandt in America: Collecting and Connoisseurship,” 30 October 2011–22 January 2012; Cleveland, Cleveland Museum of Art, 19 February–28 May 2012; Minneapolis, Minneapolis Institute of Arts, 24 June–16 September 2012, no. 182 [lent by the present owner].
  • Houston, Museum of Fine Arts, on loan with the permanent collection, September 2012–2016 [lent by the present owner].
  • Paris, Museé du Louvre, “Masterpieces of The Leiden Collection: The Age of Rembrandt,” 22 February–22 May 2017, no. 29 [lent by the present owner].
  • Beijing, National Museum of China, “Rembrandt and His Time: Masterpieces from The Leiden Collection,” 17 June–3 September 2017, no. 13 [lent by the present owner].
  • Shanghai, Long Museum, West Bund, “Rembrandt, Vermeer and Hals in the Dutch Golden Age: Masterpieces from The Leiden Collection,” 23 September 2017–25 February 2018 [lent by the present owner].
  • Moscow, The Pushkin State Museum of Fine Arts, “The Age of Rembrandt and Vermeer: Masterpieces of The Leiden Collection,” 28 March 2018–22 July 2018, no. 51 [lent by the present owner].
  • St. Petersburg, The State Hermitage Museum, “The Age of Rembrandt and Vermeer: Masterpieces of The Leiden Collection,” 5 September 2018–13 January 2019, no. 57 [lent by the present owner].
  • Abu Dhabi, Louvre Abu Dhabi, “Rembrandt, Vermeer and the Dutch Golden Age. Masterpieces from The Leiden Collection and the Musée du Louvre,” 14 February–18 May 2019, no. 20 [lent by the present owner].
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  • Yeager-Crasselt, Lara. Rembrandt and His Time: China and the Dutch Republic in the Golden Age.” In Rembrandt, Vermeer and Hals in the Dutch Golden Age: Masterpieces from The Leiden Collection, 32, fig. 5. Exh. cat. Shanghai, Long Museum, West Bund. Shanghai, 2017.
  • Yeager-Crasselt, Lara. “The Leiden Collection and the Dutch Golden Age.” In The Age of Rembrandt and Vermeer: Masterpieces of The Leiden Collection. Edited by Polina Lyubimova. Translated by Daria Babich and Daria Kuzina, 18, 21; 29, 32. Exh. cat. Moscow, The Pushkin State Museum of Fine Arts; St. Petersburg, The State Hermitage Museum. Moscow, 2018.
  • Yeager-Crasselt, Lara “Portrait of a Man in a Red Coat.” In The Age of Rembrandt and Vermeer: Masterpieces of The Leiden Collection. Edited by Polina Lyubimova. Translated by Daria Babich and Daria Kuzina, 168–69; 242, 51. Exh. cat. Moscow, The Pushkin State Museum of Fine Arts; St. Petersburg, The State Hermitage Museum. Moscow, 2018.
  • Yeager-Crasselt, Lara. “The Leiden Collection and the Dutch Golden Age.” In Rembrandt, Vermeer and the Dutch Golden Age. Masterpieces from The Leiden Collection and the Musée du Louvre. Edited by Blaise Ducos and Lara Yeager-Crasselt, 25, 29. Exh. cat. Abu Dhabi, Louvre Abu Dhabi. London, 2019. [Exhibition catalogue also published in French and Arabic.]
  • Blanc, Jan. “Being Modern, Being Dutch: The Seventeenth-Century Invention of the Golden Age.” In Rembrandt, Vermeer and the Dutch Golden Age. Masterpieces from The Leiden Collection and the Musée du Louvre. Edited by Blaise Ducos and Lara Yeager-Crasselt, 42.   Exh. cat. Abu Dhabi, Louvre Abu Dhabi. London, 2019. [Exhibition catalogue also published in French and Arabic.]
  • Ducos, Blaise, and Lara Yeager-Crasselt, eds. Rembrandt, Vermeer and the Dutch Golden Age. Masterpieces from The Leiden Collection and the Musée du Louvre. Exh. cat. Abu Dhabi, Louvre Abu Dhabi. London, 2019, 54, 82–3, no. 20. [Exhibition catalogue also published in French and Arabic.]
  • Manuth, Volker, Marieke de Winkel, and Rudie van Leeuwen. Rembrandt. The Complete Paintings. Cologne, 2019, 120, 655–56, no. 231.
  • Sevcik, Anja K., ed. Inside Rembrandt 1606-1669. Exh. cat. Cologne, Wallraf-Richartz-Museum & Fondation Corboud. Petersberg, 2019, 198, fig. 58.1.
  • Vogelaar, Christiaan. “The Leiden Collection.” In Rembrandt and his Contemporaries: History Paintings from The Leiden Collection. Edited by Arthur K. Wheelock Jr. and Caroline Van Cauwenberge, 10. Exh. cat. Amsterdam, Hermitage Amsterdam. Zwolle, 2023. [Exhibition catalogue also published in Dutch.]

The support, an oval composite panel, comprises two vertically grained oak planks of unequal widths. The vertical panel join runs through the background to the figure’s right. The panel has no bevels and has been cradled. Ernst van der Wetering speculates in the Rembrandt Research Project Corpus entry for this painting that, although the portrait was painted as an oval, the panel was originally rectangular, since the orientation of the oval panel and the oval composition are slightly askew. The panel reverse has three numerical inscriptions but no wax seals, stencils, import stamps, labels or panel maker’s marks.

Analyses of a paint cross-section from the lower edge revealed a double ground: a lower layer containing chalk, yellowed by the binder, and an upper layer containing lumps of lead white and a little ocher in an oleaginous binder followed by a thin transparent brown imprimatura. The imprimatura remains visible in areas along the outermost edge of the upper right corner and along the lower right corner where the background and red doublet meet. The paint has been smoothly applied with short strokes of low brushmarking through the background, with two raised horizontal strokes of white highlight, which accentuate the lower edge of the white collar, and thicker paint through the figure’s face, particularly his nose.

No underdrawing or compositional changes are readily apparent in infrared images captured at 780–1000 nanometers.

The painting is signed and dated in light brown paint along the lower right.

The painting has not undergone conservation treatment since its acquisition in 2008 and remains in a good state of preservation.

Further technical information about this artwork is available in The Rembrandt Database.

Technical Summary Endnotes

  1. The characterization of the wood is based on Peter Klein’s dendrochronology report. Only the wider plank could be analyzed and dated.

  2. The left plank is 37.8 cm wide and the right is 13 cm wide.

  3. In Addendum 2 of Stichting Foundation Rembrandt Research Project, A Corpus of Rembrandt Paintings, vol. 4, Self-Portraits, ed. Ernst van de Wetering (Dordrecht, 2005). In comment 2 of the Corpus entry, Van de Wetering states, “The longitudinal axis of the panel is somewhat longer than that of the painted oval. Consequently the ground and traces of brown underpainting along the upper and lower edges (gradually narrowing at the sides) were never covered with the paint with which the background and the red costume were painted.”

  4. See Stichting Foundation Rembrandt Research Project, A Corpus of Rembrandt Paintings, vol. 1, 1625–1631, ed. Josua Bruyn et al. (The Hague, Boston, and London, 1982), 17–19.

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