Stone Operation (Allegory of Touch)
Rembrandt van Rijn
(Leiden 1606 – 1669 Amsterdam)ca. 1624–25
oil on panel
21.5 x 17.7 cm
RR-102© 2024 The Leiden Collection

Stone Operation (Allegory of Touch)
Page 2 of 22

How to cite
Libby, Alexandra, Ilona van Tuinen, and Arthur K. Wheelock Jr. “Allegory of Hearing, Allegory of Smell, Allegory of
Touch, from The Series of the Five Senses” (2017). In The Leiden Collection Catalogue, 3rd ed. Edited by Arthur K.
Wheelock Jr. and Lara Yeager-Crasselt. New York, 2020–23. https://www.theleidencollection.com/archive/ (archived
December 2023).
A PDF of every version of this entry is available in this Online Catalogue's Archive, and the Archive is managed by apermanent URL. New versions are added only when a substantive change to the narrative occurs.

© 2024 The Leiden Collection

Stone Operation (Allegory of Touch)
Page 3 of 22

On 22 September 2015, one of the most surprising and exciting recent discoveries in

Comparative Figures

Dutch art transpired in the auction house Nye & Company in Bloomfield, NJ: theappearance of one of Rembrandt van Rijn’s earliest paintings, Unconscious
Patient.[1] After surfacing in the collection of a New Jersey family, it was catalogued
as “Continental School, Nineteenth Century” and garnered little attention during theviewing period.[2] At the auction, however, it became obvious that two international
phone bidders had understood the importance of this painting, and as their bidding
intensified way beyond the pre-sale estimate so did the atmosphere in the auction
house sales room. By the time the hammer came down in favor of the Parisian dealer
Talabardon & Gautier, the puzzled auction-goers were on the edges of their seats.
When the auctioneer announced that the newly sold painting was thought to be an
early Rembrandt (which the under bidder revealed upon bowing out), the room burst
into cheers and applause. Almost immediately, this discovery was featured innewspapers around the globe.[3]It is not entirely surprising that the connection between the painting and the mostcelebrated seventeenth-century Dutch artist had not been made earlier, and by more

Fig 1. Rembrandt van Rijn,
Unconscious Patient (Allegory of Smell)(panel with eighteenth-century
additions before restoration), ca.
1624–25, oil on panel, 31.8 x 25.4 cm,
The Leiden Collection, New York,
inv. no. RR-111.

people. The little panel depicting an elderly man and woman attending an unconscious
patient, does not feature the strong chiaroscuro effects, subdued palette, and complex
psychological tension normally associated with Rembrandt’s works. The painting was
also covered in layers of yellow varnish and dirt, concealing many of the subtleties of
the composition. Moreover, compounding the difficulty of recognizing Rembrandt’s
hand was the fact that his panel had been inserted into a larger panel, and that thecomposition had been extended on all sides by a later hand (fig 1).
Once the association with Rembrandt had been made, it became clear to all thosefamiliar with Rembrandt’s early oeuvre that Unconscious Patient depicted
the Allegory of Smell, part of a series of Five Senses that Rembrandt painted in Leiden
around 1625, when he was but a teenager. Three other panels from this series still
survive, all of which surfaced in different private collections in the first half of theFig 2. Rembrandt van Rijn, ThreeMusicians (Allegory of Hearing), ca.
1624–25, oil on panel, 21.5 x 17.7 cm,
The Leiden Collection, New York,
inv. no. RR-105.

twentieth century. Just when this series was dispersed is not known, but probably not
before the early eighteenth century, at which time, it seems, all of these compositions
were expanded after Rembrandt’s original panels had been set into larger ones.[4]Among the three other extant works from this series of the Five Senses are two in The
Leiden Collection: Three Musicians (Allegory of Hearing)[5] (fig 2) and Stone
Operation (Allegory of Touch) (fig 3).[6] The other painting, Spectacles
Seller (Allegory of Sight), (fig 4), is in Museum De Lakenhal in Leiden.[7] Still
unaccounted for is Allegory of Taste.
Soon after the acquisition of the Allegory of Smell in September 2015, Rembrandt’s© 2024 The Leiden Collection

Stone Operation (Allegory of Touch)
Page 4 of 22

monogram, RHF, was discovered on a drawing of a man wearing a tabard and fur hat
attached to the wooden cupboard at the upper right (fig 5), making it the earliest
signed painting in the master’s oeuvre.[8] When Allegory of Smell was restored and its
surface stripped of the yellow varnish that had suppressed the brilliance ofRembrandt’s color, the visual connections to the other known panels from
Rembrandt’s series became ever more evident (fig 6). Unlike decisions made whenother paintings from this series were restored, in this case it was decided not toremove the early eighteenth-century addition, thus retaining this panel’s composite
character (fig 7).
Each of the three panel paintings in Rembrandt’s series of Five Senses in The Leiden
Collection feature three tightly-cropped figures who focus on a shared experience in adark, undefined space. Rembrandt robed his figures in bright pink and light blue

Fig 3. Rembrandt van Rijn, Stone
Operation (Allegory of Touch), ca.
1624–25, oil on panel, 21.5 x 17.7 cm,
The Leiden Collection, New York,
inv. no. RR-102.

attire, which, lit by artificial light sources seen and unseen, provide splashes of colorthat greatly enliven the images. These surgeons, patients, and singers—young, old,male, female, crude and refined—are unforgettably expressive characters involved in
activities that connect the senses of smell, touch and hearing in ways both humorousand empathetic, whether reviving a fainted patient, undertaking a surgical operation,or singing from an open songbook.
Allegory of Smell (fig 6) features a young man wearing a colorful, loosely-draped
housecoat, who has fainted and is slumped in a chair. An extremely worried oldwoman wearing a fur-trimmed hooded mantle tries to revive him by holding a whitehandkerchief to his nose, presumably one containing smelling salts.[9] An equally oldman, his right hand covered by a white cloth, holds the youth’s bare right forearm andanxiously awaits to see if the woman’s efforts succeed. His colorful wardrobe, earringFig 4. Rembrandt van Rijn, Spectacles
Seller (Allegory of Sight), ca. 1624, oil
on panel 21 x 17.8 cm, Museum De
Lakenhal, Leiden, inv. no. S 5697

and gold chains, as well as the knives, scissors, razors and lotions displayed in a large
wooden cupboard, identify him as a barber-surgeon, a profession renowned for its
quacks.[10] The position of the young man’s exposed forearm indicates that before theyouth fainted, the quack was preparing to draw blood from one of the large veins in
the patient’s arm, a practice called bloodletting.[11] The quack would have used hiswhite cloth to wipe up the blood after completing his procedure.
Patients being bled were generally portrayed with their lower arm exposed, exactly asin the image of another bloodletting (fig 8).[12] Once pricked with a lancet (a twoedged surgical knife or blade with a sharp point), the blood would drip into a bowl
often held by an assistant. Occasionally patients would faint at the end of abloodletting, a condition deemed to indicate the treatment’s success. Here, however,
one sees neither wound nor blood, neither bandage nor bowl, which means that the
young man has not fainted in reaction to such a session, but in anticipation of it.

Fig 5. Signature detail, Rembrandt van
Rijn, Unconscious Patient (Allegory of
Smell), ca. 1624–25, oil on panel, 21.5
x 17.7 cm, The Leiden Collection,
New York, inv. no. RR-111.

Rembrandt’s image, indeed, not only mocks the elderly woman’s excessive concern© 2024 The Leiden Collection

Stone Operation (Allegory of Touch)
Page 5 of 22

about the patient’s condition and the quack’s profession, but also the young man’s lackof inner fortitude.
Stone Operation (Allegory of Touch) (fig 3) is an equally humorous depiction of oneof the five senses. In a darkened room that hardly suggests a professional atmosphere,a barber-surgeon wields a scalpel to remove a stone from the head of his patient, who
clenches his fists and teeth in pain. The only light illuminating the scene is the candle
held by an intense elderly woman with a wrinkled face and clenched jaw. Allegory of
Touch belongs to a tradition of images hearkening back to the early sixteenth century,in which traveling quacks were shown performing “stone operations” that purportedly
cured stupidity by removing the stone of folly.[13] One of the most important of theseimages is an engraving made by Lucas van Leyden (1494–1533) that was widely
copied and imitated (fig 9).[14] Rembrandt’s figures, with their old-fashioned dress,
bulbous hooked noses, gruesome teeth and deeply wrinkled faces, fit firmly within
this tradition. Although such surgeries were, in fact, not performed, the phrase “toFig 6. Rembrandt van Rijn,
Unconscious Patient (Allegory of Smell), without eighteenth-century additions(after restoration), ca. 1624–25, oil on
panel, 21.5 x 17.7 cm, The Leiden
Collection, New York, inv. no.
RR-111.

have a stone removed from one’s head” was part of the popular vernacular and wasused to ridicule those considered to be foolish or easily duped.[15]Three Musicians (Allegory of Hearing) (fig 2) similarly depicts an evening scene, but
in this instance one illuminated by an unseen light source. In this joyful image, twoelderly singers, one male and one female, are joined by a young man who peers downover their shoulders at the large open music book. The bald man, with pronouncedly
wrinkled forehead and eyeglasses balanced on the tip of his nose, guides their songwith the beat of his raised hand as the old woman, with an equally wrinkled face,leans forward enthusiastically to join him in song.[16] The comedy here resides in theadvanced age of the two primary singers, for generally images of Allegory of
Hearing (fig 10) depict young lovers singing and playing instruments together. Evenat their advanced age, however, the couple’s full engagement in the music seems toallude to the ideals of living a balanced and harmonious life. The man’s fur-lined
tabard and the woman’s colorful turban are not contemporary attire, and help indicate

Fig 7. Rembrandt van Rijn,
Unconscious Patient (Allegory of Smell), with eighteenth-century additions(after restoration), ca. 1624–25, oil on
panel, 31.8 x 25.4 cm, The Leiden
Collection, New York, inv. no.
RR-111.

the allegorical character of the scene.[17]Just how Rembrandt devised the various scenes in his series of the Five Senses, andthe sequence in which he intended them to be viewed, is not known. Nevertheless, it
is clear that with the exception of Allegory of Smell, the young master loosely
followed long-established iconographic traditions for his compositional inventions.
For example, a number of sixteenth-century artists based their depictions of
the Allegory of Touch on Lucas van Leyden’s The Stone Operation.[18] As discussed
above, Allegory of Hearing often showed young lovers playing musical instruments.
There is no precedent, however, for connecting Allegory of Smell to bloodletting.
Quite to the contrary, artists like Hendrick Goltzius depicted The Sense of Smell in a

Fig 8. Egbert van Heemskerck,
Portrait of the Barber Jacob Fransz© 2024 The Leiden Collection

Stone Operation (Allegory of Touch)
Page 6 of 22series of The Five Senses as young lovers smelling a rose (fig 11). One thus wonders
why Rembrandt chose to depict this unusual subject. It is likely that his inspiration
was connected to the devastating plague that hit the Netherlands, and in particular

Hercules and his Family in his
Barbershop, 1669, oil on canvas, 70 x
59 cm, Amsterdam Museum,
Amsterdam, inv. no. SA 2121.

Leiden, in 1624, the very year in which he executed The Five Senses. Significantly,
the many ailments that bloodletting was thought to cure included the plague.[19]The excitement surrounding the appearance of an unknown early Rembrandt at theauction in 2015, and the enthusiastic reactions to this small panel in the art world,
contrasts remarkably with the reservations about the other three panels from
Rembrandt’s series of Five Senses expressed throughout most of the latter half of thetwentieth century. Indeed, the evolution of our understanding of Rembrandt’s work is
fascinating, for it has proceeded in fits and starts. One of the most contentious areasin Rembrandt studies concerns the budding master’s early works in Leiden, during theperiod of his career when he was forging his artistic identity in a boldly aggressive
fashion, and when his style evolved with remarkable rapidity. This criticalambivalence is nowhere more evident than in the ongoing critical reactions toAllegory of Hearing and Allegory of Touch after they were discovered and publishedin the 1930s.

Fig 9. Lucas van Leyden, The Surgeon,
1524, etching, 117 x 76 mm, National
Gallery of Art, Gift of the Estate of
Leo Steinberg, inv. no. 2011.139.35

Three Musicians (Allegory of Hearing) was the first of these paintings to be
introduced in the Rembrandt literature. In 1933 Vitale Block published ThreeMusicians after H. Schneider had discovered it in the collection of the dealer N. Katz
in Dieren.[20] Block not only attributed the painting to Rembrandt, but he also dated it
to about 1626, or shortly before. He noted that the painting had been enlarged on all
sides at a later date, recognized that the panel represented Allegory of Hearing, andpostulated that it belonged to a lost series of the five senses. By the time of Block’s
publication, the painting had already been acquired by the Dutch industrialist andcollector Dr. C.J.K. van Aalst who, later that decade, also purchased Stone Operation(Allegory of Touch).
When Van Aalst’s collection was published in 1939, Willem Valentiner, who wrote
the introduction to the catalogue, reiterated many of Vitale Bloch’s conclusions,particularly that the two panel paintings, which had been similarly enlarged and were
the same size, belonged to a hitherto unknown series of Five Senses.[21] Unlike Bloch,however, Valentiner asserted that Rembrandt had also painted the additions. As BlochFig 10. Jan Saenredam after Hendrick
Goltzius, The Sense of Hearing, ca.
1595, engraving, 173 x 123 mm,
National Gallery of Art, Washington
D.C., Rosenwald Collection, inv. no.
1943.3.4640.

and Valentiner recognized, the paintings’ vibrant colors share qualities found in otherearly works by the young Rembrandt, among them The Baptism of the Eunuch andBalaam and the Ass, both executed in 1626.[22] Similarly, the broad, rough brushwork
and thick application of paint in the clothing and furrowed brows of the elderly
figures are reminiscent of Rembrandt’s Christ Driving the Money-Changers from theTemple, also 1626 (fig 12). Nevertheless, as they rightly perceived, Stone Operation© 2024 The Leiden Collection

Stone Operation (Allegory of Touch)
Page 7 of 22

and Three Musicians probably date slightly earlier than Rembrandt’s works of 1626.
The awkward characteristics of Stone Operation (Allegory of Touch) and ThreeMusicians (Allegory of Hearing) troubled many later scholars, and the attribution ofthese works to Rembrandt was a matter of much dispute until the early 1980s. For
example, in 1956, Knuttel rejected the attribution to Rembrandt, and Rosenberg
concluded that the paintings were “odd copies after Rembrandt.”[23] Bauch proposedthat they were the work of a young Gerrit Dou (1613–75).[24] Although in 1968
Wurfbain and Haak renewed the attribution of these paintings to Rembrandt andbelieved them to be contemporaneous with Christ Driving the Money-Changers fromthe Temple, Gerson, in his 1969 revision of Bredius, felt that an attribution to
Rembrandt was unlikely because of the heavy and dry brushwork.[25] In that same
year, however, the paintings were exhibited in Montreal and Toronto as byRembrandt, an attribution with which Held, in his review of the exhibition, agreed.
Held proposed a date of execution of around 1622/23.[26] In 1976 the two paintings

Fig 11. Jan Saenredam after Hendrick
Goltzius, The Sense of Smell, ca. 1595,
engraving, 173 x 123 mm, National
Gallery of Art, Washington D.C.,
Rosenwald Collection, inv. no.
1943.3.4640.

were exhibited in Leiden with an attribution to Rembrandt, this time dated ca.
1624/25.[27] In 1982, however, the Rembrandt Research Project relegated the works
to the “B” list, meaning that Rembrandt’s authorship could not be positively acceptedor rejected.[28]In 1987–88 Stone Operation (Allegory of Touch) and Three Musicians (Allegory of
Hearing) underwent a radical conservation treatment in which their added panel
surrounds were removed.[29] By that time, dendrochronological examinations had
demonstrated that Rembrandt’s original core images were painted on oak panels
datable to the early seventeenth century, but that the added panels were much later indate.[30] Moreover, pigment analysis had determined that the overpainting on theextension and original panel of Rembrandt’s Three Musicians (Allegory of Hearing)
contained an eighteenth-century pigment.[31] The decision was thus made to remove
the painted extensions as well as the extensive overpainting on Rembrandt’s original
panels.[32] The paintings improved markedly in appearance, and doubts about theirFig 12. Rembrandt van Rijn, Christ
Driving the Money-Changers from theTemple, 1626, oil on panel, 44 x 33
cm, Pushkin Museum, Moscow, inv.
no. F-1900.

attribution to Rembrandt subsided. In volume 4 of Corpus of Rembrandt Paintings,
published in 2005, Ernst van de Wetering declared that the restoration of thepaintings had removed any doubt of their authenticity.[33] The paintings have,henceforth, been accepted as an integral part of Rembrandt’s corpus.

In 2006 Bernhard Schnackenburg revisited the hypothesis that the paintings shoulddate to the early 1620s rather than the period after his six-month apprenticeship in
1626 with Pieter Lastman (1583–1633). Schnackenburg noted that the paintings
reflect an unrestrained artistic personality, “one in need of practice but willing to takea risk.”[34] Van Straten similarly published them as an example of Rembrandt’s pre© 2024 The Leiden Collection

Stone Operation (Allegory of Touch)
Page 8 of 22

Lastman era, executed around 1624/25, solidifying the works’ place as among theearliest works executed by the young master.[35]As many authors have noted, these early paintings are rendered with strong
chiaroscuro light effects and striking palette of pinks and light blues that relate

Fig 13. Lucas Vorsterman, after Sir
Anthony van Dyck, Portrait of Jan
Lievens, ca. 1632, engraving, 241 x
158 mm., from the Iconography,
National Gallery of Art, Washington,
D.C., inv. no. 1990.125.1.59.

stylistically to the innovations of Gerrit van Honthorst (1592–1656).[36] Benesch,however, also saw in Rembrandt’s figures the experience of “cruel reality” not evident
in the more charming images of the Utrecht Caravaggisti.[37] The most likely source
for the transmission of Van Honthorst’s manner of painting to Rembrandt is Jan
Lievens (1607–74), with whom Rembrandt’s early career is deeply entwined.
At the time that Rembrandt executed The Leiden Collection’s panels, Lievens had
been painting independently in Leiden for nearly four years. Jan Orlers, who knew

Fig 14. Jan Lievens, Allegory of theFive Senses, ca. 1622, oil on panel,
78.2 x 124.4 cm, private collection.

Lievens well, records that the young artist returned from his apprenticeship with
Pieter Lastman in 1621. Nevertheless, Lievens probably continued his training in
Utrecht, since his paintings from 1622–24 fully reflect the latest artistic achievementsof Van Honthorst and the other Utrecht Caravaggisti.[38] Rembrandt completed his
own three-year apprenticeship with Jacob Isaacsz van Swanenburgh (1571–1638) in
1624, but there is no information about what he subsequently did to advance his
artistic career.[39] It is entirely possible, even probable, that in 1625 Rembrandt
studied with his Leiden compatriot Jan Lievens, perhaps even sharing a studio withhis friend before continuing his tutelage under Lastman in 1626.[40] Significantly, themodel for the youngest member of the group in Rembrandt’s ThreeFig 15. Jan Lievens, Tric Trac Players,
1624/25, oil on panel, 98 x 106 cm,
Spier Collection, London.

Musicians (Allegory of Hearing) is Lievens himself (fig 13).[41]In theme and execution, these paintings are remarkably similar to Lievens’s workfrom the first half of the 1620s. Much as with Lievens’s Allegory of Five Senses of ca.
1622 (fig 14), they feature tightly cropped, half-length figures in brightly colored
dress. The tight pyramidal groupings, flattened backgrounds, and strong chiaroscurolight effects are also similar to those in Lievens’s Tric Trac Players of 1624/25 (fig 15). Rembrandt’s bold brushwork, which endows the compositions with a sense of
immediacy, also resembles that in Lievens’s early paintings.
Though Lievens was an important influence on Rembrandt at this stage of his career,Fig 16. Eighteenth-century addition,
formerly for Rembrandt van Rijn,
Three Musicians (Allegory of Hearing),
ca. 1624–25, oil on panel, 21.5 x 17.7
cm, The Leiden Collection, New
York, inv. no. RR-105.

Unconscious Patient (Allegory of Smell), Stone Operation (Allegory of Touch) andThree Musicians (Allegory of Hearing) also demonstrate Rembrandt’s own inventive
personality. Lievens worked on a large scale, which embues his figures with bothgrandeur and gravitas. Rembrandt’s works, on the other hand, are relatively small, andanticipate the scale of painting that he would gravitate toward in the late 1620s.
Writing around 1628–29, Constantijn Huygens reflected on the two artists’ different
manners of painting:© 2024 The Leiden Collection

Stone Operation (Allegory of Touch)
Page 9 of 22

So off-hand I would venture to suggest that in precision and liveliness,
Rembrandt is the superior of Lievens. Conversely the latter wins throughgrandeur in conception and in the daring of subjects and forms. Everything thisyoung spirit strives for must be majestic and exalted. Rather than conforming to
the true size of what he depicts, he gives his painting a larger stature. Rembrandt,
on the other hand, would rather concentrate totally on a small painting andachieves a result on a small scale that one looks for in vain in the largest
paintings of others.[42]One important and particularly intriguing question is whether, as has been generally
assumed, these tightly cropped images reflect Rembrandt’s original intent. Could it bethat the eighteenth-century additions actually reflect, and even replicate, Rembrandt’s
original painted compositions? This question is certainly pertinent after the discovery
of Allegory of Smell, where the eighteenth-century addition to the panel has remained
intact. The tight cropping of the main figure is so illogical—the tips of his fingers andthe back of his head are both cut by the edge of the panel—that one doubts thecropping represents Rembrandt’s intent. Moreover, the pictorial elements in the
addition are so closely integrated with those in Rembrandt’s original design that it
seems hard to believe they were a later invention. It is difficult to identify the locationof the surgeon-barber’s tools without further knowledge of the chest that holds them,as revealed by the chest on the addition. Finally and most tellingly, the spout of therounded alembic (glass distillation vessel) painted on the extension behind the surgeonbarber extends onto Rembrandt’s original.
Similar arguments can be made with Allegory of Hearing, the only other instance
where the eighteenth-century addition is still preserved, although separated from
Rembrandt’s original panel.[43] Strikingly, the extended hand of the young singer andthe candle lighting the scene are both found on the painted extension (fig 16). Candlelit scenes in Dutch art from this period virtually always include the actual candle,
albeit sometimes with the flame visible and sometimes with it hidden. The extended
hand of the third singer over the candle is also quite logical for Rembrandt’s
composition.
One of the fascinating phenomena in Leiden paintings over the course of theseventeenth century is that a number of artists did expand their compositions byinserting panels into larger ones. Generally, when these expansions were made, thecore panel was set into a customized, shallow opening in the larger panel, so that thereverse of the larger panel showed no evidence that this procedure had occurred. The
reasons for this composite panel structure are not known, but it is remarkable howoften one finds it in works by such artists as Gerrit Dou and Frans van Mieris the© 2024 The Leiden Collection

Stone Operation (Allegory of Touch)
Page 10 of 22

Elder (1635-81).[44] Sometimes these extensions seem to have been conceived andexecuted at the time that the work was created, and sometimes paintings wereenlarged at a later date by the original artist. Occasionally, panels were inserted intolarger panels by later artists, who then also expanded upon the original compositionsof their predecessors.
The question remains as to whether Rembrandt also worked in this manner when
painting the series of Five Senses. One solid bit of evidence that supports thishypothesis is related to Rembrandt’s painting of 1626, Christ Driving the MoneyChangers from the Temple, which is signed RHF, exactly as is Unconscious Patient(Allegory of Smell). This work was also expanded by being inset into a larger panel.
Although this extension was removed in 1930 and is now lost, an old photograph ofthe enlarged composition suggests that the extension was painted by Rembrandt, or atleast based on his original composition.[45]Should Rembrandt have conceived his depictions of the five senses in such acomposite manner, then the question remains: what happened to these originalextensions that persuaded some eighteenth-century restorer/artist/dealer/owner toremove and replace them? Did the larger panel develop splits or warp? Did the paintnot adhere properly to the ground so that it was flaking or otherwise unstable?
Unfortunately, there is apparently no way to know what might have occurred thatnecessitated such a radical reworking of the paintings in this series.
Whatever the historical circumstances surrounding the dramatic structural changes
that occurred in the early eighteenth century with Unconscious Patient (Allegory of
Smell), Stone Operation (Allegory of Touch) and Three Musicians (Allegory of
Hearing), these works offer special insights about Rembrandt’s artistic beginnings. In
these paintings one sees how he, as a young man, experimented with the colors andbrushwork that would so define his later work, and how he began to manipulate lightand shade in a manner that became a trademark of his art. Above all, the three
paintings reveal Rembrandt to have been, from the outset, impressionable yet
independent, influenced yet innovative. In other words, they show the makings of themaster.

- Alexandra Libby, Ilona van Tuinen, and Arthur K. Wheelock Jr., 2017

© 2024 The Leiden Collection

Stone Operation (Allegory of Touch)
Page 11 of 22

Endnotes
1. Portions of this text are adapted from Ilona van Tuinen’s discussion of Unconscious Patient (Allegory of
Smell) in Jordaens Rembrandt: Two New Early Works, Paris, 2016, 20–36. The entry has also benefitedenormously from editorial comments made by Henriette Rahusen.
2. The painting was consigned by three brothers, Nathaniel, Roger, and Steven Landau, who had inherited
it after their parents’ death. Their grandfather, Philip Rappoport, who lived in Paterson, New Jersey,
probably acquired the painting from a dealer or auction house in the New York area in the 1930s.
3. Notable examples are Paul Jeromack, “Has a long-lost painting by a teenaged Rembrandt been
discovered in New Jersey?” The Art Newspaper, 23 September 2015; Alanna Martinez, “Mystery
Painting Sold in NJ Auction May Be a Long-Lost Early Rembrandt,” Observer, 23 September 2015, andGary Schwartz, “Rembrandt’s fourth sense: a quick reaction,” The Schwartzlist, column no. 342, 24
September 2015 (with additional remarks on 25 and 26 September).
4. With the exception of Unconscious Patient (Allegory of Smell), these later additions have been removed.
Only one of these larger added panels has been preserved, the one that once surrounded Allegory of
Hearing (see figure 16). It is in The Leiden Collection along with Rembrandt’s original panel painting(see figure 2).
5. Though traditionally referred to as Three Musicians, this painting depicts three individuals in the act of
singing, rather than playing instruments.
6. The paintings, which entered the collection of the Dutch industrialist and collector Dr. C.J.K. van Aalst
in the 1930s, remained there until 1965 when they went to The Hague on consignment to the art dealer
Hans Cramer. Cramer had them for many years, their attribution to Rembrandt very much in limbo.
Eventually,

in

1984

the

paintings

were

sold

to

two

separate

privatecollectors: Three Musicians (Allegory of Hearing) to Baron Willem van Dedem and Stone Operation(Allegory of Touch) to a private collection in the Netherlands. The paintings remained apart until 2007
when they were reunited at The Leiden Collection.
7. Spectacles Seller (Allegory of Sight), which was in an English collection around 1900, was first publishedin Josua Bruyn et al., A Corpus of Rembrandt Paintings, vol. 1: 1625–1631, Stichting Foundation
Rembrandt Research Project (The Hague, 1982), 1:410-415, no. B3. At that time it was in the D.H.
Cevat Collection in Guernsey. It subsequently went to a private collection in Leiden before being
acquired by Museum De Lakenhal in 2012. This acquisition was published by Volker Manuth in the
Vereniging Rembrandt Bulletin 22/2 (2012): 16–21.
8. This monogram was discovered by Ambrose Naumann.
9. The use of smelling salts or some sort of ammonia-based compound was (and remains) a method forreviving unconscious people that can be traced back to Roman antiquity. In Rembrandt’s time, several
handbooks and apothecary manuals existed with instructions on how to make sal armoniacum, and it is© 2024 The Leiden Collection

Stone Operation (Allegory of Touch)
Page 12 of 22

likely that smelling salts with this penetrating smell were widely available. It is even reasonable tosuppose that painters would have had it on hand, since it was a key ingredient to generate certain colors.
10. His was a multi-dimensional profession. Patients would not only come to barber-surgeons forbloodletting, but also for tooth pulling, haircuts and cosmetic procedures.
11. This interpretation differs from that presented in Ilona van Tuinen, Jordaens Rembrandt: Two New
Early Works, Paris, 2016, 26, where it is suggested that the patient has fainted after the bloodletting had
occurred.
12. This posture can be seen, for instance, in A Young Woman Being Bled, a black chalk drawing that
Willem Buytwech executed in 1616 (Teylers Museum, Haarlem, inv. O* 23). It also appears in Egbertvan Heemskerck’s painting Portrait of the Barber Jacob Fransz Hercules and his Family in his
Barbershop, 1669, oil on canvas, 70 x 59 cm, Amsterdam Museum, Amsterdam, inv. SA 2121 (figure8).
13. See Ger Luijten, cat. entry for Constantijn Daniel van Renesse, The Quack, 1651, in Mirror of Everyday
Life: Genreprints in the Netherlands, 1550–1700, ed. Eddy de Jongh and Ger Luijten, trans Michael
Hoyle (Exh. cat. Amsterdam, Rijksmuseum) (Ghent, 1997), no. 60, 295–298.
14. Lucas van Leyden, The Surgeon, 1524, engraving, 11.7 x 7.6 cm (clipped impression), Metropolitan
Museum of Art, New York. See Ger Luijten, cat. entry for Constantijn Daniel van Renesse, The Quack,
1651, in Mirror of Everyday Life: Genreprints in the Netherlands, 1550–1700, ed. Eddy de Jongh and
Ger Luijten, trans. Michael Hoyle (Exh. cat. Amsterdam, Rijksmuseum) (Ghent, 1997), no. 60, 295.
15. Cynthia Kortenhorst-von Bogendorf Rupprath, in Judith Leyster: A Dutch Master and Her World, ed.
Pieter Biesboer and James A. Welu (Exh. cat. Haarlem, Frans Halsmuseum; Worcester, Worcester Art
Museum) (New Haven, 1993), 310. Nevertheless, as noted by Henriette Rahusen, the Dutch word for“stone” is “steen,” and even today the Dutch describe a boil with pus as a “steenpuist.” Thus, it ispossible that “stone operations” also removed such unwanted protrusions.
16. In Dutch, the phrase “keeping time” (de maat slaan) was etymologically related to “temperance”(matigheid). See: Jane R. Stevens, “Hands, Music, and Meaning in Some Seventeenth-Century Dutch
Paintings,” Imago Musicae 1 (1984): 75–102; Pieter J. J. van Thiel, “Marriage Symbolism in a MusicalParty by Jan Miense Molenaer,” Simiolus 2 (1967/68): 91–99.
17. Peter C. Sutton, Dutch and Flemish Paintings: The Collection of Willem Baron van Dedem (London,
2002), 199. See also Jane R. Stevens, “Hands, Music, and Meaning in Some Seventeenth-Century Dutch
Paintings,” Imago Musicae 1 (1984): 75–102; Pieter J. J. van Thiel, “Marriage Symbolism in a MusicalParty by Jan Miense Molenaer,” Simiolus 2 (1967/68): 91–99
18. One also finds depictions of lovers embracing or figures fighting.
19. Daniel R. Curtis, “Was Plague an Exclusively Urban Phenomenon? Plague Mortality in the SeventeenthCentury Low Countries,” Journal of Interdisciplinary History 47, no. 2 (2016): 139–70.
20. Vitale Bloch, “Zum frühen Rembrandt.” Oud Holland 50 (1933): 97–102. The information about
Schneider is found in Abraham Bredius and Horst Gerson, Rembrandt: The Complete Edition of the© 2024 The Leiden Collection

Stone Operation (Allegory of Touch)
Page 13 of 22

Paintings (London, 1969), 587, no. 421.
21. Wilhelm R. Valentiner, “Introduction,” in Dutch and Flemish Old Masters in the Collection of Dr. C. J .K.
van Aalst, Huis te Hoevelaken, ed. Joachim Wolfgang von Moltke (Verona, 1939), x. See also in thiscatalogue pp. 266 and 330, plates 64 and 78.
22. The Baptism of the Eunuch, 1626, oil on panel, 64 x 47.5 cm, Museum Catharijneconvent, Utrecht;
Balaam and the Ass, 1626, oil on panel, 63 x 47 cm, Musée Cognacq-Jay, Paris.
23. Gerard Knuttel, Rembrandt: De Meester en Zijn Werk. Amsterdam, 1956, 240; Jacob Rosenberg, “Die
Rembrandt Austellungen in Holland,” Kunstkronik 9 (1956): 346.
24. Kurt Bauch, Der frühe Rembrandt und sein Zeit: Studien zur geschichtlichen Bedeutung seines
Frühstils (Berlin, 1960), 227–29; Kurt Bauch, Rembrandt: Gemälde (Berlin, 1966), 48.
25. Maarten L .Wurfbain and Bob Haak, eds., Rondom Rembrandt de verzameling Daan Cevat (Exh. cat.
Leiden, Stedelijk Museum de Lakenhal) (Leiden, 1968), 26–27. Abraham Bredius and Horst Gerson,
Rembrandt: The Complete Edition of the Paintings (London, 1969), 587, nos. 421, 421A.
26. Rembrandt and His Pupils: A Loan Exhibition (Exh. cat. Montreal, Museum of Fine Arts; Toronto, Art
Gallery of Ontario, 1969) (Montreal, 1969), nos. 2, 3. Julius Held, “Die Ausstellung ‘Rembrandt and His
Pupils’ in Montreal und Toronto,” Pantheon 27 (1969): 387.
27. Rudolf E. O. Ekkart and Maarten L. Wurfbain, eds., Geschildert tot Leyden anno 1626 (Exh. cat.
Leiden, Stedelijk Museum de Lakenhal) (Leiden, 1976), 70–71, nos. S28A and S28B.
28. Josua Bruyn et al., A Corpus of Rembrandt Paintings, vol. 1: 1625–1631, Stichting Foundation:
Rembrandt Research Project (The Hague, 1982),1: 399–404, 405–11, nos. B1 and B2. For diagrams of
the overpainted areas on these paintings, see figure 4 in each entry.
29. The conservation report by the Dutch restorer, Menno Dooijes, is on file at The Leiden Collection.
30. In 1986 Pieter Klein undertook dendrochronological examination of the two paintings and determinedthat the core panels of Stone Operation (Allegory of Touch) and Three Musicians (Allegory of Hearing)came from the same tree. He noted that the latest growth rings dated to 1597, and postulated a fellingdate of about 1612. He also determined that the added panels came from the same tree and the youngest
growth rings were from 1657. He postulated a felling date of about 1674. His report is on file at The
Leiden Collection.
Dendrochronological examination by Ian Tyers undertaken in October 2016, after the acquisitionof Allegory of Smell, added more specifics and revised the dating of the added panel surrounding
Allegory of Hearing (unfortunately, the added panel surrounding Allegory of Touch has, in the interim,
been lost). Tyers concluded that the core panels used for Allegory of Hearing and Allegory of
Touch came from the same oak tree originating in the eastern Baltic region. As with Klein, hedetermined that the latest growth ring present on the two panels was 1597, but he concluded that theycame from a tree that was felled after ca. 1605.
The results of Tyers’ examinations of the added panels of Allegory of Hearing and Allegory of Smell© 2024 The Leiden Collection

Stone Operation (Allegory of Touch)
Page 14 of 22

indicate that they came also from the same tree. The latest growth ring Tyers found was 1705, and heconcluded that the outer boards of Allegory of Hearing and Allegory of Smell came from a tree that was
felled after ca. 1713. Since Klein had determined that the added panels on Allegory of Hearing andAllegory of Touch were from the same tree, it can be safely assumed that the extensions on all threepanels were done at the same time.
31. Pigment analysis carried out in 1987–88 by J.A. Mosk at the Centraal Laboratorium voor Voorwerpen
van Kunst en Wetenschap in Amsterdam revealed that the extensions and overpainted areas of ThreeMusicians (Allegory of Hearing) contained the pigment Berlin blue, which was not commonly used until
about 1720 (report on file in The Leiden Collection).
32. A comparable decision to remove the surrounding addition had been made in the early 1930s with therestoration of Spectacles Seller (Allegory of Sight) by Fa. Schuuring in The Hague (information from theconservation report by Menno Dooijes, on file at The Leiden Collection). For diagrams of theoverpainted areas on Allegory of Hearing and Allegory of Smell prior to their restoration in the late1980s, see: Josua Bruyn et al., A Corpus of Rembrandt Paintings, vol. 1: 1625–1631, Stichting
Foundation: Rembrandt Research Project (The Hague, 1982), 1: 399–404, 405–11, nos. B1 and B2.
33. Ernst van de Wetering et al., A Corpus of Rembrandt Paintings, vol 4: Self-Portraits, Stichting
Foundation Rembrandt Research Project, 4: 627, nos. I B1 and I B2.
34. Bernhard Schnackenburg, “Young Rembrandt’s ‘Rough Manner’: A Painting Style and Its Sources,” inThe Mystery of the Young Rembrandt, ed. Ernst van de Wetering and Bernhard Schnackenburg (Exh. cat.
Kassel, Museum Schloss Wilhelmshöhe, Gemäldegalerie Alte Meister; Amsterdam, Museum Het
Rembrandthuis) (Wolfratshausen, 2001), 100.
35. See Roelof van Straten, Rembrandts Leidse Tijd 1606–1632 (Leiden, 2005), 29–30
36. Wilhelm R. Valentiner, “Foreword,” in Dutch and Flemish Old Masters in the Collection of Dr. C. J. K.
van Aalst, Huis-te-Hoevelaken, ed. Joachim Wilhelm von Moltke (Verona, 1939), xi; Otto Benesch, “An
Early Group Portrait Drawing by Rembrandt,” Art Quarterly 3 (1940): 10; Otto Benesch, Collected
Writings, ed. Eva Benesch, 4 vols. (London, 1970), 1: 177; Bob van de Boogert, in The Mystery of theYoung Rembrandt, ed. Ernst van de Wetering and Bernhard Schnackenburg (Exh. cat. Kassel, Museum
Schloss Wilhelmshöhe, Gemäldegalerie Alte Meister; Amsterdam, Museum Het Rembrandthuis)(Wolfratshausen, 2001), 152; Christiaan Vogelaar, in Rembrandt’s Mother: Myth and Reality, ed.
Christiaan Vogelaar and Gerbrand Korevaar (Exh. cat. Leiden, Stedelijk Museum De Lakenhal)(Zwolle, 2005), 14.
37. Otto Benesch, “An Early Group Portrait Drawing by Rembrandt,” Art Quarterly 3 (1940): 10. Beneschqualified the influence of Van Honthorst’s Caravaggism on Rembrandt generally as filtered through thework of Jacques Callot, who had produced candlelight scenes. Van Straten notes that Rembrandt could
have seen Callot’s work during the annual Leiden Fair. See Roelof van Straten, Rembrandts Leidse Tijd
1606–1632 (Leiden, 2005), 27.
38. Arthur K. Wheelock Jr., “Jan Lievens: Bringing New Light to an Old Master,” in Jan Lievens: A Dutch© 2024 The Leiden Collection

Stone Operation (Allegory of Touch)
Page 15 of 22

Master Revisited, ed. Arthur K. Wheelock Jr. (Exh. cat. Washington D.C., National Gallery of Art;
Milwaukee, Milwaukee Art Museum; Amsterdam, Museum Het Rembrandthuis) (New Haven, 2008), 6.
39. On Rembrandt’s apprenticeship with Van Swanenburg, see Ernst van de Wetering and Bernhard
Schnackenburg, eds., The Mystery of the Young Rembrandt (Exh. cat. Kassel, Museum Schloss
Wilhelmshöhe,

Gemäldegalerie

Alte

Meister;

Amsterdam,

MuseumHet

Rembrandthuis)(Wolfratshausen, 2001) (Wolfratshausen, 2001), 32–37.
40. Ernst van de Wetering and Bernhard Schnackenburg, eds., The Mystery of the Young Rembrandt (Exh.
cat. Kassel, Museumslandschaft Hessen; Amsterdam, Museum Het Rembrandthuis) (Wolfratshausen,
2001), 39. Rembrandt and Lievens are even often presumed to have jointly occupied a studio in the late1620s owing to the great, and sometimes confusing, similarities of their work at the time. (See S. W. A
Drossaers and Th. H. Lusingh Scheurleer, Inventarissen van de inboedels in de verblijven de Oranjes en
daarmede gelijke stellen stukken, 1567–1795, 3 vols. [The Hague, 1974–76], 1:186). There is no direct
evidence, however, to support the notion that they shared a studio. As Wheelock has argued, neither Jan
Orlers nor Constantijn Huygens, from whom we derive most information on the two artists’ early
careers, mention anything about a joint space, and their accounts strongly suggest that the painters
worked independently. See Arthur K. Wheelock Jr., “Jan Lievens: Bringing New Light to an Old
Master,” in Jan Lievens: A Dutch Master Revisited, ed. Arthur K. Wheelock Jr. (Exh. cat. Washington
D.C., National Gallery of Art; Milwaukee, Milwaukee Art Museum; Amsterdam, Museum Het
Rembrandthuis) (New Haven, 2008), 11.
41. Arthur K. Wheelock Jr., “Jan Lievens: Bringing New Light to an Old Master,” in Jan Lievens: A Dutch
Master Revisited, ed. Arthur K. Wheelock Jr. (Exh. cat. Washington D.C., National Gallery of Art;
Milwaukee, Milwaukee Art Museum; Amsterdam, Museum Het Rembrandthuis) (New Haven, 2008),
11
42. Constantijn Huygens, Constantijn Huygens, Mijn jeugd, ed. Chris L. Heesakkers (Amsterdam, 1987),
70–90. Quoted in Ernst van de Wetering, “Rembrandt’s Beginnings: An Essay,” in The Mystery of theYoung Rembrandt, ed. Ernst van de Wetering and Bernhard Schnackenburg (Exh. cat. Kassel,
Museumslandschaft Hessen; Amsterdam, Museum Het Rembrandthuis) (Wolfratshausen, 2001), 26.
43. The appearance of Stone Operation (Allegory of Touch) and Spectacles Seller (Allegory of Sight) before
the removal of the painted additions can be seen in Josua Bruyn et al. A Corpus of Rembrandt Paintings,
vol. 1: 1625–1631, Stichting Foundation Rembrandt Research Project (The Hague, 1982), 1: 406 and410. In Spectacles Seller a tall curtain appeared on the left and a mirror on the right, and in Stone
Operation the cupboard on the left extended onto the addition, much as in Unconscious Patient.
44. Quentin Buvelot and Otto Naumann, “Format Changes by Frans van Mieris the Elder,” Burlington
Magazine 150 (February 2008): 102–4.
45. See Josua Bruyn et al. A Corpus of Rembrandt Paintings, vol. 1: 1625–1631, Stichting Foundation
Rembrandt Research Project (The Hague, 1982), 1: 92.

© 2024 The Leiden Collection

Stone Operation (Allegory of Touch)
Page 16 of 22

Provenance
Private collection, England.
Dr. Cornelis Johannes Karel van Aalst (1866–1939), Hoevelaken, by 1939, by descent to his son
Nicolaas Johannes van Aalst, Hoevelaken and Breda [on consignment with G. Cramer Oude Kunst
Gallery, The Hague, 1965–79].
Willem van Aalst, The Netherlands, bought from the descendants of Nicolaas Johannes van Aalst, 1984.
Private collection, Switzerland (sale, Christie’s, London, 7 July 1995, no. 57 [for £386,500]).
Edgar James Swaab (b. 1958), The Netherlands, until 2007.
From whom acquired by the present owner.

Exhibition History
Leiden, Museum De Lakenhal, “Rembrandt als Leermeester,” 1 June–1 September 1956, no. 3 [lent by
Mr. Nicolaas Johannes van Aalst, Hoevelaken].
Montreal, Museum of Fine Arts, “Rembrandt and His Pupils: A Loan Exhibition of Paintings
Commemorating the 500th Anniversary of Rembrandt,” 9 January–23 February 1969; Toronto, Art
Gallery of Ontario, 14 March–27 April 1969, no. 3 [lent by G. Cramer Oude Kunst Gallery, The
Hague].
Delft, Prinsenhof, “25e Oude Kunst- En Antiekbeurs: Der Vereeniging van Handelaren in Oude Kunst
in Nederland,” 30 August–19 September 1973, no. 64 [lent by G. Cramer Oude Kunst Gallery, The
Hague].
Leiden, Museum De Lakenhal, “Geschildert tot Leyden anno 1626,” 7 December 1976–9 January 1977,
no. S28B [lent by G. Cramer Oude Kunst Gallery, The Hague].
Yokohama, Sogo Museum of Art, “Rembrandt and the Bible,” 31 October–23 December 1986;
Fukuoka, Fukuoka Art Museum, 6 January–1 February 1987; Kyoto, Kyoto National Museum ofModern Art, 7 February–22 March 1987, no. 2 [lent by Willem van Aalst, The Netherlands].
Stockholm, National Museum, “Rembrandt och hans tid: Människan i Centrum/Rembrandt and His
Age: Focus on Man,” 2 October 1992–6 January 1993, no. 47 [lent by Willem van Aalst, The
Netherlands].
Leiden, Museum De Lakenhal, on loan with the permanent collection (“Rembrandtjaar”), 2006, no.
B146 [lent by Edgar James Swaab, the Netherlands].
Tokyo, National Museum of Western Art, “Rembrandt: The Quest for Chiaroscuro,” 12 March–12 June
2011; Nagoya, Nagoya City Art Museum, 25 June–4 September 2011 [lent by present owner].
© 2024 The Leiden Collection

Stone Operation (Allegory of Touch)
Page 17 of 22

Raleigh, North Carolina Museum of Art, “Rembrandt in America,” 30 October 2011–22 January 2012;
Cleveland, Cleveland Museum of Art, 19 February–28 May 2012; Minneapolis, Minneapolis Institute ofArts, 24 June–16 September 2012 [lent by the present owner].
Richmond, Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, on loan with the permanent collection, December
2012–December 2013 [lent by the present owner].
Haarlem, Frans Hals Museum, “Emotions: Pain and Pleasure in Dutch Painting of the Golden Age,” 11October 2012–15 February 2015, no. 24 [lent by the present owner].
Worcester, Worcester Art Museum, on loan with the permanent collection, 15 February 2015–1
February 2016 [lent by the present owner].
Los Angeles, The J. Paul Getty Museum, “The Promise of Youth: Rembrandt’s ‘Senses’ Rediscovered,”
11 May–28 August 2016 [lent by the present owner].
Oxford, University of Oxford, Ashmolean Museum of Art and Archaeology, on loan with the permanentcollection, 1 September–30 November 2016 [lent by the present owner].
Amsterdam, Museum Het Rembrandthuis, “Rembrandt’s First Paintings: The Four Senses,” 12
December 2016–2 February 2017 [lent by the present owner].
Paris, Museé du Louvre, “Masterpieces of The Leiden Collection: The Age of Rembrandt,” 22
February–22 May 2017 [lent by the present owner].
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 [lent by the present
owner].
Moscow, The Pushkin State Museum of Fine Arts, “The Age of Rembrandt and Vermeer: Masterpiecesof 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 the present owner].
Abu Dhabi, Louvre Abu Dhabi, “Rembrandt, Vermeer and the Dutch Golden Age. Masterpieces fromThe Leiden Collection and the Musée du Louvre,” 14 February–18 May 2019 [lent by the present
owner].

References
Von Moltke, Joachim Wolfgang. Dutch and Flemish Old Masters in the Collection of Dr. C. J. K. van
Aalst, Huis te Hoevelaken. Verona, 1939, x–xi, 266, 330, no. 78.
Benesch, Otto. “An Early Group Portrait by Rembrandt.” Art Quarterly 3 (1940): 3, 10–11, no. 8.
© 2024 The Leiden Collection

Stone Operation (Allegory of Touch)
Page 18 of 22

Kaufmann, Hans. “Die Fünfsinne in der niederländischen Malerei der 17 Jahrhunderts.”
Kunstgeschichtliche Studien (1944): 145–46.
Benesch, Otto. “Caravaggism in the Drawings of Rembrandt.” In Extrait des Actes du XVIIème CongrèsInternational d’Histoire de l’Art. The Hague, 1955. Reprinted in Otto Benesch, Collected Writings. Edited
by Eva Benesch, 1: 175–89, no. 106. 2 vols. New York, 1970.
Knuttel, Gerard. Rembrandt: De Meester en Zijn Werk. Amsterdam, 1956, 240 (as not by Rembrandt
van Rijn).
Van Gelder, Jan Gerrit, Horst Gerson, Ary Bob de Vries, Jan Nicolas van Wessem, and Joop M. Joosten,eds. Rembrandt als Leermeester. Exh. cat. Leiden, Museum De Lakenhal. Leiden, 1956, 14–15, no. 3.
Rosenberg, Jakob. “Die Rembrandt Ausstellungen in Holland.” Kunstkronik 9 (1956): 354 (as a copy
after Rembrandt van Rijn).
Bauch, Kurt. Der frühe Rembrandt und sein Zeit: Studien zur geschichtlichen Bedeutung seines
Frühstils. Berlin, 1960, 227–29, no. 192 (as by School of Rembrandt).
Hans Cramer. Galerie Hans Cramer. Sales cat. The Hague, Galerie Cramer. The Hague, 1965/66, 18.
Hans Crame. Galerie Hans Cramer. Sales cat. The Hague, Galerie Cramer. The Hague, 1966/67, 20.
Bauch, Kurt. Rembrandt: Gemälde. Berlin, 1966, 48, under no. 421 (as in the manner of Gerrit Dou).
Wurfbain, Maarten L., and Bob Haak, eds. Rondom Rembrandt de verzameling Daan Cevat. Exh. cat.
Leiden, Museum De Lakenhal. Leiden, 1968, 26–27, under no. 37.
Bruyn, Josua, and David Carter. Rembrandt and His Pupils: A Loan Exhibition of Paintings
Commemorating the 300th Anniversary of Rembrandt [Rembrandt et ses élèces: Une Exposition depeintures commémprant le 300e anniversaire de Rembrandt.] Exh. cat. Montreal, Montreal Museum ofFine Arts; Toronto, Art Gallery of Ontario. Montreal, 1969, 62, no. 3.
Held, Julius. “Die Ausstellung Rembrandt and His Pupils in Montreal und Toronto.” Pantheon 27 (1969):
387.
Arpino, Giovanni, and Paolo Lecaldano. L’opera pittorica complete di Rembrandt. Milan, 1969, 129.
Bredius, Abraham, and Horst Gerson. Rembrandt: The Complete Edition of the Paintings. London, 1969,
338, 587, no. 421A.
Museum Het Prinsenhof. 25e Oude kunst- en antiekbeurs: der vereeniging van handelaren in oude kunst in
Nederland. Exh. cat. Delft, Museum Het Prinsenhof. Kassel, 1973, 64.
Ekkart, Rudolf E. O., and Maartin L. Wurfbain. Geschildert tot Leyden anno 1626. Exh. cat. Leiden,
Museum De Lakenhal. Leiden, 1976, 70–71, no. S28B.
Bolten, Jaap, and Henriette Bolten-Rempt. The Hidden Rembrandt. Oxford, 1978, 172, no. 16.
Bruyn, Josua et al. A Corpus of Rembrandt Paintings. Vol. 1, 1625–1631. Stichting Foundation
Rembrandt Research Project. The Hague, Boston, and London, 1982, 405–09, no. B 2.
Schwartz, Gary. Rembrandt, His Life, His Paintings: A New Biography with All Accessible Paintings
Illustrated in Colour. New York, 1985, 34, no. 14. Originally published as Rembrandt, zijn leven, zijne© 2024 The Leiden Collection

Stone Operation (Allegory of Touch)
Page 19 of 22

schilderijen: ein nieuwe biografie, met all beschikbare schilderijen in kleur afgebeeld. Maarsen, 1985.
Tümpel, Christian. Rembrandt: Mythos und Methode. Antwerp, 1986, 30–31, 423, A28 (as by an early
follower of Rembrandt van Rijn).
Brown, Christopher, ed. Rembrandt and the Bible. Exh. cat. Yokohama, Sogo Museum of Art; Fukuoka,
Fukuoka Art Museum; Kyoto, Kyoto National Museum of Modern Art. Tokyo, 1986, 55, 134, 152, no.
2.
Brown, Christopher. “Mästaren och hans ateljé.” In Rembrandt och hans tid: Människan iCentrum/Rembrandt and His Age: Focus on Man. Edited by Görel Cavalli-Björkman, 176–79, no. 47.
Exh. cat. Stockholm, National Museum. Stockholm, 1992.
Tümpel, Christian. Rembrandt: All Paintings in Colour. Antwerp, 1993, 30–31, 426, A28 (as by an early
follower of Rembrandt van Rijn).
Broos, Ben, ed. The Amateur’s Cabinet: Seventeenth-Century Dutch Masterpieces from Dutch Private
Collections. Exh. cat. The Hague, Royal Picture Gallery Mauritshuis. The Hague, 1995, 50–51, no. 21.2.
Van den Boogert, Bob. “The Operation (Touch).” In The Mystery of the Young Rembrandt. Edited by
Bernhard Schnackenburg and Ernst van de Wetering, 154–55, no. 10. Exh. cat. Kassel, Museum Schloss
Wilhelmshöhe,

Gemäldegalerie

Alte

Meister;

Amsterdam,

MuseumHet

Rembrandthuis.

Wolfratshausen, 2001.
Sutton, Peter C. Dutch and Flemish Paintings: The Collection of Willem Baron van Dedem. London,
2002, 198–201, no. 42a.
Van de Wetering, Ernst, et al. A Corpus of Rembrandt Paintings. Vol. 4, Self-Portraits. Stichting
Foundation Rembrandt Research Project. Dordrecht, 2005, 627, no. I B2.
Vogelaar, Christiaan, and Gerbrand Korevaar, eds. Rembrandt’s Mother: Myth and Reality. Exh. cat.
Leiden, Museum De Lakenhal. Leiden and Zwolle, 2005, 14, no. 4.
Van Straten, Roelof. Young Rembrandt: The Leiden Years, 1606–1632. Translated by R. Quartero and
D.J. Martin. Leiden, 2005, 29–31, no. 15. Originally published as Rembrandt´s Leidse Tijd, 1606–1632.
Leiden, 2005.
Schwartz, Gary. The Rembrandt Book. New York, 2006, 274.
Van den Boogert, Bob. “The Stone Operation (Touch).” In Rembrandt: The Quest for Chiaroscuro.
Edited by Akira Kofuku, 216–17, 347–48, no. 81. Exh. cat. Tokyo, National Museum of Western Art;
Nagoya: Nagoya City Art Museum. Tokyo, 2011.
Rassieur, Tom. “Rembrandt in the Seventeenth Century.” In Rembrandt in America: Collecting andConnoisseurship. Edited by George S. Keyes, Tom Rassieur, and Dennis P. Weller, 33. Exh. cat. Raleigh,North Carolina Museum of Art; Cleveland, Cleveland Museum of Art; Minneapolis, Minneapolis
Institute of Arts. New York, 2011.
Rassieur, Tom. “Rembrandt’s Leiden Years: Mastering His Craft and Defining His Genius.” In
Rembrandt in America: Collecting and Connoisseurship. Edited by George S. Keyes, Tom Rassieur, andDennis P. Weller, 89–92, 108. Exh. cat. Raleigh, North Carolina Museum of Art; Cleveland, Cleveland© 2024 The Leiden Collection

Stone Operation (Allegory of Touch)
Page 20 of 22

Museum of Art; Minneapolis, Minneapolis Institute of Arts. New York, 2011.
Weller, Dennis P. “Rembrandt’s History Paintings in America.” In Rembrandt in America: Collecting andConnoisseurship. Edited by George S. Keyes, Tom Rassieur, and Dennis P. Weller, 167. Exh. cat.
Raleigh, North Carolina Museum of Art; Cleveland, Cleveland Museum of Art; Minneapolis,
Minneapolis Institute of Arts. New York, 2011.
Weller, Dennis P. “The Operation: Touch.” In Rembrandt in America: Collecting and Connoisseurship.
Edited by George S. Keyes, Tom Rassieur, and Dennis P. Weller, 173, no. 2. Exh. cat. Raleigh, North
Carolina Museum of Art; Cleveland, Cleveland Museum of Art; Minneapolis, Minneapolis Institute ofArts. New York, 2011.
Haboldt, Bob. Singular Vision: Haboldt & Co.’s Old Master Paintings and Drawings since 1983.
Amsterdam, 2012, 355.
Schwartz, Gary. Emotions: Pain and Pleasure in Dutch painting of the Golden Age. Exh. cat. Haarlem,Frans Hals Museum. Rotterdam, 2014, 35, 114, no. 24.
Golahny, Amy. “Rembrandt and ‘Everyday Life.’” In Genre Imagery in Early Modern Northern Europe:
New Perspectives. Edited by Arthur J. DiFuria. New York, 2016, 162–65, no. 7.1.
Van Tuinen, Ilona. Jordaens Rembrandt: Two New Early Works. Paris, 2016.
Schnackenburg, Bernhard. Jan Lievens: Friend and Rival of the Young Rembrandt. Petersberg, 2016, 25.
Van de Wetering, Ernst. Rembrandt: The Painter Thinking. Amsterdam, 2016, 144–46, no. 133.
Surh, Dominique. “Stone Operation (Allegory of Touch).” In Masterpieces of The Leiden Collection: The
Age of Rembrandt. Edited by Blaise Ducos and Dominique Surh, 54, no. 17. Exh. cat. Paris, Musée du
Louvre. Paris, 2017.
Yeager-Crasselt, Lara. “Rembrandt and His Time: China and the Dutch Republic in the Golden Age.”In Rembrandt and His Time: Masterpieces from The Leiden Collection. Edited by Lara Yeager-Crasselt, 8;
13, fig. 3. Translated by Li Ying. Exh. cat. Beijing, National Museum of China. Beijing, 2017. A
slightly revised version of this essay appears in Rembrandt, Vermeer and Hals in the Dutch Golden Age:
Masterpieces from The Leiden Collection. Exh. cat. Shanghai, Long Museum, West Bund. Shanghai,
2017, 29, fig. 3.
Yeager-Crasselt, Lara. “Stone Operation (Allegory of Touch).” In Rembrandt and His Time: Masterpieces
from The Leiden Collection. Edited by Lara Yeager-Crasselt, 24–25; 172, no. 2. Translated by Li Ying.
Exh. cat. Beijing, National Museum of China. Beijing, 2017.
Long Museum, West Bund. Rembrandt, Vermeer and Hals in the Dutch Golden Age: Masterpieces fromThe Leiden Collection. Exh. cat. Shanghai, Long Museum, West Bund. Shanghai, 2017, 48-49.
Yeager-Crasselt, Lara “Stone Operation (Allegory of Touch).” In The Age of Rembrandt and Vermeer:
Masterpieces of The Leiden Collection. Edited by Polina Lyubimova, 160–61; 241, no. 47. 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© 2024 The Leiden Collection

Stone Operation (Allegory of Touch)
Page 21 of 22

the Dutch Golden Age. Masterpieces from The Leiden Collection and the Musée du Louvre. Edited Blaise
Ducos and Lara Yeager-Crasselt, 26, n. 8, 28. Exh. cat. Abu Dhabi, Louvre Abu Dhabi. London, 2019.
[Exhibition catalogue also published in French and Arabic.]
Ducos, Blaise, and Lara Yeager-Crasselt, eds. Rembrandt, Vermeer and the Dutch Golden Age.
Masterpieces from The Leiden Collection and the Musée du Louvre. Exh. cat. Abu Dhabi, Louvre Abu
Dhabi. London, 2019, 77–8, no. 16. [Exhibition catalogue also published in French and Arabic.]
Manuth, Volker, Marieke de Winkel, and Rudie van Leeuwen. Rembrandt. The Complete Paintings.
Cologne, 2019, 64, 577-78, no. 119, 585.
Knox, Giles. Sense of Knowledge and the Challenge of Italian Renaissance Art: El Greco, Velázquez,
Rembrandt. Visual and Material Culture, 1300–1700. Amsterdam, 2019, 197, fig. 81.
Brown, Christopher, An Van Camp, and Christiaan Vogelaar, eds. Young Rembrandt. Exh. cat. Leiden,
Museum De Lakenhal; Oxford, Ashmolean Museum, University of Oxford. Oxford, 2019, 139–41, fig.
133.
Dickey, Stephanie S. “Art and Life.” In Rembrandt in Amsterdam. Creativity and Competition. Edited by
Stephanie S. Dickey and Jochen Sander, 287, fig. 15.1, 290n2. Exh. cat. Ottawa, National Gallery ofCanada; Frankfurt am Main, Städel Museum. New Haven, 2021.
Blom, Onno. Young Rembrandt: A Biography. New York, 2020, 181–82.
Vogelaar, Christiaan. “The Leiden Collection.” In Rembrandt and his Contemporaries: History Paintingsfrom The Leiden Collection. Edited by Arthur K. Wheelock Jr. and Caroline Van Cauwenberge, 10. Exh.
cat. Amsterdam, Hermitage Amsterdam. Zwolle, 2023. [Exhibition catalogue also published in Dutch.]

Technical Summary
The support, a single plank of vertically grained, rectangular-shaped Baltic oak with no bevels, has been
thinned. Narrow vertically grained wood shims glued to all four sides have been toned black along the front
surface and obscure the panel edges. Animal glue residue along the reverse indicates the panel was previously
adhered to an auxiliary support. There are no wax seals, import stamps, stencils, labels or panel maker’s
marks along the reverse.
This panel was previously set into a four-sided, rectangular, frame-shaped wood addition, on which thepainted composition had been extended. This extension, which measured 31.7 x 25.3 cm., included thecupboard, the rear wall, the back of the figure with the candle, and the patient’s lower leg. The sides of theenlargement were unequal in width, measuring, respectively, at the lower, upper, left, and right edges: 1.4
cm, 8.6 cm, 3.6 cm, and 3.6 cm. In 1987–88 the added panel surround was removed when the painting was
restored.[1] By that time, dendrochronological examinations undertaken by Pieter Klein had demonstrated
that the core image was painted on an oak panel datable to the early seventeenth century and that the added
panel was much later in date, likely from the late seventeenth-century.[2] Unfortunately, the removed panel is© 2024 The Leiden CollectionPowered by TCPDF (www.tcpdf.org)

Stone Operation (Allegory of Touch)
Page 22 of 22

now lost.
The oak panel support is covered by a thin ground, presumably natural chalk, i.e., calcium carbonate. A
brown imprimatur layer, visible in the background of the image, was subsequently applied with wide
horizontal strokes. The figures and foreground elements are executed in opaque layers of paint. No
underdrawing is readily apparent in infrared images captured at 780–1000 nanometers.
The x-radiograph reveals two minor compositional changes. The angle of the fingers of the figure holding thecandle were originally diagonally oriented rather than horizontally as seen now. In addition, the upper contourof the patient’s head has been shifted downward slightly, or the figure’s forearm resting over the patient’s
head was previously light-colored. The figures and the paint in the background are well preserved. The
painting, which is unsigned and undated, has not undergone conservation treatment since its acquisition in2007.
Further technical information about this artwork is available in The Rembrandt Database.

Technical Summary Endnotes

1. The conservation report by the Dutch restorer, Menno Dooijes, is on file at the Leiden Collection.
2. Klein’s report is on file at The Leiden Collection. A comparable decision to remove the surrounding
addition had been made in the early 1930s with the restoration of Spectacles Seller (Allegory of Sight) by
Fa. Schuuring in The Hague (information from the conservation report by Menno Dooijes, on file at
The Leiden Collection). For an image of the painting’s appearance and a diagram of the overpainted
areas prior to its restoration in the late 1980s, see: Stichting Foundation Rembrandt Research Project, A
Corpus of Rembrandt Paintings, vol. 1, 1625–1631, ed. J. Bruyn et al. (The Hague, 1982), 1:399–404,
no. B1.

© 2024 The Leiden Collection