Portrait of a Seated Woman with Her
Hands Clasped
Rembrandt van Rijn
(Leiden 1606 – 1669 Amsterdam)1660
oil on canvas
77.5 x 64.8 cm
Signed and dated at center right:“Rembrandt f. 1660”
RR-113© 2020 The Leiden Collection

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How to cite
Wheelock, Arthur K., Jr and Lara Yeager-Crasselt. “Portrait of a Seated Woman with Her Hands Clasped”(2018). In The Leiden Collection Catalogue, 2nd ed. Edited by Arthur K. Wheelock Jr. New York, 2017–20.
https://theleidencollection.com/artwork/portrait-of-a-seated-woman-with-her-hands-clasped/(archivedMay2020).
A PDF of every version of this entry is available in this Online Catalogue's Archive, and the Archive ismanaged by a permanent URL. New versions are added only when a substantive change to the narrative
occurs.

Rembrandt painted this powerfully expressive portrait of an elderly woman in

Comparative Figures

1660, at a time when he was exploring, as no artist had ever really done, thedepth of the human soul. The woman’s rugged face, with its pronounced
cheekbones, forceful chin, and generous nose, has great strength ofcharacter, but Rembrandt reveals the fullness of her inner life through her
furrowed brow and deeply sunken eyes, which gaze fixedly into the distance.
With bold brushwork Rembrandt suggests the aged character of her skin, notthrough definition of wrinkles but through the irregularities of its surface.
Strokes of all types and colors—ochers, pinks, whites—merge, blend, andoverlay in ways that defy description, as he often used a wet-into-wet
painting technique.[1] Seated alertly in an armchair in a darkened chamberwith stark plaster walls, and with her hands in her lap, she is physically at
rest but emotionally and spiritually engaged, alone with her thoughts.
During the last two decades of his life, Rembrandt turned increasingly to thehalf-length depiction of elderly figures.[2] He portrayed these figures in

Fig 1. Rembrandt van Rijn, Old
Woman in a Chair, 1654, oil oncanvas, 109 x 84 cm, State
Hermitage Museum, St.
Petersburg, Scala / Art Resource,NY

moments of contemplation, as with Seated Woman with Her Hands Clasped,sometimes reflecting inner anxieties, and sometimes a quiet spirituality. They
often lack any narrative context or accompanying attribute, making it difficult
to determine, as in the slightly earlier Old Woman in a Chair (fig 1),[3]
whether they are portraits or depictions of historical, biblical, or mythologicalfigures.[4] The aged men and women in these late paintings have thephysical and emotional immediacy of figures painted from life, but they often© 2020 The Leiden Collection

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occupy a realm between portraiture and character study. As one scholar has
observed, with these works Rembrandt created a separate genre ofpainting.[5]The sitter portrayed in Seated Woman with Her Hands Clasped has not been
identified, and, indeed, the painting is undoubtedly more a character study
than a formal portrait.[6] Rembrandt captured her individuality in his depictionof her physical features—the slight cleft in her chin, small mouth, broad nose,
and weathered hands. Her fur-trimmed jacket with its velvet sleeves and theblack hood differ slightly from the clothing seen in Rembrandt’s otherportrayals of elderly women in the late 1650s and early 1660s.[7] In contrast
to his vigorous modeling of the woman’s face and hands, he only summarily
indicates her costume. Loosely applied brushstrokes evoke the softness of

Fig 2. Rembrandt van Rijn, The
Apostle Simon, 1661, oil oncanvas, 98.5 x 79 cm, Kunsthaus
Zürich, Ruzicka-Foundation,
1949, © Kunsthaus Zürich

the brown fur, while, with the exception of a golden yellow highlight on thetrim at her wrist, her sleeves and skirt are more suggested than defined.[8]Seated Woman with Her Hands Clasped has a distinguished provenancethat reaches back to the important English collector Sir Abraham Hume(1749–1838), and it was first catalogued as by Rembrandt in his collection in
1824.[9] The attribution of the painting to Rembrandt was confirmed by theGerman art historian Wilhelm von Bode when he published this painting as
being by the master in 1900, and all subsequent published opinions havefully supported this attribution.[10] In recent decades, some scholars haveprivately expressed doubts about its attribution, suggesting that it was
executed by one of Rembrandt’s pupils, but these reservations are
unfounded.[11]Many stylistic and technical considerations with Rembrandt’s paintings fromaround 1660 support the attribution to the master. In The Apostle Simon from1661 (fig 2), a work likely conceived as part of a series of apostles andFig 3. Rembrandt van Rijn, Portraitof Margaretha de Geer, Wife of
Jacob Trip, ca. 1661, oil oncanvas, 130.5 x 97.5 cm, National
Gallery, London, inv.
no. NG1675, © National Gallery,
London / Art Resource, NY

evangelists that Rembrandt executed between 1657 and 1661, a muted,
earth-toned palette and sweeping, loose brushwork convey a sober, moving
image of this Christian martyr.[12] Head turned and eyes downcast, one handgrasping the handle of a large saw and the other resting on his lap, Simon
focuses his attention elsewhere. But as in Seated Woman with Her Hands
Clasped, Rembrandt was able to make the figure remarkably present in his
physical and emotional state. Technical examination of the Leiden Collection
work has shown that Rembrandt built up the structure of the old woman’s
hands in a manner similar to that in The Apostle Simon, using horizontal,
linear strokes of white paint, particularly in the fingers of the left hand.[13]The Portrait of Margaretha de Geer (fig 3), which was executed about theFig 4. Rembrandt van Rijn, Studyof a Woman in a White Cap,
RR-101© 2020 The Leiden Collection

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same time, evokes a familiar contrast of corporeal fragility with innerstrength. Although Rembrandt approached this formally commissioned
portrait in a more controlled fashion than he did Seated Woman with Her
Hands Clasped, he similarly applied grays, pinks, and yellows to animate theappearance of Margaretha’s aging skin. He likewise defined her eyebrowsand forehead with a series of short, diagonal brushstrokes, and left the coolgray underlayer visible around the eyes to enhance the appearance of
shadows.[14] Rembrandt had already used this technique to create shadows
around the eyes in his Self-Portrait of 1659 (Washington, National Gallery ofArt), as well as in A Young Man Seated at a Table (Possibly Govaert Flinck)(Washington, National Gallery of Art, ca. 1660), though in a more restrainedmanner.[15] This latter painting, significantly, depicts the same unusual stone
window ledge visible behind the woman in the Leiden Collection painting.[16]Seated Woman with Her Hands Clasped is the first work from Rembrandt’s
late career to enter The Leiden Collection, and hence expands its ability topresent the full scope of this extraordinary master’s career.[17] In particular,
this painting’s acquisition enables the collection to demonstrate how the
depiction of aged sitters continued to captivate Rembrandt, from his early
Leiden period in the late 1620s to the 1660s.[18] This interest is seen, forexample, in Study of a Woman in a White Cap (RR-101, (fig 4)) from about
1640, where Rembrandt has similarly captured the effects of age in his
depiction of wrinkles, loose skin, and heavy contours beneath the eyes.[19] As
Joachim von Sandrart, Rembrandt’s contemporary in Amsterdam, later
wrote in 1675, “in the depiction of old people, particularly their hair and skin,[Rembrandt] showed great diligence, patience and practice … he indeed
excels, not only grandly rendering the simplicity of nature but using naturalforces to color, heighten and embellish it, particularly in his half-length
pictures of old heads.”[20] In Seated Woman with Her Hands Clasped,
Rembrandt succeeded in capturing his sitter with an honest stillness andinner strength, where the unhesitating brushwork that defined his late careergave form to the effects of time’s passing.

- Arthur K. Wheelock Jr. and Lara Yeager-Crasselt, 2017

© 2020 The Leiden Collection

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Endnotes

1. A wet-into-wet technique is visible in the flesh tones, whereas wet-over-dry methods arepresent in larger areas of the composition. See the Technical Report written by Kristin
deGhetaldi on file at The Leiden Collection.
2. For an overview of these works, many of which have been more recently attributed toRembrandt’s workshop, see Abraham Bredius, Rembrandt: The Complete Edition of the
Paintings, ed. Horst Gerson (London, 1969), nos. 270, 274, 282, 283, 285, 361, 371, 381,
383, 384, 385; Christian Tümpel, Rembrandt: All Paintings in Colour (Antwerp, 1993),
299–307, nos. 142, 152, A43, A47, A52, A60, A61, A115; Gary Schwartz, Rembrandt, His
Life, His Paintings: A New Biography with All Accessible Paintings Illustrated in Colour (NewYork, 1985), 301–17. For an investigation into Rembrandt’s late period, see Jonathan Bikker
et al., Rembrandt: The Late Works (Exh. cat. London, National Gallery; Amsterdam,
Rijksmuseum) (London, 2014).
3. See Irina Sokolova and Emmanuel Starcky, eds., Rembrandt et son école: Collections duMusée de l’Ermitage de Saint-Pétersbourg (Exh. cat. Paris, Musée des beaux-arts de Dijon)(Paris, 2003), nos. 3, 89–91; Christiaan Vogelaar and Gerbrand Korevaar, eds., Rembrandt’s
Mother: Myth and Reality (Exh. cat. Leiden, Stedelijk Museum De Lakenhal) (Leiden, 2005),
nos. 30, 139–140. The same woman appears in several other paintings associated with
Rembrandt’s workshop from the mid-1650s, including An Old Woman with a Hood, 1654, oilon canvas, 74 x 63 cm, Pushkin State Museum of Fine Arts, Moscow, inv. 2624, and HalfLength Figure of an Old Woman, ca. 1655, 75 x 65 cm, National Gallery of Denmark,Copenhagen, KMS3885. Rembrandt’s Old Woman Reading, 1655, oil on canvas, 78.7 x 66
cm, Drumlanrig Castle is the only work related to this group whose attribution is widely
accepted.
4. An exception is Rembrandt’s series of religious portraits from the late 1650s and early 1660s,
which depicts half-length biblical figures often with some form of identifying attribute. The useof the term “portrait” in this essay relies on the definition set forth by Arthur K. Wheelock Jr.
in his study of these religious portraits. Wheelock established that the qualities of immediacyof these figures, both physically and emotionally, deem them portraits, though they may differ
in our conventional use of the term. See Arthur K. Wheelock Jr., “Rembrandt’s Apostles andEvangelists,” in Rembrandt’s Late Religious Portraits, ed. Arthur K. Wheelock Jr. (Exh. cat.
Washington, D.C., National Gallery of Art; Los Angeles, J. Paul Getty Museum) (Chicago,2005), 13–37.
5. See Christian Tümpel, Rembrandt: All Paintings in Colour (Antwerp, 1993), 299–303. Tümpel
broadly calls them “historical figures.” This characterization distinguishes these late paintingsfrom the tronies that Rembrandt executed in Leiden in the 1620s and early 1630s, which were
© 2020 The Leiden Collection

Portrait of a Seated Woman with Her Hands Clasped
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more closely associated with his studio practice. By this point, as Tümpel notes, these“studies of heads had long since lost their original function as preparatory material for history
paintings, becoming a genre in their own right” (299). See also the discussion in Gary
Schwartz, Rembrandt, His Life, His Paintings: A New Biography with All Accessible Paintings
Illustrated in Colour (New York, 1985), 304–15.
6. The description of the sitter in the literature has oscillated between “Portrait of an Old
Woman” and “Head of an Old Woman.” While the former suggests a portrait of a specificindividual, the latter accords more with the use of a study or tronie.
7. A number of the costumes worn by old women in Rembrandt’s paintings from this late period
share certain elements, such as the red velvet sleeves, white blouse beneath the jacket, andsome form of black hood or headdress. This particular dress, however, remains distinctive
within Rembrandt’s oeuvre.
8. For a discussion of Rembrandt’s brushwork and its reception at the end of his career, see
Jonathan Bikker and Anna Krekeler, “Experimental Technique: The Paintings,” in Jonathan
Bikker et al., Rembrandt: The Late Works (Exh. cat. London, National Gallery; Amsterdam,
Rijksmuseum) (London, 2014), 132–51.
9. The painting was first exhibited as by Rembrandt in 1818 at the British Institution, London. It
was subsequently published as by Rembrandt in A descriptive catalogue of pictures
belonging to Sir Abraham Hume (London, 1824), 36, no. 113.
10. Wilhelm von Bode included RR-113 in his catalogue of Rembrandt’s paintings in 1900, and it
subsequently appeared in the Rembrandt studies published by Cornelis Hofstede de Groot,
Adolf Rosenberg, Abraham Bredius, Kurt Bauch, Horst Gerson, and Christopher Brown.
Brown has recently reconfirmed his opinion about RR-113’s full attribution to Rembrandt inpersonal correspondence with the authors. See References for full history.
11. The Leiden Collection painting has not been included in a number of recent Rembrandt
publications, most notably, Stichting Foundation Rembrandt Research Project, A Corpus of
Rembrandt Paintings; Gary Schwartz, Rembrandt, His Life, His Paintings: A New Biography
with All Accessible Paintings Illustrated in Colour (New York, 1985); Christian Tümpel,
Rembrandt: All Paintings in Colour (Antwerp, 1993); Jonathan Bikker et al., Rembrandt: The
Late Works (Exh. cat. London, National Gallery; Amsterdam, Rijksmuseum) (London, 2014).
An unpublished essay by Martin Bijl from 2008 (kept on file at The Leiden Collection) notesthat the painting was rejected by the Rembrandt Research Project on two occasions, both by
the original team in the 1970s and later by Ernst van der Wetering in the late 1990s. Bijl’s
essay, written with the collaboration of Van der Wetering, rejects the attribution to Rembrandt
based on what the authors cite as “the weak buildup of the face,” as well as weak handling of
the anatomy and rendering of textures. They attribute the work to a little-known pupil of
Rembrandt, Johannes Raven (1634–1662). This attribution, however, has little to justify it. No
painted works of Raven’s survive, and only one signed drawing is associated with him. Bijl
© 2020 The Leiden Collection

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and Van de Wetering express doubts about the authenticity of the signature, yet recent
technical analysis performed by Sotheby’s has confirmed that both the signature and thedate are integral to the original painting. Moreover, visual examination of the signature by
Kristin deGhetaldi for The Leiden Collection indicates that thin remnants of a gray-brown paintlayer extend over or alongside parts of the signature.
It is also important to note in this context that while Rembrandt ran a large workshop for muchof his career, very little is known about the nature of his studio in the late 1650s and 1660s.
For a discussion of the issues surrounding attribution to Rembrandt’s workshop, see Arthur
K. Wheelock Jr., “Issues of Attribution in the Rembrandt Workshop,” in Dutch Paintings of theSeventeenth2014),

Century,

NGA

OnlineEditions(Washington,https://www.nga.gov/research/online-editions/17th-century-dutch-paintings/essay-

issues-attribution-rembrandt.html.
12. See Arthur K. Wheelock Jr., ed., Rembrandt’s Late Religious Portraits (Exh. cat. Washington,
National Gallery of Art; Los Angeles, J. Paul Getty Museum) (Chicago, 2005), no. 10.
13. A close comparison of the X-rays of the two paintings indicates the similarities in theexecution of the hands. See “Object Information: The Apostle Simon,” The Rembrandt
Database,

http://www.rembrandtdatabase.org/Rembrandt/painting/59313/the-apostle-simon(accessed October 16, 2017). Both works also contain chalk-based grounds, which havebeen associated with fourteen other works by Rembrandt from the 1650s and 1660s. See theTechnical Report written by Kristin deGhetaldi on file at The Leiden Collection. The scientificanalysis of the painting was performed by John Twilley. For a discussion of the use of chalkgrounds in Rembrandt’s workshop, see Karin Groen, “Grounds in Rembrandt’s Workshop
and in Paintings by His Contemporaries,” in Paintings in the Laboratory: ScientificExamination for Art History and Conservation, ed. Esther van Duijn (London, 2014), 21–49.
14. See the Technical Report written by Kristin deGhetaldi on file at The Leiden Collection. Thisapproach is also evident in the Small Margaretha de Geer from 1661 (London, National
Gallery), in which Rembrandt used a similar unblended, wet-into-wet painting technique tocapture the texture and colors of Margaretha’s aging skin.
15. The X-ray of RR-113 reveals, as in the Self-Portrait, that the brown lining of the fur trim was
first painted with long, white brushstrokes that were later glazed over with semitransparent
reddish-brown paint. The beret in the Self-Portrait also indicates white brushstrokes beneaththe dark paint. These observations were made by Kristin deGhetaldi. For the National Gallery
paintings, see Arthur K. Wheelock Jr., “Rembrandt van Rijn/Self-Portrait/1659” and“Rembrandt van Rijn/A Young Man Seated at a Table (Possibly Govaert Flinck)/c. 1660,”
in

Dutch

Paintings

oftheSeventeenthCentury,

NGA

OnlineEditions,

https://purl.org/nga/collection/artobject/79 (accessed October 13, 2017).
16. For a discussion of this element in the painting in the National Gallery, see Arthur K.
Wheelock Jr., “Rembrandt van Rijn/A Young Man Seated at a Table (Possibly Govaert© 2020 The Leiden Collection

Portrait of a Seated Woman with Her Hands Clasped
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Flinck)/c. 1660,” in Dutch Paintings of the Seventeenth Century, NGA Online Editions,
https://purl.org/nga/collection/artobject/79 (accessed October 13, 2017).
17. From the height of success in Amsterdam in the 1630s and 1640s, Rembrandt experienced
great personal and financial difficulties toward the end of his life, which included his
declaration of bankruptcy in 1656. While scholars have often seen Rembrandt’s art in theseyears as intimately tied to his personal circumstances, his work should not be read as a direct
biographical manifestation of his difficulties. The most recent exhibition to explore this periodof the artist’s career has shown that it was in many ways his most independent, free, andinventive. For Rembrandt’s work in The Leiden Collection, see Perry H. Chapman,“Rembrandt and The Leiden Collection,” in The Leiden Collection Catalogue, ed. Arthur K.
Wheelock Jr. (New York, 2017), https://leidenstage.wpengine.com/archive/. For an
examination of his late career, see Jonathan Bikker et al., Rembrandt: The Late Works (Exh.
cat. London, National Gallery; Amsterdam, Rijksmuseum) (London, 2014).
18. As a young artist, Rembrandt, along with Jan Lievens (1607–1674), often portrayed old men
and women in paintings, prints, and drawings, whether as individual tronies, studies in
preparation for larger history paintings, or in the guise of biblical figures. Two works in The
Leiden Collection associated with Rembrandt’s studio in the late 1620s, Rembrandt’s Mother(JL-106) and Bust of an Old Woman (RR-122), provide yet another display of how artists
sought to capture the physical and emotional effects of old age.
19. There is also a remarkable similarity in the way that Rembrandt handled the paint along thefigures’ jawlines, using a series of strong, fluid brushstrokes to articulate the structure of theface and the texture of the skin.
20. Joachim von Sandrart, Teutsche Academie der Edlen Bau-, Bild- und Mahlerey-Künste von1675: Lebem der berühmten Maler, Bildhauer und Baumeister, ed. Arthur R. Peltzer, 4 vols.
(Nuremburg, 1675–79, reprinted in Munich, 1925), 203.

Provenance
Sir Abraham Hume (1749–1838), London, by 1818; presumably by direct descent to his
great- grandson, Adelbert Wellington Brownlow-Cust, 3rd Earl Brownlow (1844–1921),
London, by 1899.
[Charles Sedelmeyer, Paris, by 1900].
E.F. Milliken, New York (Sir Henry Bedingfield sale, Christie’s, London, 31 May 1902, no. 41[for £5,775 to Donaldson]).
Sir George Donaldson (1845-1925), London [sold to F. Kleinberger, Paris, 11 June 1907].
[F. Kleinberger, Paris, 1907 (sold to Friedrich Ludwig von Gans, Frankfurt, 8 December© 2020 The Leiden Collection

Portrait of a Seated Woman with Her Hands Clasped
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Friedrich Ludwig von Gans (1833-1920), Frankfurt.
[Bachstitz Gallery, New York, probably acquired from the above, by 1921; (sold to Mrs.
(Florence) Daniel Guggenheim and Daniel Guggenheim, 1930)].
Mrs. (Florence) Daniel Guggenheim (1863–1944), New York and Daniel Guggenheim(1856–1930), New York; by descent to their daughter, Gladys Eleanor Guggenheim Straus(1895–1980), wife of Roger W. Straus, New York.
Private Collection by 1977 [Agnew’s Gallery, London (Sotheby’s New York, 25 January
2017, no. 26, withdrawn)]; [Otto Naumann Ltd., New York, 2017].
From whom acquired by the present owner in 2017.

Exhibition History
London, British Institution, 1818, no. 121 [lent by Sir Abraham Hume].
London, Royal Academy, “Winter Exhibition: Works by Rembrandt,” 1899, no. 78 [lent byAdelbert Wellington Brownlow-Cust, 3rd Earl Brownlow].
Paris, Sedelmeyer Gallery, 1900, no. 29.
London, Royal Academy, “Old Masters, deceased masters of the British School, watercolours& chalk drawings,” 1907, no. 56 [lent by Sir George Donaldson].
Amsterdam, F. Muller & Co., 1907, no. 36.
New York, World’s Fair, “Masterpieces of Art,” 1939, no. 10.
Yokohama, Fukuoka and Kyoto, “Rembrandt and the Bible”, 1986-87, no. 10.
Beijing, National Museum of China, “Rembrandt and His Time: Masterpieces from The
Leiden Collection,” 17 June–3 September 2017 [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 [lentby 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 [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 [lent by thepresent owner].
Abu Dhabi, Louvre Abu Dhabi, “Rembrandt, Vermeer and the Dutch Golden Age.
© 2020 The Leiden Collection

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Masterpieces from The Leiden Collection and the Musée du Louvre,” 14 February–18 May
2019 [lent by the present owner].

References
British Institution for Promothing the Fine Arts. Catalogue of Pictures of the Italian, Spanish,
Flemish, Dutch, and French Schools with which the Proprietors have Favored the British
Institution for the Gratification of the Public, and for the Benefit of the Fine Arts inGeneral. Exh. cat. London, British Institution. London, 1818, no. 121.
A descriptive catalogue of pictures belonging to Sir Abraham Hume. London, 1824, 36, no.
113, here and below as by Rembrandt.
Von Bode, Wilhelm, and Cornelis Hofstede de Groot. Rembrandt: beschreibendes
Verzeichniss einer Gemälde mit den heliographischen Nachbildungen: Geschichte seines
Lebens und seiner Kunst. 8 vols. Paris, 1897–1906, 4:564, no. 480.
Royal Academy of Arts. Winter Exhibition of Works by Rembrandt. London, Royal Academyof Arts. London, 1899, no. 78.
Sedelmeyer, Charles. Catalogue of 100 Paintings. Paris, 1900, no. 29.
Herbert Slater, John. Art Sales of the Year 1902, being a record of the prices obtained at
auction for pictures and prints sold from October, 1901, to the end of the season 1902.
London, 1903, 354, no. 2800.
London, Royal Academy of Arts. Old Masters and Deceasted Masters of the British School
including a Collection of Water Colours and Chalk Drawings. Exh. cat. London, Royal
Academy of Arts. London, 1907, no. 56.
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 and translatedby Edward G. Hawke, 6: 252, no. 498. 8 vols. London, 1907–28. Originally published 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. Edited by Wilhelm R. Valentiner.
Klassiker der Kunst in Gesamtausgaben. 3rd edition. Stuttgart and Berlin 1908, 496.
Graves, Algernon. A Century of Loan Exhibitions. London, 1914, 3: 1004, no. 121, 1015, no.
78, 1017, no. 56.
Gronau, Georg. The Bachstitz Gallery Collection. 3 vols. Berlin, 1921, 1: 32.
Balet, Leo. “Die Sammlung Bachstitz.” Der Cicerone 13 (May 1921): 332, as a portrait of aseated old woman by Rembrandt.
Meldrum, David S. Rembrandt’s Paintings. New York, 1923, 201, no. 385.1.
© 2020 The Leiden Collection

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Von Bode, Wilhelm. Bulletin of The Bachstitz Gallery. The Hague and New York, Jan. 1924
Bredius, Abraham. The Paintings of Rembrandt. London, 1936, no. 396.
World’s Fair. Illustrated catalogue of an exhibition held on the occasion of the New YorkWorld’s Fair, 1939. Exh. cat. New York, World’s Fair. New York, 1939, no. 10.
Bauch, Kurt. Rembrandt Gemälde. Berlin, 1966, no. 526.
Gerson, Horst. Rembrandt Paintings. Amsterdam, 1968, 436, no. 388, 503, 518, 522.
Bredius, Abraham. Rembrandt: The Complete Edition of the Paintings. Edited by Horst
Gerson. London, 1969, no. 396, 308.
Lecaldano, Paolo. Rembrandt, L’opera completa. Milan, 1969, 121, no. 409.
Brown, Christopher, Josua Bruyn, et. al. Rembrandt and the Bible. Exh. cat. Yokohama, Sogo
Museum of Art Fukuoka, Fukuoka Art Museum; Kyoto, Kyoto National Museum of Modern
Art. Tokyo, 1986, 154, no. 10.
Yeager-Crasselt, Lara. “Portrait of a Seated Woman with Her Hands Clasped.”
In Rembrandt and His Time: Masterpieces from The Leiden Collection. Edited by Lara YeagerCrasselt, 168; 190, no. 74. Translated by Li Ying. Exh. cat. Beijing, National Museum ofChina. Beijing, 2017.
Long Museum, West Bund. Rembrandt, Vermeer and Hals in the Dutch Golden Age:
Masterpieces from The Leiden Collection. Exh. cat. Shanghai, Long Museum, West Bund.
Shanghai, 2017, 182–83.
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, 17, 26, fig. 9; 29, 33. Translated by Daria Babich and Daria Kuzina. Exh. cat.
Moscow, The Pushkin State Museum of Fine Arts; St. Petersburg, The State Hermitage
Museum. Moscow, 2018.
Yeager-Crasselt, Lara “Portrait of a Seated Woman with Her Hands Clasped.” In The Age of
Rembrandt and Vermeer: Masterpieces of The Leiden Collection. Edited by Polina
Lyubimova, 182–83; 243–44, no. 58. Translated by Daria Babich and Daria Kuzina. 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, 26. Exh. cat. Abu
Dhabi, Louvre Abu Dhabi. London, 2019. [Exhibition catalogue also published in French andArabic.]Blanc, Jan. “Being Modern, Being Dutch: The Seventeenth-Century Invention of the GoldenAge.” 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, 43.
© 2020 The Leiden Collection

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Exh. cat. Abu Dhabi, Louvre Abu Dhabi. London, 2019. [Exhibition catalogue also publishedin 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, 102, no. 33. [Exhibition catalogue also published in
French and Arabic.]

Versions

1. After Rembrandt, Portrait of an Old Woman, oil on grey cardboard, Claude E. De Coen
Collection, Saint Cezaire sur Saigne, France [identified by Mr. Coen as a study for the portrait
in The Leiden Collection, dimensions not given].

2. After Rembrandt, Portrait, 19th century, oil on canvas, 47 x 40 cm (previously sold at Henry’s
Auktionhaus AG for 200 Euro at Henry’s Auktionshaus, Mutterstadt, 27 August, 2017).

3. After Rembrandt, Portrait of an Old Woman, oil on canvas, dimensions not given. RKD photo
mount notes provenance as in the collection of Frau Söhle, Hamburg, October, 1938.

Technical Summary
The original fabric support is a medium-weight, plain-weave canvas that has been lined onto aplain-weave canvas of slightly heavier weight. Along all four edges, traces of the original canvas
extend approximately half an inch over the existing tacking margins. Examination of the Xradiograph reveals pronounced cusping patterns only along the proper right edge, suggesting thatthe proper left, top, and bottom edges may have been slightly cut down during a previous
restoration campaign.
Scientific analysis of paint cross-sections revealed that the ground consists primarily of chalk;[1] atleast fourteen works associated with Rembrandt dating to the 1650s and 1660s possess grounds
containing chalk.[2] There is a cool gray-colored underlayer visible in sections of the flesh;however, based on the samples that were collected from the painting, it is difficult to confirm
whether this layer is in fact a second ground layer.[3] No underdrawing can be detected, althougha dark brown underpainting can be seen in some areas of the picture, most noticeably along theproper left edge in the background, along the contours of the hands, and around the periphery of
the face.[4]The oil paint has been applied using both wet-into-wet techniques (as can be seen in the flesh
tones) and wet-over-dry methods in larger sections of the composition (such as in the© 2020 The Leiden CollectionPowered by TCPDF (www.tcpdf.org)

Portrait of a Seated Woman with Her Hands Clasped
Page 13 of 13

background). The highlights in the clothing, flesh tones, and fur lining of the costume are more
thickly painted; opaque, broad brushstrokes are visible in these sections and are often associatedwith subtle impasto. Thinner applications were used to build up the darker sections of the sitter’s
clothing as well as the background. The paint stratigraphy in the section containing the signature
is not straightforward; thin remnants of a gray-brown paint layer can be seen extending over
and/or alongside sections of the signature.[5]The painting is covered by a number of coats of slightly discolored varnish, which are uneven in
sheen/gloss.
Overall the support, ground, and paint layers are stable and in good condition. There is scatteredretouching throughout and a pronounced craquelure pattern appears throughout the entire
picture, particularly in darker passages and in the woman’s sleeve.
Further technical information about this artwork is available in The Rembrandt Database.

Technical Summary Endnotes

1. John Twilley performed the scientific analysis of the painting. The primary analyticaltechniques used were cross-sectional microscopy, polarized light microscopy (for dispersed
pigment/ground samples), and scanning electron microscopy (email correspondence withJohn Twilley, 10 July 2017).
2. Karin Groen, “Grounds in Rembrandt’s Workshop and in Paintings by His Contemporaries,”
in Paintings in the Laboratory: Scientific Examination for Art History and Conservation, ed.
Esther van Duijn (London, 2014), 37.
3. It would be atypical for paintings associated with Rembrandt and his workshop for this graylayer to be applied locally rather than covering the entire lower ground. Additional information
relating to the possible second ground layer was obtained via email correspondence withJohn Twilley on 18 July 2017.
4. Infrared reflectography may reveal the presence of a carbon black–containing preparatory oil
sketch and/or imprimatura.
5. Cross-sectional analysis may help to clarify why the signature appears to be partiallyobscured.

© 2020 The Leiden Collection