REMBRANDT Harmenszoon van Rijn

Catalogue number: Bartsch 78.

In the 1650s Rembrandt returned to the Passion, this time of large drypoint prints. The series remained incomplete, only the Ecce Homo (Christ presented to the people), and the Three crosses (Christ crucified between the two thieves) were completed.

Rembrandt’s Three Crosses of 1653 is one of the pinnacles of printmaking. It is more like a painting than an etching. Curious as to the different effects, Rembrandt made impressions on various kind of papers, and on vellum, which absorbs hardly any ink at all.

Some parts of the scene are based on other prints, but the idea for this intensely dramatic, nocturnal setting is original.

The picture shows the first state of this etching. Rembrandt put the etching through a radical remake in the later states in which he eliminated most of the foreground figures.

Catalogue number: Bartsch 78.

Rembrandt’s romance with drypoint in the 1650s and 1660s is one of the important milestones in the history of printmaking. His inventiveness in this medium led to the creation of compositions that offered more complex visual information and variety of drama than previously had been imagined, and whereas earlier intaglio prints had been translucent and in general rather bodiless, Rembrandt’s had a structure and richness of surface that approximate many of his great oil paintings. Moreover, they are illumined by an expressive power that never fails to pierce to the heart of things, whether the subject be, as it is here, a momentous scene from Scripture or the simplest study of still-life.

Rembrandt’s Three Crosses of 1653 is one of the pinnacles of printmaking. It is more like a painting than an etching. Curious as to the different effects, Rembrandt made impressions on various kind of papers, and on vellum, which absorbs hardly any ink at all.

Not in Bredius.

In 1904 this painting, then attributed to Willem de Poorter, was considered to show the game “La main chaude”. It is a game in which sleight of hand and close attention are rewarded. One player, the “penitent,” hides his face in the lap of a second (called the “confessor,” a referee who monitors the game) and places his hand flat behind his back. In turn, other players slap the penitent on the hand, and he tries to identify who hit him. The player who lets himself be discovered becomes the penitent.

Later the painting was reintroduced to the oeuvre of Rembrandt and the interpretation of the scene was rejected as compared with the paintings of the subject by other Dutch artists, such as Jan Miense Molenaer.

Catalogue number: Bartsch 281.

Joannes Wtenbogaert (1604-1684) was a Remonstrant tax collector in Amsterdam. He helped the artist collect quick payment from the stadholder, Jan Six.

The title refers to a popular parlour game of the time, in which a chosen player turns his back on the others, one of whom then slaps him on the bottom, whereupon the first player has to identify the culprit.

Catalogue number: Bartsch 186.

‘Ledikant’ is part of the bed, the structure without the mattress and the bedding.

Catalogue number: Bartsch 283.

Lieven Willemsz van Coppenol (c. 1599-1671) was a well-known calligrapher. His family originates from the Spanish Netherlands from where his grandparents fled and settled in Haarlem about 1579. Van Coppenol appears to have taken part in the development of calligraphy at every level, from schoolboy competitions to publishing, teaching, corresponding with peers, and finally striving, obsessively, to be recognized as the greatest calligrapher. He was far from achieving that distinction, although he had considerable skill.

Van Coppenol’s first commission for a portrait from Rembrandt was for a portrait print of modest size, the “Small Coppenol.” This print shows the portly writer at his desk, pen poised above a perfect circle. Rembrandt drew a compositional study for the etching, which then went through major revisions in several states. (The present picture is the fifth state of six.) Apparently it never pleased the patron, Rembrandt therefore proceeded to make the larger etched portrait of Van Coppenol (the “Large Coppenol,” which is the artist’s largest portrait print. For the Large Coppenol Rembrandt painted a preliminary sketch in oil.

Catalogue number: Bartsch 282.

Lieven Willemsz van Coppenol (c. 1599-1671) was a well-known calligrapher. His family originates from the Spanish Netherlands from where his grandparents fled and settled in Haarlem about 1579. Van Coppenol appears to have taken part in the development of calligraphy at every level, from schoolboy competitions to publishing, teaching, corresponding with peers, and finally striving, obsessively, to be recognized as the greatest calligrapher. He was far from achieving that distinction, although he had considerable skill.

Van Coppenol’s first commission for a portrait from Rembrandt was for a portrait print of modest size, the “Small Coppenol.” This print shows the portly writer at his desk, pen poised above a perfect circle. Rembrandt drew a compositional study for the etching, which then went through major revisions in several states. (The present picture is the fifth state of six.) Apparently it never pleased the patron, Rembrandt therefore proceeded to make the larger etched portrait of Van Coppenol (the “Large Coppenol,” which is the artist’s largest portrait print. For the Large Coppenol Rembrandt painted a preliminary sketch in oil.

Catalogue number: Benesch 56 recto.

This drawing is inscribed probably not by Rembrandt: HARMAN GERRITS. vanden Rhijn, a form of Rembrandt’s father’s name.

Catalogue number: Bredius 458.

This painting is an impressive but superficial adaptation of Rembrandt’s mature style. It has not been convincingly attributed to any particular pupil or follower of Rembrandt. The sitter was most likely a scholar or writer with an interest in classical antiquity, as indicated by the antique bust.

Catalogue number: Bartsch 340.

A number of paintings, etchings and drawings by Rembrandt contain the same basic elements: a woman being groomed and holding a letter in her hand. These women are clothed and the scenes take place indoors. They are interpreted as Judith or Esther or a Jewish bride, although no conclusive identifications have yet been found.

Catalogue number: Benesch 292.

Catalogue number: Bredius 460.

This painting is probably the pendant of the Martyrdom of St Stephen (now in Lyon). There are several suggestions regarding the subject of this painting, e.g. the Oath of the Horatii, however, none of them is convincing.

Catalogue number: Bartsch 74.

The so-called Hundred Guilder Print is Rembrandt’s most famous etching. Rembrandt began to make studies for this celebrated print earlier, but in its main types and in its final decisive achievement the etching belongs to the beginning of the mature period. The popular title, found in the literature as early as 1711, is derived from the high price the print is said to have fetched at a sale. According to an anecdote recorded by the eighteenth-century art dealer and collector J.P. Mariette in his Abecedario, it was Rembrandt himself who paid this sensational price for an impression of his own print.

The etching illustrates passages from Chapter 19 of the Gospel of St Matthew. Rembrandt treated the text with liberty; he merged the successive events into a simultaneous one, with Christ in the centre preaching and performing his miracles. According to the text, Christ had come from Galilee, a large multitude following, and he began to preach, healing the sick. The crowd look to the Lord, waiting for their turn to be healed. Near the centre, to the left, a young mother with a child advances to Jesus. St Peter interferes, restraining her, but Christ makes a counter-movement. It is the moment when he says the famous words: ‘Suffer the little children, and forbid them not, for of such is the kingdom of heaven’.

In addition, this chapter of St Matthew contains the story of the rich youth who could not decide whether or not to give his possessions to the poor and follow Christ’s teachings. The young man is seen sitting to the left, in rich attire. Here too, on the upper left, are the Pharisees, arguing among themselves, but not with Jesus, as in the text. A warmth of feeling seems to emanate from him, spreading balm on the suffering souls of the sick, the poor, and the humble. The spell of devoutness and the intimate spiritual union of the composition are mostly due to a general atmosphere of wondrous light and shade that hovers and spreads over the whole scene. It is a light that by its infinitely subtle gradations and floating character transforms the transcendent sphere into reality. A miracle which binds visible energies with the invisible and the sublime is performed before our eyes.

The types of the Pharisees in the Hundred Guilder Print are of a more genuine Jewish countenance than those Rembrandt represented in his early works. Late in the 1640s he began to watch Jews more carefully, and to characterize them more deeply than before.

Catalogue number: Bartsch 74.

The so-called Hundred Guilder Print is Rembrandt’s most famous etching. Rembrandt began to make studies for this celebrated print earlier, but in its main types and in its final decisive achievement the etching belongs to the beginning of the mature period. The popular title, found in the literature as early as 1711, is derived from the high price the print is said to have fetched at a sale. According to an anecdote recorded by the eighteenth-century art dealer and collector J.P. Mariette in his Abecedario, it was Rembrandt himself who paid this sensational price for an impression of his own print.

The etching illustrates passages from Chapter 19 of the Gospel of St Matthew. Rembrandt treated the text with liberty; he merged the successive events into a simultaneous one, with Christ in the centre preaching and performing his miracles. According to the text, Christ had come from Galilee, a large multitude following, and he began to preach, healing the sick. The crowd look to the Lord, waiting for their turn to be healed. Near the centre, to the left, a young mother with a child advances to Jesus. St Peter interferes, restraining her, but Christ makes a counter-movement. It is the moment when he says the famous words: ‘Suffer the little children, and forbid them not, for of such is the kingdom of heaven’.

In addition, this chapter of St Matthew contains the story of the rich youth who could not decide whether or not to give his possessions to the poor and follow Christ’s teachings. The young man is seen sitting to the left, in rich attire. Here too, on the upper left, are the Pharisees, arguing among themselves, but not with Jesus, as in the text. A warmth of feeling seems to emanate from him, spreading balm on the suffering souls of the sick, the poor, and the humble. The spell of devoutness and the intimate spiritual union of the composition are mostly due to a general atmosphere of wondrous light and shade that hovers and spreads over the whole scene. It is a light that by its infinitely subtle gradations and floating character transforms the transcendent sphere into reality. A miracle which binds visible energies with the invisible and the sublime is performed before our eyes.

The types of the Pharisees in the Hundred Guilder Print are of a more genuine Jewish countenance than those Rembrandt represented in his early works. Late in the 1640s he began to watch Jews more carefully, and to characterize them more deeply than before.

Catalogue number: Bartsch 74.

This impression of the second state of the print in the Biblioth�que Nationale, Paris, is inscribed with four quatrains Hendrick Waterloos (d. 1664) who stood close to Rembrandt in the late 1650s and 1660s. The hand-written poem treats themes that can be identified in the print: the kingdom of heaven, Christ as the ruler of all people, as a miracle-maker, as a healer.

Catalogue number: Bredius 134.

The sense of humour entered Rembrandt’s repertoire rather early. The head of a laughing man was a motif that went out into the world under his name in prints of about 1630 by his associate Jan Joris van Vliet.

Not in Bredius.

This is Rembrandt’s earliest known painting, dating from the period when he was apprenticed to the best master in Leiden, Jacob Isaacsz. van Swanenburgh. It belongs too a series illustrating the Five Senses. This had been a popular theme since the sixteenth century, and Rembrandt would have come across many related engravings. However, he did not follow the costumary allegorical format, but painted a genre piece, spiced with a dash of humour, using models from his immediate surroundings. Even at this early stage, his sensitive depiction of reality was evident.

Catalogue number: Bredius 211.

Rembrandt often dressed models in unusual costumes because of their exotic associations. The bear’s-skin cap, dark fur cloak, and massive gold chain and tassel have suggested to many that the sitter was Slavic, but the painting’s title has no factual basis.

Catalogue number: Bredius 146.

Rembrandt began to work as a professional portraitist about 1631. His earliest existing commissioned portraits (Portrait of a Scholar, The Hermitage, St. Petersburg; Portrait of the Amsterdam Merchant Nicholaas Ruts, Frick Collection, New York) are both of that year.

Catalogue number: Benesch 365.

This drawing corresponds to a description of African drummers in a pageant celebrating the marriage in The Hague of Amalia van Solm’s sister in February 1638. However, the headdress of the second figure is more Hungarian than African.

Catalogue number: Benesch 1169.

The back of the drawing contains a note outlining Rembrandt’s tactics for a business meeting.

Catalogue number: Benesch 801.

By far the largest number of Rembrandt’s drawings were executed in pen and ink. He used both quill pen and reed pen. The quill pen is a traditional writing or drawing implement fashioned from the large, hollow outer wing feathers of a goose, swan, raven, or crow. The reed pen is cut from hollow-barreled grass, including canes and bamboo.

In the present drawing the background is drawn largely in quill, the foreground mainly in reed. In the descriptions of the technique of Rembrandt drawings, usually it is not specified whether a quill or reed pen was used or both.

Catalogue number: Benesch 1103.

Rembrandt was a connoisseur of sleep, he made several variations on the theme.

Catalogue number: Bartsch 190.

In some of his works Rembrandt depicted beggars as contemptible characters. The pair of etchings of street people relieving themselves in public belong to this group.

Catalogue number: Benesch 453.

Only a few drawings of animals by Rembrandt survived. One of them is the present sketch depicting a two-humped Bactrian camel. It is the only animal he labeled by name, the inscription reads: Drommedaris. Rembrandt fecit 1633. The name is wrong, the word dromedary is reserved for the single-humped variety.

This drawing is missing since the Second World War.

Catalogue number: Benesch 315.

Catalogue number: Benesch 314.

Catalogue number: Bartsch 191.

In some of his works Rembrandt depicted beggars as contemptible characters. The pair of etchings of street people relieving themselves in public belong to this group.

Catalogue number: Benesch 168.

Studies for the etching Joseph telling his dreams. It shows Joseph’s sister Dinah looking up from her reading to listen him.

Catalogue number: Benesch 390.

This drawing probably represents Jan Lievens who shared a studio with Rembrandt in Leiden.

Catalogue number: Bredius 471.

Among the mythological subjects, the Abduction of Ganymede and the Danaë (1636, The Hermitage, St. Petersburg) are outstanding examples of Rembrandt’s sense of high-pitched drama and expressive chiaroscuro. Both these pictures, done on a monumental scale, are of extreme originality and uncompromising realism.

Ganymede was a shepherd, the son of Tros, a legendary king of Troy. His outstanding beauty caused Jupiter to fall in love with him. According to Ovid (Met. 10: 152-161) the god, having transformed himself into an eagle, carried the youth off to Olympus where he made him his cup-bearer. The myth, which is given in a slightly different version by Homer, found favour in ancient Greece because it appeared to provide religious sanction for homosexual love. The representation in Renaissance and later art shows Ganymede caught in the embrace of, or on the back of, the eagle which bears him upwards, its wings either spread in flight or enfolding the youth, its claws holding his limbs.

Catalogue number: Bredius 471.

Among the mythological subjects, the Abduction of Ganymede and the Danaë (1636, The Hermitage, St. Petersburg) are outstanding examples of Rembrandt’s sense of high-pitched drama and expressive chiaroscuro. Both these pictures, done on a monumental scale, are of extreme originality and uncompromising realism.

Ganymede was a shepherd, the son of Tros, a legendary king of Troy. His outstanding beauty caused Jupiter to fall in love with him. According to Ovid (Met. 10: 152-161) the god, having transformed himself into an eagle, carried the youth off to Olympus where he made him his cup-bearer. The myth, which is given in a slightly different version by Homer, found favour in ancient Greece because it appeared to provide religious sanction for homosexual love. The representation in Renaissance and later art shows Ganymede caught in the embrace of, or on the back of, the eagle which bears him upwards, its wings either spread in flight or enfolding the youth, its claws holding his limbs.

Catalogue number: Benesch 92.

This is a study for the painting Abduction of Ganymede.

Catalogue number: Bartsch 30.

Catalogue number: Bartsch 273.

The sitter of this portrait, Abraham Francen (b. 1613) was an apothecary and art collector in Amsterdam. He and his brother Daniel were involved in financial transactions with Rembrandt in the mid-1650s. Francen is depicted in a modest interior, bare but for a table and several works of art.

Catalogue number: Bartsch 34.

Catalogue number: Bartsch 29.

Rembrandt had a fascination for miniature paintings from the Mughal court of India. He drew a series of some twenty-five copies of Mughal miniatures that he may have owned. The present etching is based on one of the drawings.

Catalogue number: Bartsch 35.

Catalogue number: Bartsch 28.

In this etching Rembrandt depicts Adam and Eve in an encounter with a serpent that seems to personify the Evil.

In contrast to Gospel subjects, which he invested with an air of the miraculous, Rembrandt often treated Old Testament events in a down-to-earth manner, as ordinary episodes from human history. Adam and Eve’s naturally imperfect bodies may have been borrowed from the beggars he often sketched in the poor quarters of Leiden.

Catalogue number: Bredius 574.

Catalogue number: Bredius 575.

Catalogue number: Bredius 360.

Agatha Bas (1611-1658) was a member of one of Amsterdam’s leading families, the middle daughter of Dirk Jacobsz. Bas, a director of the Dutch East India Company who had served as burgomaster of the city on several occasions. She married Nicholas van Bambeeck (1596-1661), a successful cloth merchant who was an immigrant from Flanders, when she was twenty-seven. Rembrandt had probably known Bambeeck for some time before he painted both his portrait and the companion portrait of Agatha. In 1631 Bambeeck was living in the Sintanthonisbreestraat, where Rembrandt was also staying in the house of the art dealer Hendrick van Uylenburgh; both Rembrandt and Bambeeck invested in Uylenburgh’s business in 1640.

The pair of canvasses depicting Bambeeck and his wife are superb examples of the accomplished and imposing portraits bathed in soft light which Rembrandt was painting in the years around 1640. He placed both husband and wife in illusionistic painted frames, an effect heightened by the cloak and glove seemingly hanging over the edge of the frame in Nicholas’s portrait, and the fingers of Agatha’s left hand which appear to project beyond the frame here. Unfortunately both paintings have been cut down at the top and sides, removing part of the painted frames and so weakening the trompe l’oeil effect. Originally the portraits would have been shown in arched ebony frames, echoing their painted counterparts, and so further merging painted appearances and reality. The paintings hung together until they were sold in London in 1814. Agatha Bas was bought in 1819 by Lord Yarmouth acting for the Prince Regent and so entered the Royal Collection. Nicolaes van Bambeeck was purchased by the Mus�e Royale des Beaux-Arts, Brussels, in 1841.

Catalogue number: Bredius 99.

The pair of this painting, depicting Stadholder Frederik Hendrik (now in the House of Orange-Nassau Historic Collection Trust, The Hague) was painted by Gerrit van Honthorst. Rembrandt painted this portrait to match the existing portrait by van Honthorst. This pairing was a one-time incident.

This painting is not included in the Bredius catalogue.

Figures or scenes from the New Testament are relatively rare in the works of seventeenth-century Dutch painters. For Rembrandt, however, the Bible was an inexhaustible source of inspiration, providing with him innumerable examples of human joys and sorrows. He depicted his Biblical characters in the prosaic environment of ordinary Dutch people of his time, showing them as protagonists in the eternal human drama, moved by love, anxiety, wrath, treachery, humility or pride.

This picture is a reference to the dream in which St Joseph was warned by an angel to flee into Egypt so that Jesus might escape the Massacre of the Innocents. The Holy family is shown resting in a dim stable; Mary is protected from the cold by a large shawl which she has also folded round the Infant on her lap so that only his tiny face is visible. Joseph, depicted as a clumsy Dutch peasant, is seen awakening from the sleep of exhaustion, dazed by a brilliant apparition which puts a hand on his shoulder as a sign of heavenly comfort, support and encouragement for the weak. The angel is the source of the warm golden light suffusing the whole group.

This painting is one of more than 30 paintings formerly considered to have been authentic creations of Rembrandt made about 1650 that have since been degraded and left out from the Bredius catalogue. However, this painting has a powerful tie to Rembrandt - several authors thought it was the joint work of Rembrandt and a pupil - but the nature of that tie is not understood.

Catalogue number: Bredius 70.

This portrait, together with two other Dutch pictures, was apparently given to Charles I by Sir Robert Kerr (1578-1654), presumably before 1633 when he was created Earl of Ancrum. It is possible that Kerr obtained the paintings while in Amsterdam on a diplomatic mission to express the king’s condolences to the King and Queen of Bohemia on the death of their eldest son, Frederick Henry, who drowned in January 1629.

Technical examination of the present work has revealed that Rembrandt reused a panel on which he had previously made a study of an old man, posed the other way up. This may have been intended as an evangelist with an attribute placed in the lower right (currently upper left) corner. The positioning of the head in the finished portrait is asymmetrical, which suggests that the panel has been cut down unevenly.

The same sitter appears in a number of early paintings by Rembrandt as well as in several etchings and a drawing, none of which is dated. In most of these the figure wears a hood. There is, however, no firm corroborative evidence for an identification with the artist’s mother, Neeltge Willemsdr. van Suytbrouck (1568-1640). She was the daughter of a baker and married Harmen Gerritsz. van Rijn, a miller, in 1589. Of the eight children from the marriage Rembrandt was the seventh.

Possibly the figure in this and the related works is too elderly to be a true depiction of the artist’s mother, then aged sixty. Consequently, it has been argued that it is not so much a traditional portrait as a specific subject, such as a prophetess in the biblical sense. Significantly, the same figure is depicted by Gerrit Dou, who joined Rembrandt’s studio as a pupil in 1628. On stylistic grounds, notably the small neat brushstrokes depicting the wrinkled skin and the even tonality, the date implied by its acquisition in Amsterdam by Sir Robert Kerr in 1629 is acceptable. Some writers, however, ignore that sequence of events, suggesting a date of around ¹⁶³⁰⁄₁, in which case the provenance has to be rethought. Yet others prefer an attribution to Rembrandt’s studio companion, Lievens.

Catalogue number: Benesch 207.

Rembrandt occasionally enhanced the modeling of mass and volume by applying opaque white watercolour to create highlights on his drawings. However, he more often used to opaque white medium to correct or edit out lines that he wished to soften or suppress. The medium, based on a solution of lead white, often becomes more transparent with age, revealing the covered ink lines. In the present drawing, the feather in the man’s cap was intended to be deleted, but has now reappeared.

Catalogue number: Bredius 601.

Catalogue number: Bredius 607.

Protestants like Rembrandt repudiated the cult of saints. They rejected the idea that any mortal could mediate between God and man. But that did not prevent them from honouring certain fellow humans as more holy than others. In his art, Rembrandt honoured apostles, evangelists, prophets, and especially, Mary the Mother of God.

Catalogue number: Bredius 478.

This imaginary portrait, one of Rembrandt’s best-known works, was painted for Don Antonio Ruffo, a wealthy Sicilian nobleman and Rembrandt’s only foreign patron, who had asked Rembrandt for a portrait of a philosopher. The artist sent the painting to Messina (Sicily) in 1654. He was paid 500 Dutch florine (gulden) for it.

Rather than choose a single figure, the enormously inventive artist found a way to present three of the great men of antiquity: Aristotle, Homer, and Alexander the Great. Aristotle, the great Greek philosopher of the fourth century B.C., is shown in his library dressed in the robes of a Renaissance humanist. He rests his hand on a bust of Homer and wears a splendid chain bearing a medallion of Alexander the Great, who had at one time been Aristotle’s pupil. The figure of Homer was certainly based on one of several Hellenistic busts owned by Rembrandt; the figure of Aristotle is reminiscent of Rembrandt’s portraits of the Jews of the Amsterdam ghetto, whom he had often used as models in his biblical paintings. The solemn stillness of Aristotle’s study, the eloquence of his fingers resting on the bust of the blind poet, and above all the brooding mystery in his face unite to communicate an image of deep thought.

Catalogue number: Bredius 478.

This imaginary portrait, one of Rembrandt’s best-known works, was painted for Don Antonio Ruffo, a wealthy Sicilian nobleman and Rembrandt’s only foreign patron, who had asked Rembrandt for a portrait of a philosopher. The artist sent the painting to Messina (Sicily) in 1654. He was paid 500 Dutch florine (gulden) for it.

Rather than choose a single figure, the enormously inventive artist found a way to present three of the great men of antiquity: Aristotle, Homer, and Alexander the Great. Aristotle, the great Greek philosopher of the fourth century B.C., is shown in his library dressed in the robes of a Renaissance humanist. He rests his hand on a bust of Homer and wears a splendid chain bearing a medallion of Alexander the Great, who had at one time been Aristotle’s pupil. The figure of Homer was certainly based on one of several Hellenistic busts owned by Rembrandt; the figure of Aristotle is reminiscent of Rembrandt’s portraits of the Jews of the Amsterdam ghetto, whom he had often used as models in his biblical paintings. The solemn stillness of Aristotle’s study, the eloquence of his fingers resting on the bust of the blind poet, and above all the brooding mystery in his face unite to communicate an image of deep thought.

Catalogue number: Bartsch 284.

Arnout Tholinx (1609-1679) was an inspector of medical colleges in Amsterdam.

Catalogue number: Bredius 468.

The subject of the painting is debated. Some of the critics thinks it represents Artemisia taking the ashes of Mausolos, while others assume it shows Sophonisba taking the cup of poison. In any cases, it is a representation of matrimonial love therefore it is assumed that the painting depicts Saskia, the wife of the artist.

Artemisia was the wife of Mausolus, the satrap of Caria in Asia Minor. She succeeded her husband on his death in 353 B.C., and erected a great monument to his memory at Halicarnassus - hence ‘mausoleum’. It was one of the seven wonders of the ancient world. It was said that she mixed the ashes of Mausolus in liquid which she then drank, thereby making herself, observes Valerius Maximus, making of herself a living, breathing tomb. Artemisia symbolizes a widow’s devotion to her husband’s memory. In Renaissance painting she is depicted holding a cup or goblet.

Catalogue number: Bredius 487.

Like his masater Pieter Lastman, Rembrandt painted angels and visions. One of rembrandt’s earliest paintings shows an angel interfering in human life, and it is derived from a similar work by Lastman.

The biblical story (Num. 22:1-35) represented here is the following. The arrival of the Israelites in the Jordan valley alarmed Balak, king of Moab, who sent for Balaam, a foreigner, to pronounce a curse on them. On his journey an angel, invisible to Balaam, barred the way, causing his ass to turn aside. This led to an altercation between the man and his beast in which the latter, like the animals of fable, acquired the gift of speech. Balaam’s eyes were then opened and he saw the angel with a drawn sword. The conversion of Balaam by the vision of the angel was regarded as prefiguration of the appearance of Christ to the apostle Thomas.

Catalogue number: Bredius 521.

The story of David and Bathsheba is in the Bible (II Sam. 11 :2-17). One evening while he walked on the roof of his palace David saw below him a beautiful woman bathing. This was Bathsheba, the wife of Uriah the Hittite who was then away on service in David’s army. In an act of seignorial arrogance he had her brought to the palace and made love to her. She became pregnant as a consequence. Later he wrote to Uriah’s army commander saying, ‘Set ye Uriah in the forefront of the hottest battle … that he may be smitten and die.’ This indeed came about and David afterwards married Bathsheba. The child survived only a few days. David subsequently did penance.

Bathsheba is usually depicted at her toilet in various states of nudity. Earlier Renaissance artists show her clothed and merely washing her hands or feet, helped by attendants. Sometimes a messenger is shown arriving with a letter, though the Bible does not record this detail. David’s morally indefensible conduct did not deter the medieval Church from drawing a typological parallel: he prefigured Christ and Bathsheba the Church.

Rembrandt’s painting shows Bathsheba as she receives the message of King David summoning her. The sculpture-like position of the woman is inspired by antique reliefs.

Catalogue number: Bredius 521.

The story of David and Bathsheba is in the Bible (II Sam. 11 :2-17). One evening while he walked on the roof of his palace David saw below him a beautiful woman bathing. This was Bathsheba, the wife of Uriah the Hittite who was then away on service in David’s army. In an act of seigniorial arrogance he had her brought to the palace and made love to her. She became pregnant as a consequence. Later he wrote to Uriah’s army commander saying, ‘Set ye Uriah in the forefront of the hottest battle … that he may be smitten and die.’ This indeed came about and David afterwards married Bathsheba. The child survived only a few days. David subsequently did penance.

Bathsheba is usually depicted at her toilet in various states of nudity. Earlier Renaissance artists show her clothed and merely washing her hands or feet, helped by attendants. Sometimes a messenger is shown arriving with a letter, though the Bible does not record this detail. David’s morally indefensible conduct did not deter the medieval Church from drawing a typological parallel: he prefigured Christ and Bathsheba the Church.

Rembrandt’s painting shows Bathsheba as she receives the message of King David summoning her. The sculpture-like position of the woman is inspired by antique reliefs.

Catalogue number: Benesch 257.

This drawing is in the friendship album of Burchard Grossmann.

Catalogue number: Bartsch 176.

Catalogue number: Bredius 467.

Formerly, the painting was often considered to depict Rembrandt’s fianc�e, Saskia, serving as a model in his studio. However, the painting is not a portrait of any kind, and Saskia van Uylenburgh bore no more than a slight resemblance to the woman seen in the present picture. The painting was probably commissioned as a decoration, perhaps in The Hague where Rembrandt worked for a period in 1632.

Catalogue number: Bredius 497.

Late in the 1640s Rembrandt began to watch Jews more carefully, and to characterize them more deeply than before. Rembrandt had the opportunity to study the Jewish population of Amsterdam. From the time he purchased his large house in the Sint-Anthonisbreestraat (later the Jodenbreestraat) in 1639 until he was forced to sell it in 1658 he lived on the edge of the largest Jewish community in Holland. Among his Jewish acquaintances were the distinguished rabbi, author, and printer Menasseh ben Israel and the physician Ephraim Bonus; he made portraits of Bonus and perhaps one of Menasseh too. Menasseh, who lived near Rembrandt, commissioned the artist to illustrate one of his own books and he most probably provided him with the form of the cryptic Aramaic Menetekel inscription from the Book of Daniel that appears on the wall in his spectacularly dramatic Belshazzar’s Feast.

The scene illustrates chapter 5 of the Old Testament Book of Daniel. Belshazzar, King of Babylon, gave a great feast at which wine was drunk in the golden and silver vessels looted by his father Nebuchadnezzar, from the temple in Jerusalem, and ‘gods of gold, and of silver, of brass, of iron, of wood, and of stone…which see not, nor hear, nor know’ were praised while God himself was not glorified. And there ‘came forth fingers of a man’s hand and wrote…upon the plaster of the wall’. Only the Jewish seer Daniel was able to read the supernatural inscription MENE TEKEL UPHARSIN which foretold the defeat - in fact, the death - of Belshazzar that same night and the partition of his kingdom among the Medes and the Persians.

Rembrandt’s intense familiary with the physiognomies of the Spanish Jews (the Sephardim) and the Eastern Jews (the Ashkenazim), who were allowed to live in Amsterdam in relative freedom during the seventeenth century, helped him to enrich his biblical representations. His interest in them was not merely a romantic and pictorial one. To Rembrandt the Jews were the people of the Bible, and with his deepening realism he wanted to become more authentic in his biblical representations. He found among them inspiration for mildly passive and emotional characters, and he also studied the harder and more intellectual types, who show the perseverance of the Jews and furnished models for his figures of the Pharisees. Even more remarkable is the series of portraits of Jesus made around the same time which are based on a Jewish model. Rembrandt, it seems, was the first artist to derive his Christ-type from a personal study of Jews.

Suggested listening (streaming mp3, 11 minutes):

George Frideric Handel: Belshazzar’s aria, choir, and martial symphony

Catalogue number: Benesch 185.

This drawing is a study for the etching “The hundred-guilder print.” The figures of the blind and maimed add new dimensions to the Christ of the print.

Boaz confirmed his promise to marry Ruth by casting barley into her veil. Ruth, who had come to Canaan with her mother-in-law Naomi, had gone out into Boaz’ fields to glean ears of corn, and had spent the night lying at his feet. Rembrandt conveyed this scene from the Book of Ruth with broad, contrasting strokes. He omitted the background altogether - what mattered to him were the figures and their expressions.

Catalogue number: Bredius 76.

Probably the artist’s father. This is an authentic work as established after restoration. A copy from 1633 is also known.

Catalogue number: Bredius 72.

This little tronie (character head) is one of the earliest indications in Rembrandt’s oeuvre of his interest in oriental culture. The sitter had modelled for Rembrandt and other painters in his circle in Leiden in a variety of roles.

In these years Rembrandt was concerned above all with light and shadow, which would occupy him to the end of his life. He experimented with light when studying and recording the forms of the head. In the present painting our attention is immediately drawn to the turban by the light coming from behind on the left, which casts most of the face in shadow.

Catalogue number: Benesch 770.

Servius Sulpicius Galba (BC 3— AD 69) was a Roman emperor for seven months (AD 68–69), whose administration was priggishly upright, though his advisers allegedly were corrupt. His marble bust was part of Rembrandt’s collection in the “art room” of his house. The collection contained prints, drawings, sculptures, rarities and curiosities.

Catalogue number: Bredius 532.

A decade later Rembrandt produced an etched version of this biblical subject.

Catalogue number: Bredius 566.

Christ’s forgiveness of the adulteress is described in the Gospel of St John, chapter 8. Rembrandt shows the moment at which the Pharisees, attempting to outwit Jesus, ask him whether, in accordance with the Mosaic law, she should be stoned to death. Jesus replies ‘He that is without sin among you, let him cast the first stone’.

The painting is an outstanding example of Rembrandt’s gifts as a colourist, an aspect of his art which is sometimes forgotten. Within the dark interior of the temple, golds, reds, greens and browns glow as they are struck by a strong fall of light. In some respects this is an unusual painting for its date, 1644, in that the composition - the small figures dwarfed by the cavernous space of the temple - as well as the elaboration of detail and the degree of finish, especially in the background, hark back to the style of paintings of a decade earlier (such as The Presentation in the Temple of 1631). However, the broader treatment of the foreground figures is consistent with Rembrandt’s greater freedom of handling in the 1640s and, above all, the quieter, restrained mood of the picture and its size accord with a move away from the intensely dramatic, large-scale Biblical scenes of a few years earlier.

The painting has an interesting history. It was almost certainly the painting of this subject which, at 1500 guilders, was the highest valued item in the inventory of the Amsterdam art dealer, Johannes de Renialme, drawn up in 1657. Subsequently it was owned by the Six family until sold to a dealer in 1803. Four years later it was sold in London to John Julius Angerstein whose paintings, purchased by the British government in 1824, formed the basis of the National Gallery’s collection.

Catalogue number: Bredius 592A.

Before Rembrandt began to etch and draw the outdoors, he painted it into the backgrounds of his history paintings. This went on into the 1640s and 1650s, but it came to an end at the very time when he stopped drawing landscape. After the present painting, none of his histories are situated in a natural setting.

Catalogue number: Bredius 588.

This painting shows the meeting at Jacob’s well and Christ’s request for water. As if observed first hand, almost shocking in its documentary immediacy, Rembrandt’s scene is among the most effective renderings of the dramatic dialog.

Catalogue number: Bartsch 71.

Catalogue number: Bredius 589.

This painting could be a student work that depends on a Rembrandt etching.

Catalogue number: Bartsch 69.

Rembrandt executed a painting of this subject about a decade earlier.

Catalogue number: Bredius 547

This painting is Rembrandt’s only painted seascape. Dated 1633, it was made shortly after Rembrandt moved to Amsterdam from his native Leiden, when he was establishing himself as the city’s leading painter of portraits and historical subjects. The detailed rendering of the scene, the figures’ varied expressions, the relatively polished brushwork, and the bright colouring are characteristic of Rembrandt’s early style.

The painting was stolen from the museum in 1990.

Catalogue number: Bredius 547.

This painting is Rembrandt’s only painted seascape. Dated 1633, it was made shortly after Rembrandt moved to Amsterdam from his native Leiden, when he was establishing himself as the city’s leading painter of portraits and historical subjects. The detailed rendering of the scene, the figures’ varied expressions, the relatively polished brushwork, and the bright colouring are characteristic of Rembrandt’s early style.

The painting was stolen from the museum in 1990.

Catalogue number: Bredius 543A.

This painting probably functioned as a trial piece for the abbreviated Passion series of five paintings produced between 1633 and 1639 in a commission from the court through Constantijn Huygens.

Catalogue number: Benesch 543.

This is one of the many surviving studies for the etching “The hundred-guilder print.”

Catalogue number: Bartsch 76.

In the 1650s Rembrandt returned to the Passion, this time of large drypoint prints. The series remained incomplete, only the Ecce Homo (Christ presented to the people), and the Three crosses (Christ crucified between the two thieves) were completed.

Catalogue number: Bartsch 76.

The removal of the foreground figures occured in the sixth state.

In the 1650s Rembrandt returned to the Passion, this time of large drypoint prints. The series remained incomplete, only the Ecce Homo (Christ presented to the people), and the Three crosses (Christ crucified between the two thieves) were completed.

Catalogue number: Bredius 629.

This painting is a workshop product. It has considerable quality and a contribution by Rembrandt to the execution of the face is assumed. The subject of the painting is also disputed. St James the Less, one of the twelve apostles, has been considered the subject of the painting by several scholars.

Catalogue number: Bartsch 222.

Catalogue number: Bartsch 271.

Cornelis Claesz. Anslo (1592-1646) was an Amsterdam cloth merchant and Mennonite preacher. Rembrandt was commissioned to paint him and his wife Aeltje Gerritsdr. Schouten. This commission had an apparent spin off of an etching of him alone.

Catalogue number: Benesch 758.

The outlines of this drawing are indented with a stylus for transfer to a copper plate.

Cornelis Claesz. Anslo (1592-1646) was an Amsterdam cloth merchant and Mennonite preacher. Rembrandt was commissioned to paint him and his wife Aeltje Gerritsdr. Schouten. This commission had an apparent spin off of an etching of him alone, for which this preparatory drawing has been preserved.

Catalogue number: Benesch 759.

Cornelis Claesz. Anslo (1592-1646) was an Amsterdam cloth merchant and Mennonite preacher. Rembrandt was commissioned to paint him and his wife Aeltje Gerritsdr. Schouten. This drawing is a study for the portrait.

Catalogue number: Bartsch 219.

Catalogue number: Bredius 470.

This painting is based on a character from mythology, but it has a vanitas aspect too. Traditionally the bubble stands as a symbol for the transience of life. The winged god of love was often accompanied in the seventeenth century by various symbols of mortality. Rembrandt’s version avoids banality because of its high artistic quality and expressiveness. The infant’s face turns innocently towards us, making us forget the duplicity of the game. Cupid lights the flame of love, yet stands ready to extinguish it again.

This typical early work by Rembrandt is signed and dated bottom right: Rembrandt/f:. 1634.

Catalogue number: Bredius 474.

Mythological subject. Danaë, the daughter of king Acrisius, who had been foretold peril from the hand of his grandson, was placed in a tower, under the care of her old nurse. Zeus (Jupiter) anamoured of Danaë penetrated to her in the shape of a golden shower of rain.

Rembrandt executed this painting in 1636, but later he revised it twice as shown by the X-ray investigations. In spite of these revisions the painting remained a homogeneous composition.

Danaë is frequently represented in Renaissance and Baroque painting. You can view other depictions of Danaë in the Web Gallery of Art.

Suggested listening (streaming mp3, 5 minutes):

Richard Strauss: Danaë’s Love, Danaë’s monologue

Catalogue number: Benesch 887.

Catalogue number: Bredius 488.

Catalogue number: Bredius 531.

Biblical subject. King David captivated by Uriah’s wife sends him to the war. In a letter to his chieftain, which he handed to him, he orders Uriah to be sent to the most dangerous place in the battle. According to another interpretation the painting represents Haman Recognizes His Fate.

Rembrandt’s biblical canvases show a search for ways to present the time of the action through the means of painting. From wild Baroque gesticulation he gradually moves to focus on the main elements: composition, lighting, and colour. The bloody crimson cloak, the flashes of light on the protagonist’s face and hands. and his forward inclination enable us to sense the approach of his life’s dramatic end. Whoever he is, he is directed by divine providence that is indifferent to the fate of the individual yet elevates him as a particle of the Deity.