© 2019 The Leiden Collection

Bust of a Bearded Old Man
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Bust of a Bearded Old Man
Rembrandt van Rijn
(Leiden 1606 – 1669 Amsterdam)1633
oil on paper, mounted on panel
8.9 x 6.4 cm
signed and dated along top: “Rembrandt
1633”
RR-116

How to cite
Yeager-Crasselt, Lara. “Bust of a Bearded Old Man.” In The Leiden Collection Catalogue. Edited by Arthur
K. Wheelock Jr. New York.
https://www.theleidencollection.com/archive/ (accessed March 22, 2019).
This page is available on the site’s Archive. PDF of every version of this page is available on the Archive,
and the Archive is managed by a permanent URL. Archival copies will never be deleted. New versions
are added only when a substantive change to the narrative occurs.

© 2019 The Leiden Collection

Bust of a Bearded Old Man
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Situated close to the picture plane, head turned sharply and eyes castComparative Figures

downward, the elderly man depicted in Rembrandt’s small, monochromaticoil sketch pulsates with life. With his lips slightly parted and his bodyseeming to rise with a passing breath, he occupies a world that is nearly
the viewer’s own. Rembrandt’s vigorous brushstrokes animate the sitter’s
psychological being and physical presence, making this bust-length image
seem far larger than it is in reality. Light streaming in from the upper left
falls on the right side of the elderly man’s face and models his threedimensional form. His eyes are open and alert as they focus intensely uponsomething beyond the composition. Rembrandt emphasized the sitter’semotional energy through the rhythmic interplay of grays and browns,
adding ocher and white accents that appear on the subject’s wiry beard
and the curly hair tumbling over his forehead. Both delicate and powerful,Bust of a Bearded Old Man encapsulates the profound humanity of
Rembrandt’s finest works.
Bust of a Bearded Old Man is Rembrandt’s smallest known painting, andthe only grisaille by the artist in private hands.[1] The deep resonance it
carries for the beholder arises from an extraordinary paradox: its size—it

Fig 1. Rembrandt van Rijn, Old
Man Seated with Folded Hands,
ca. 1631, black and red chalk on
reddish-yellow washed paper,
incised, 22.6 x 15.7 cm,
Kupferstichkabinett, Staatliche
Museen, Berlin, Germany, inv. no.
KDZ 1151, bpk Bildagentur /Kupferstichkabinett, Staatliche
Museen / Art Resource, NY.

fits in the palm of one’s hand—belies its monumentality. As Wilhelm Martin,
who was then director of the Mauritshuis, noted in 1923, all of Rembrandt’s“prodigious virtuosity” is found in the power of the bearded man’s face.[2]The painting was at that point in the collection of Baron Leon Janssen in
Brussels, but Martin would not forget it, and when the painting was
auctioned in 1927 after the Baron’s death, the Mauritshuis actively soughtto acquire it. The museum, however, was outbid by Knoedler’s, which
immediately offered the painting to Andrew W. Mellon, noting in its letter toMellon, “This is considered by the greatest connoisseurs of Rembrandt as[3]

one of his greatest gems.”

Rembrandt’s interest in depicting the physical and psychological characterof aging men and women emerged in the late 1620s, when he was a young
artist in Leiden, and continued unabated throughout his life. The elderly,

Fig 2. Rembrandt van Rijn, Old
Man with Beard Facing
Downwards, Three Quarters, tothe Right, 1631, etching withannotations in pen, 12 x 18 cm,
Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam, inv.
no. RP-P-1959-667.

whether family members, models in his studio, or random figures heencountered conversing on street corners, clearly fascinated Rembrandt
for their expressive physical qualities and underlying humanity.[4] He madeindividual character studies, or tronies, of the elderly in drawings, etchings,
and paintings, and these works often served as inspiration for figures in his
biblical and mythological scenes.[5]© 2019 The Leiden Collection

Bust of a Bearded Old Man
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Rembrandt painted Bust of a Bearded Old Man in 1633, shortly after hehad settled in Amsterdam, revisiting—and in many ways reinventing—afigural type that had preoccupied him when he was in Leiden. In a group ofdrawings and etchings that he executed in 1630 and 1631, Rembrandt
depicted an elderly man with a thick, wiry beard, large forehead, anddistinctive features.[6] A core image from this group is a red-chalk drawingof the figure seen full length and gazing downward as he sits in an armchairwith hands folded in his lap (fig 1).[7] The drawing is a masterly depiction ofmood, not only because of the elderly man’s reflective pose but also
because of the strong contrasts of light and shade that play out in richvariations of red chalk. The related etchings that Rembrandt made in
1630–31 are bust-length images that focus on the bearded man’s headand upper body (fig 2).[8] In each of these etchings, Rembrandt subtly
varied the man’s pose by changing the angle of his head and altering the

Fig 3. Rembrandt van Rijn, Ecce
Homo, 1634, oil on paper
mounted onto canvas, 54.4 x 44.5
cm, National Gallery, London,bought 1894, inv. no. NG1400, ©
National Gallery, London / Art
Resource, NY.

length and texture of his beard. The loose and fluid lines of the etchingneedle enhance the plasticity of the figure. Most importantly, Rembrandt
adjusted the intensity and focus of his chiaroscuro effects to convey a
different psychological state of mind in each of the etchings.[9]Bust of a Bearded Old Man transcends Rembrandt’s depictions of theelderly man seen in the earlier etchings. Boldly executed, the figure in thisoil sketch fills the composition, his darkened forearm extending beyond thepicture plane. The man’s physical appearance is also somewhat different,
as curly hair now falls over his wrinkled forehead, visually evoking his
active mind and emotional energy. Rembrandt created this tronie with great
assuredness and seeming speed, laying out the entire composition alla
prima and making no changes during the painting process.[10] He exploitedthe physical characteristics of paint, oscillating between controlled

Fig 4. Rembrandt van Rijn,
Drawing from Album amicorum II
van Burchard Grossman, 1634,
pen and brown ink with wash, 8.9
x 7.1 cm, Koninklijke Bibliotheek,
National Library of theNetherlands, The Hague.

refinement and loose, textured bravura. For example, while thick, fluid
strokes define the man’s sleeve, the ground layer remains visible in otherparts of his robe and hair. It is unlikely, however, that Rembrandt painted
this image directly from life (naar het leven). His adaptation of a figuralmotif developed in Leiden suggests that he rendered it uit den gheest, orfrom his imagination, nevertheless imbuing it with the sensitivity and[11]

immediacy of a life study.

Scholars have consistently remarked on the extraordinary character ofBust

Fig 5. Rembrandt van Rijn’s Bustof a Bearded Old Man, 1633,
displayed in a velvet travel box
commissioned by Andrew Mellon.

of a Bearded Old Man , although the small size of this grisaille oil sketch
and its unusual support—paper mounted on panel—have elicited a numberof differing opinions about its original function.[12] In 1968, Horst Gersonsuggested that the painting represented “a fragment of a grisaille sketch,”© 2019 The Leiden Collection

Bust of a Bearded Old Man
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but the integrity of the composition as a whole and its “self-contained”
nature argue otherwise.[13] The bold black lines that surround thecomposition, which act as a kind of framing device, as well as thebrushstrokes that extend confidently along the edges of the paper, indicatethat the painting has not been reduced in size.[14]In the 1980s, Bob Haak and Josua Bruyn, members of the Rembrandt
Research Project, suggested that, because of its size and paper support,
Bust of a Bearded Old Man may have been intended as a preparatory oil
sketch, or modello, for an etching or engraving.[15] The limited tones of
blacks, whites, and grays in grisaille were beneficial for working out thedesign of a print, particularly in the depiction of light and shadow.[16] Artists
and printmakers employed this practice regularly in the Netherlands in thesixteenth and seventeenth centuries, and Rembrandt himself used it on atleast one occasion. The Ecce Homo from 1634 (fig 3), which he executedin grisaille, was transferred directly onto an etching plate.[17] Rembrandt
produced several other grisaille sketches in the mid-1630s, including
Joseph Telling His Dreams, 1634 (Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam), but it isunclear whether they were also designs intended for prints, as nocorresponding etchings for any of them survive.[18] The narrative subject
matter, multifigural composition, and coarse handling of these grisailles,
however, share little with the character of Bust of a Bearded Old Man ,whose powerful ability to move the viewer—in its painterly technique andemotional spirit—suggests that Rembrandt intended it as an independent
work of art.[19]Haak and Bruyn also proposed that Rembrandt may have paintedBust of a
Bearded Old Man for an album amicorum, or friendship album.[20] Theysuggested that this context could explain the painting’s large signature anddate, and paper support.[21] Their point of reference was a pen-and-washdrawing of an old man that Rembrandt executed for theAlbum amicorum II
van Burchard Grossmann in 1634 (fig 4).[22] Depicted half length and in
three-quarter view, the drawing of a bearded man, with his head turnedand his left arm placed prominently in the foreground, bears a number ofsimilarities to Bust of a Bearded Old Man . Yet this delicate drawing, whichis accompanied by a moralizing inscription, has an entirely different
character than the oil sketch in The Leiden Collection.[23] Moreover, as
Albert Blankert has rightly argued, the physical character of an oil painting,particularly in a work painted with this rich impasto, makes it unlikely that it
was intended for the pages of an album amicorum.[24]© 2019 The Leiden Collection

Bust of a Bearded Old Man
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The confident, self-contained nature of Bust of a Bearded Old Man argues
strongly that Rembrandt painted this remarkable oil sketch as anindependent work of art. Intimately connected to his ongoing interest in
depicting reflective, elderly men, the painting is one of Rembrandt’s mostcompelling explorations of the physical and psychological character of such
figures. By executing this study in grisaille, Rembrandt captured subtleties
of form, light, and shade in unparalleled ways, evoking the inner life andindividuality of this expressive sitter. Bust of a Bearded Old Man is
exceptional for its visual power and masterly technique, and for the way itallows the viewer to look closely and reflect deeply about the humanemotions so poignantly captured in this small masterpiece.
Bust of a Bearded Old Man carries an illustrious provenance that stretches
back to the late eighteenth century. One of its most important owners was
Andrew W. Mellon, who acquired the painting from Knoedler’s in 1928, andit immediately became one of the jewels of his collection.[25] Mellon had a
special velvet-encased travel box made for the painting, which still exists(
fig 5). It is rumored that he carried the work with him everywhere he wentand otherwise displayed it on his desk. Bust of a Bearded Old Man
captivated the present collector over fifteen years ago when he first saw itin an exhibition at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston,[26] and, like Wilhelm
Martin, he never forgot it. He was finally able to acquire it in 2018, and thissmall gem is now one of the pinnacles of The Leiden Collection’s extensive
assemblage of works by Rembrandt.

- Lara Yeager-Crasselt
2019© 2019 The Leiden Collection

Bust of a Bearded Old Man
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Endnotes
1. For a discussion of Rembrandt’s other works in grisaille, see below.
2. Wilhelm Martin described the painting in the collection of Baron Janssen in Brussels in
1923 as “toute la prodigieuse virtuosité du maître se trahit dans cette tête puissante.”
Wilhelm Martin, Catalogue de la Collection de Peintures du Baron Janssen a Bruxelles(Brussels, 1923), no. 94.
3. The letter continues, “It is the smallest painting by the artist to exist and has a very
distinguished pedigree, which will be sent to you when we render our bill in due course. It isa unique little picture of the very highest possible quality—signed and dated. The greatMuseum who were the under-bidders own twenty of the finest works in existence by the
Master, which will give you an idea how much they prize this little gem.” The letter, dated
June 8, 1928, was written by Carman H. Messmore, who was then an art dealer withKnoedler & Co. GRI Digital Collections, M. Knoedler & Co., Letter copying book: Domestic
letters,

1928

May

22–1928

September

7,

leaf

170,

http://hdl.handle.net/10020/2012m54b1434 (accessed January 11, 2019).
4. See, for example, Christiaan Vogelaar and Gerbrand Korevaar, eds.,Rembrandt’s Mother:
Myth and Reality (Exh. cat. Leiden, Stedelijk Museum de Lakenhal) (Leiden, 2005).
5. See, for example, Two Old Men Disputing, 1628 (National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne);
Head of an Old Man Wearing a Cap, ca. 1630 (Agnes Etherington Art Centre, Queen’s
University, Kingston); and Jeremiah Lamenting the Destruction of Jerusalem , 1630
(Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam). Rembrandt shared this interest with Jan Lievens; see, forinstance, Lievens’s Bearded Man in a Beret , ca. 1630 (National Gallery of Art, Washington,
D.C.).
6. For the etchings, see discussion below. For Rembrandt’s drawings of old men in red chalk,
see Otto Benesch, The Drawings of Rembrandt, ed. Eva Benesch, 6 vols. (London, 1973),
1: no. 20, fig. 20, no. 40, fig. 40, no. 41, fig. 50; Martin Royalton-Kisch, “The Drawings ofRembrandt:

A

Revisionof

Otto

Benesch’s

Catalogue

Raisonné,”

www.rembrandtcatalogue.net. For further discussion, see Holm Bevers, Peter Schatborn,
and Barbara Welzel, Rembrandt: The Master and His Workshop: Drawings and Etchings(Exh. cat. Berlin, Kupferstichkabinett, Staatliche Museen Preussischer Kulturbesitz, Altes
Museum; Amsterdam, Rijksmuseum; London, National Gallery) (New Haven, 1991),
26–28.
7. The related red-chalk drawings of this figure study are Old Man Seated, 1630 (Private
Collection) and Seated Old Man, 1631 (Teylers Museum, Haarlem). There is also a bustlength version in profile, Old Man Seated, 1630 (National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.).
© 2019 The Leiden Collection

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8. Rembrandt made four etchings of this subject: Old Man with a Flowing Beard , B.309,
1630; Bust of an Old Man with a Flowing Beard, B.325, 1630; Old Man with Beard Facing
Downwards, Three Quarters, to the Right, B.260, 1631 (see fig. 2); Bust of an Old Manwith a Flowing Beard, B.291, ca. 1630.
9. In the first state of one of these etchings (see fig. 2), Rembrandt made corrections in pen
and brown ink along the folds of the figure’s arm and robe that are reminiscent of accentsthat he would develop more fully in the painted study. This etching was illustrated in reverse
in Josua Bruyn et al., A Corpus of Rembrandt Paintings , vol. 2, 1631–1634, Stichting
Foundation Rembrandt Research Project (The Hague, 1986), no. A74, in order to draw
attention to its close relationship with Bust of a Bearded Old Man . I.Q. van Regteren Altena
made the attribution of the corrections in pen and ink to Rembrandt in theBulletin van het
Rijksmuseum 9 (1961): 3–10. For an overview of Rembrandt’s head studies from around
1630, see Thomas E. Rassieur, “Head Studies and Fantasy Portraits,” in Rembrandt’s
Journey: Painter, Draftsman, Etcher, ed. Clifford Ackley (Exh. cat. Boston, Museum of Fine
Arts; Chicago, Art Institute of Chicago) (Boston, 2004), 92–100.
10. These observations were made by Kristin deGhetaldi after physical examination andtechnical imaging of the painting. See Technical Summary.
11. The painting’s lifelike manner demonstrates Rembrandt’s powerful ability to coalesce theartistic traditions of working naar het leven and uit den gheest. For a discussion of some ofthese ideas in an artist’s working practices in this period, see William W. Robinson andPeter Schatborn, “Drawing into Painting: An Overview,” in Drawings for Paintings in theAge of Rembrandt, eds. Ger Luijten, Peter Schatborn, and Arthur K. Wheelock Jr. (Exh.
cat. Washington, D.C., National Gallery of Art; Paris, Fondation Custodia, Collection Frits
Lugt) (Milan, 2016), 5–16.
12. It is not clear when the paper was mounted to panel, and whether this was done in
Rembrandt’s workshop, by the artist himself, or at a later stage. Recent X-ray images
reveal woodworm tunnels on both the front and back of the panel, suggesting that the paper
was adhered to the panel at a later point (after previous use) and then subsequently
cradled (see Technical Summary). The practice of mounting paper onto a wooden or
canvas support occurred in a number of Rembrandt’s works from this period: Joseph
Telling His Dreams, 1633–34, oil on paper laid on cardboard (Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam);Ecce Homo, 1634, oil on paper, stuck on canvas (National Gallery, London); The
Lamentation over the Dead Christ , ca. 1635, oil on paper and canvas, mounted on panel(National Gallery, London).
13. Gerson related Bust of a Bearded Old Man to Rembrandt’s “powerful” drawings of the1630s, such as Christ and His Disciples in the Garden of Gethsemane , 1634 (Teylers
Museum, Haarlem). He called the signature on Bust of a Bearded Old Man “spurious,”though he believed the date to be in seventeenth-century script. Scholars have largely© 2019 The Leiden Collection

Bust of a Bearded Old Man
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dismissed Gerson’s interpretation; the Rembrandt Research Project described the painting
as a “self-contained work.” The RRP also considered the signature and date to beauthentic. The recent cleaning of Bust of a Bearded Old Man confirmed that the signatureand date are intact. See Horst Gerson, Rembrandt: Paintings (Amsterdam, 1968), no. 183;
Josua Bruyn et al., A Corpus of Rembrandt Paintings , vol. 2, 1631–1634, Stichting
Foundation Rembrandt Research Project (The Hague, 1986), 353.
14. There is no indication that the black framing lines were added later, and the lack of detailvisible beneath them, as seen in the infrared image, suggests that Rembrandt may haveoriginally painted them himself. Similar black framing lines appear in The Lamentation at
the Foot of the Cross , ca. 1634–35 (British Museum, London), a drawing that was
executed in pen and brown ink and brown wash, with red and perhaps black chalk, andreworked in oils in grisaille. This drawing is closely related to The Lamentation over the
Dead Christ, ca. 1635 (National Gallery, London). For further discussion of the British
Museum drawing and its relation to the National Gallery grisaille painting, see David
Bomford et al., Art in the Making: Rembrandt (Exh. cat. London, National Gallery) (London,
2006), 100–109; Martin Royalton-Kisch, Catalogue of Drawings by Rembrandt and His
School (London, 2010), cat. no. 9. The application of the gray paint in the background ofBust of a Bearded Old Man has also been done with careful intentionality; certain areas
around the contours of the figure indicate that Rembrandt went back over the composition
after he had already completed the figure.
15. Josua Bruyn et al., A Corpus of Rembrandt Paintings , vol. 2, 1631–1634, Stichting
Foundation Rembrandt Research Project (The Hague, 1986), 353. This idea was more orless dismissed in the entry itself, but has remained a possibility noted in the scholarship.
See, for example, Leonard Slatkes, Rembrandt: Catalogo complete dei dipini (Florence,1992), no. 213.
16. For an overview of grisaille in Rembrandt’s oeuvre, see Ronni Baer, “Rembrandt’s Oil
Sketches,” in Rembrandt’s Journey: Painter, Draftsman, Etcher , ed. Clifford Ackley (Exh.
cat. Boston, Museum of Fine Arts; Chicago, Art Institute of Chicago) (Boston, 2004),
32–33.
17. The Ecce Homo grisaille was used for an etching in 1635/36 (B.77). When the print is
examined in raking light, it is evident that many of the outlines of the composition have been
indented with a stylus in the process of transferring the design to the etching plate. This is
the only known evidence of this process occurring in Rembrandt’s work. See David
Bomford et al., Art in the Making: Rembrandt (Exh. cat. London, National Gallery) (London,
2006), 75–81.
18. Joseph Telling His Dreams, 1633 (Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam) may have served as apreparatory sketch for a print, but there is no physical evidence that such a practice wascarried out. A smaller etching of the subject, likely based on the grisaille sketch, appeared© 2019 The Leiden Collection

Bust of a Bearded Old Man
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in 1638 (Joseph Telling His Dreams, etching, B.37). The figure of Jacob inJoseph Telling
His Dreams is based on one of the red-chalk figure studies that Rembrandt made in Leiden
in 1631 (Private Collection). See Clifford Ackley,Rembrandt’s Journey: Painter, Draftsman,
Etcher (Exh. cat. Boston, Museum of Fine Arts; Chicago, Art Institute of Chicago) (Boston,2004), 118–22; Ger Luijten, Peter Schatborn, and Arthur K. Wheelock Jr., eds.,Drawings
for Paintings in the Age of Rembrandt (Exh. cat. Washington, D.C., National Gallery of Art;
Paris, Fondation Custodia, Collection Frits Lugt) (Milan, 2016), 158–59.
19. Bust of a Bearded Old Man , Joseph Telling His Dreams, and Ecce Homo form part of agroup of grisaille paintings Rembrandt produced between 1633 and 1635, along withSt.
John the Baptist Preaching, 1634 (Staatliche Museen zu Berlin, Berlin); The Lamentation
over the Dead Christ, ca. 1635 (National Gallery, London); The Entombment, ca. 1630s(Hunterian Art Gallery, University of Glasgow); and Concord of the State, 1635–40(Museum Boijmans van Beuningen, Rotterdam). Various arguments have been put forth as
to the context of and intention for these grisaille oil sketches—particularly whether they
were intended as preparatory designs for prints, like the Ecce Homo—but, as noted above,
there is no evidence that Rembrandt ever used this practice again. A number of other Dutch
and Flemish artists, such as Otto van Veen, Peter Paul Rubens, Hendrick Goltzius,
Abraham Bloemaert, Pieter Lastman, and Jan Lievens, worked in grisaille at various pointsof their careers. Among those known especially for working in grisaille was Adriaen van deVenne. For discussion and further references on this subject, see, for instance, Ronni Baer,“Rembrandt’s Oil Sketches,” in Rembrandt’s Journey: Painter, Draftsman, Etcher , ed.
Clifford Ackley (Exh. cat. Boston, Museum of Fine Arts; Chicago, Art Institute of Chicago)(Boston, 2004), 29–44.
20. Josua Bruyn et al., A Corpus of Rembrandt Paintings , vol. 2, 1631–1634, Stichting
Foundation Rembrandt Research Project (The Hague, 1986), 353.
21. Ernst van de Wetering upholds this theory in Corpus VI, arguing that the work’s originalplacement in an album amicorum is a likely explanation for the large signature and date.
Ernst van de Wetering et al., A Corpus of Rembrandt Paintings, vol. 6, Rembrandt’s
Paintings Revisited: A Complete Survey, with collaboration of Carin van Nes, Stichting
Foundation Rembrandt Research Project (Dordrecht, 2014), no. 103, 529.
22. See Walter L. Strauss and Marjon van der Meulen, The Rembrandt Documents (New York,1979), 111, no. 1634/6.
23. The inscription reads: “Een vroom gemoet / Acht eer voor goet” (An upright soul prizes
honor above wealth).
24. Albert Blankert, Rembrandt: A Genius and His Impact (Exh. cat. Melbourne, National
Gallery of Victoria; Canberra, National Gallery of Austraila) (Zwolle, 1997–98), 115.
25. See Provenance.
© 2019 The Leiden Collection

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26. Clifford Ackley, ed., Rembrandt’s Journey: Painter, Draftsman, Etcher (Exh. cat. Boston,Museum of Fine Arts; Chicago, Art Institute of Chicago) (Boston, 2004).

ProvenancePossibly Mrs. Van Sonsbeeck, before 1751.
Szarvady, Paris (d. 1882), (his sale, Me. Charles Pillet, Hotel Drouot, Paris, 21 February
1874, no. 39 [for 2500 francs]).
V. Borie, 1881.
Private collection, Paris (anonymous sale, 1900 [to F. Kleinberger]).
[F. Kleinberger, Paris (to Baron Leon Janssen).]Baron Leon Janssen (1849–1923), Brussels, by 1906 (his sale, Frederik Muller & Cie.,
Amsterdam, 26 April 1927, no. 94 [to M. Knoedler & Co., New York, for 35,200 florins]).
[M. Knoedler & Co., New York, 1927 (to Andrew W. Mellon for 18,000 dollars).]
Andrew W. Mellon (1855–1937), Washington, D.C., June 1928; by descent to Paul Mellon[to Arthur Amory Houghton Jr.].
Arthur Amory Houghton Jr. (1906–1990), New York and Queenstown, MD., by 1955 [toRichard L. Feigen].
[Richard L. Feigen & Co., New York, 1984 (to Saul P. Steinberg).]
Saul P. Steinberg (1939–2012), Brooklyn, N.Y., 1984 (his sale, Sotheby’s, New York, 30
January 1997, no. 39).
Private collection, Tokyo and London.
From whom acquired by the present owner in 2018.

Exhibition History
Leiden, Stedelijk Museum de Lakenhal, “Rembrandt-hulde te Leiden: catalogus dertentoonstelling van schilderijen en teekeningen van Rembrandt en van schilderijen vanandere Leidsche Meesters der Zeventiende Eeuw.” 15 July 1906–15 September 1906, no.
51 [lent by Janssen].
Brussels, “International Exhibition of Miniatures,” 1912, no. 1046 [lent by Janssen].
The Hague, Koninklijke Kunstzaal Kleykamp, “Tentoonstelling van schilderijen door oudhollandsche en vlaamsche meesters,” 1927, no. 32 [lent by Janssen].
© 2019 The Leiden Collection

Bust of a Bearded Old Man
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New York, National Academy of Design, “Dutch and Flemish Paintings from New YorkPrivate Collections,” 1988–89, no. 38 [lent by Steinberg].
Melbourne, National Gallery of Victoria, “Rembrandt: A Genius and His Impact,” 1 October
1997–7 December 1997; Canberra, National Gallery of Australia, 17 December 1997–15
February 1998, no. 9.
Boston, Museum of Fine Arts, “Rembrandt’s Journey: Painter, Draftsman, Etcher,” 26
October 2003–18 January 2004; Chicago, Art Institute of Chicago, 14 February–9 May
2004, no. 31.
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 [lent by the present owner].

References
Von Bode, Wilhelm, and Cornelis Hofstede de Groot. Rembrandt: Beschreibendes
Verzeichniss seiner Gemälde mit den heliographischen Nachbildungen: Geschichte
seines Lebens und seiner Kunst. 8 vols. Paris, 1897–1906, 8: 37, 380, no. 565, illustrated.
Bredius, Abraham. “Eenige taxaties van schilderijen in de XVIIe en in het begin der XVIIIeeeuw.” Oud Holland 24 (1906): 238, possible mention.
Schmidt-Degener, Frederik. “Le troisième centenaire de Rembrandt en Hollande.”Gazettedes Beaux-Arts 36 (1906): 276.
Stedelijk Museum de Lakenhal. Rembrandt-hulde te Leiden: Catalogus der tentoonstelling
van schilderijen en teekeningen van Rembrandt en van schilderijen van andere Leidsche
Meesters der Zeventiende Eeuw. Exh. cat. Leiden, Stedelijk Museum de Lakenhal. Leiden,
1906, 17, no. 51.
Stedelijk Museum de Lakenhal. Fêtes de Rembrandt à Leyde: Catalogue de l’exposition
de tableaux et de dessins de Rembrandt et d’autres maîtres de Leyde, du dix-septième
siècle, 15 juillet–15 septembre 1906 . Exh. cat. Leiden, Stedelijk Museum de Lakenhal.
Leiden, 1906, 17, no. 51.
Hofstede de Groot, Cornelis. A Catalogue Raisonné of the Works of the Most Eminent
Dutch Painters of the Seventeenth Century Based on the Work of John Smith . Edited andtranslated by Edward G. Hawke, 6: 206, no. 369. 8 vols. London, 1907–28. Originallypublished as Beschreibendes und kritisches Verzeichnis der Werke der hervorragendsten
höllandischen Maler des XVII. Jahrhunderts. 10 vols. Esslingen and Paris, 1907–28.
Rosenberg, Adolf. Rembrandt: Des Meisters Gemälde. Klassiker der Kunst in
Gesamtausgaben. Edited by Wilhelm R. Valentiner, 114, no. B. 565. 3rd edition. Stuttgart© 2019 The Leiden Collection

Bust of a Bearded Old Man
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and Berlin, 1908.
Lambotte, Paul. “Numéro special consacré à la miniature publié à l’occasion de l’Exposition
organisée à Bruxelles sous le haut Patronage de LL. MM. le Roi et la Reine.”L’Art Flamand& Hollandais 5 (15 May 1912): 156. Reprinted: Lambotte, Paul. “Tentoonstelling van
Miniaturen.” Onze Kunst 21 (1912): 185–214.
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Ackley, Clifford S. Rembrandt’s Journey: Painter, Draftsman, Etcher . Exh. cat. Boston,Museum of Fine Arts; Chicago, Art Institute of Chicago. Boston, 2003, 95–96, 313–14, no.
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Technical Summary
The paper support has been adhered to a cradled wooden panel of considerable age(presumably oak).[1] The small size of the oil sketch is exceptional, as is its finishedappearance, a characteristic that sets this work apart from other grisailles dating to thisperiod.[2] The sketch reveals an exceptional degree of confidence in the handling of paint,
particularly in the strokes used to depict the hair, beard, and clothing.
Examination with X-radiography, infrared photography, and infrared reflectography did notreveal any distinctive changes to the composition.[3] Before the preliminary painted sketch was
executed, the paper support was given a warm tone with a fluid, dark brown paint. The figure
was then quickly and confidently painted with browns, yellows, white, and black; the mouth wasformed by applying a tiny, singular daub of red lake. A similarly muted palette was used tofurther refine and develop areas of the drapery, the face, and the hair. Paint was applied both
wet-over-dry and wet-into-wet.
The background has an overall green-gray tone, which was also used to refine the contours of
the figure. Final details were applied to the hair and beard. To establish the final format of thecomposition, the artist applied black outlines along the outer edges of the painting.[4]The painting is signed and dated in dark paint along the upper edge.
The work was conserved in 2018 and is in excellent and stable condition.

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Bust of a Bearded Old Man
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Technical Summary Endnotes

1. X-radiography revealed the presence of woodworm tunnels that were filled from the front of
the panel, indicating that the front and back of the panel had been filled before the paper
support was adhered to the surface. It is not clear when this process occurred, and further
research is needed to determine the dating of the panel. In addition, cradling was notfrequently performed on wooden supports until the late eighteenth century. See Paul
Ackroyd, “The Structural Conservation of Paintings on Wooden Panel Supports,” in The
Conservation Easel Paintings, ed. Joyce Hill Stoner and Rebecca Anne Rushfield (Oxford:
Routledge, 2012), 459.
2. Three comparable works on paper include the Lamentation at the Foot of the Cross , c.
1634–35 (British Museum, London), Ecce Homo, 1634 (National Gallery, London), andJoseph Telling His Dreams, 1633 (Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam). I am grateful to curator
Lara Yeager-Crasselt at The Leiden Collection and independent researcher Maaike Dirkx
for providing me with these examples.
3. All imaging was carried out at Winterthur Museum in Winterthur, Delaware. X-radiography
was collected using a Pantak-Seifert Eresco 65 MF2 equipped with a GE CR50P Phosphor
scanner (scans are collected with GE Rhythm RT software and processed with GE Rhythm
Review software). Infrared reflectography was performed using an FLIR-Alpha NIR camera
equipped with an InGaAs detector and various filters (incandescent lighting source) thatallow for sensitivity within the 900 to 1700 nanometer range. Infrared photography was
performed using a CCD detector (modified Nikon camera) that is sensitive within the 750 to1050 nanometer range. I would like to thank paintings conservator Matthew Cushman,photographer Jim Schenck, and WUDPAC painting conservation students Tracy Liu,
Julianna Ly, and Jennifer Myers for their assistance throughout the imaging process.
4. The dark black outline along the outer edges of the composition is a curious feature of thepainting. This line is not present along most of the proper right edge but is relatively
consistent in thickness along the top and proper left edges. Along the bottom edge theblack line is the most prominent, measuring approximately .48 cm (3/16 inches) thick. The
black paint does not extend over the outer edges of the panel.

© 2019 The Leiden Collection