Head of a Girl
Rembrandt van Rijn
(Leiden 1606 – 1669 Amsterdam)ca. 1645
oil on panel
20.8 x 17.4 cm
RR-112© 2020 The Leiden Collection

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How to cite
Van Tuinen, Ilona and Arthur K. Wheelock Jr. “Head of a Girl” (2017). In The Leiden Collection Catalogue, 2nd
ed. Edited by Arthur K. Wheelock Jr. New York, 2017–20. https://theleidencollection.com/artwork/head-of-agirl/ (archived May 2020).
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.

© 2020 The Leiden Collection

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With a tender expression accentuated by her tilted head and slightly parted

Comparative Figureslips, the girl in this bust-length image gazes downward to the left. Strong lightfalling from the upper left illuminates her face and the broad, cream-coloredkerchief draped loosely around her neck, while a subtle, reflected lightmodels the shaded areas of her cheek and chin. Executed in both thick
impastos and thin, translucent paints, this rapidly executed oil study has acompelling presence that belies its small scale.
Wilhelm von Bode was the first scholar in the first half of the twentiethcentury to publish this engaging head study as Rembrandt’s.[1] In 1948,
Jacob Rosenberg argued that this sketch was Rembrandt’s preliminary
study for Mary in his Holy Family, 1645, in the State Hermitage Museum in
St. Petersburg (fig 1). Indeed, the position of Mary’s head, her expression,and the character of the direct and indirect light illuminating her face are

Fig 1. Rembrandt van Rijn, Holy
Family, 1645, oil on canvas, 116.4
x 96.4 cm, The State Hermitage
Museum, St. Petersburg, inv. 741

almost identical to that of the young girl in the oil study (fig 2). Since the1960s, however, most art historians have argued that this oil study is a freely
executed copy of Mary in Holy Family by a member of Rembrandt’s
workshop and not Rembrandt’s preliminary study for that figure.[2] The
painting has been associated with a number of Rembrandt’s students,
including Carel Fabritius (1622–54), Samuel van Hoogstraten (1627–78),
and Nicolaes Maes (1634–93), but none of these proposed attributions has
proved to be compelling.[3] As a consequence, the identification of the artist
responsible for this engaging oil study remains an enigma.[4]The question of whether or not this bust is Rembrandt’s preliminary study ora copy by a workshop assistant relates to a larger problem within Rembrandt
scholarship. As Ernst van de Wetering has demonstrated, Rembrandt often
made preparatory studies of figures for his paintings to work out patterns of

Fig 2. Detail, Rembrandt van Rijn,
Holy Family, 1645, oil on canvas,
116.4 x 96.4 cm, The State
Hermitage Museum, St.
Petersburg, inv. 741

light and shade.[5] In these studies he was particularly interested in rendering
light that had been reflected into shadowed areas of the face. MichielFranken has argued, however, that Rembrandt also encouraged his students
to make partial copies after his compositions, and to alter these copies sothat they could pass as tronies in their own right.[6] It is not always easy to tellthe difference between these two types of oil sketches, and debates about
their attributions are some of the most complicated issues in Rembrandt
studies.
Careful comparisons of the Leiden Collection’s Head of a Girl and the figureof Mary in Holy Family support Rosenberg’s conclusion that this sketch is a

Fig 3. X-radiograph of Head of aGirl, RR-112

preliminary study for the Hermitage painting and not a copy after it. For© 2020 The Leiden Collection

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example, the strokes of white paint evident above the girl’s head, which arealso visible in the X-radiograph (fig 3), indicate that the artist initially provided
her with a small bonnet rather than the larger headdress worn by Mary in the
final composition. The X-radiograph also reveals changes in the position of
the white cloth to the left of the girl’s face, an unlikely occurrence should the
Leiden Collection painting be a copy. Other differences exist between the oil
sketch and the final composition, including the girl’s hairstyle, which is notparted in the middle as is the case with Mary. Mary leans more forward thandoes the girl in the oil study, a difference in pose that is evident in theposition of Mary’s right shoulder, which is higher than that of the girl in the oil
sketch. Also revealing is the shape of the young girl’s neckline. In the
Hermitage painting Mary wears a straight-edged bodice, but a visible
pentimento in this area reveals that her neckline was V-shaped, exactly as inFig 4. Rembrandt van Rijn, Headof Christ, ca. 1648, oil on panel,
Staatliche Museen zu Berlin, inv.
811C, © Foto: Gemäldegalerie derStaatlichen Museen zu
Berlin—Preußischer Kulturbesitz,
Fotograf/in: Volker-H. Schneider

the oil sketch from the Leiden Collection.[7] Finally, the handling of paint,
which includes both impastos and thin areas in the shadows that reveal theunderlying ocher ground layer, is consistent with Rembrandt’s manner and
not with a copy. The subtle nuances of reflected light in the shaded portion of
the girl’s face are also comparable to those found on Rembrandt’s other oil
studies.[8]Nowhere in Rembrandt’s oeuvre does one find so many correlations
between an oil sketch and the initial appearance of one of Rembrandt’s
compositions as in this instance. Indeed, all of the other the oil sketches thatFranken describes as workshop copies are based on one of the master’s
completed compositions, not on an initial stage in the creative process.
Franken argues that the Leiden Collection oil study was made by a copyist
who adapted his image so that it could function as “a ‘tronie’ in its own
right,” but this conclusion seems improbable since the oil study so closelyreflects Holy Family’s underlying design. Van den Boogert and Van deWetering, recognizing this fact, maintain that Head of a Girl was executed bya member of Rembrandt’s workshop before Rembrandt had worked out his
final composition for the Hermitage painting.[9] As evidence to support their
theory, they contend that an infrared reflectogram of the girl’s head reveals afairly detailed underdrawing in black chalk or charcoal, a technique that
Rembrandt is not known to have used.[10] Their reading of the reflectogram,
however, mistakenly interpreted the black lines seen in the image as
underdrawings rather than strokes of carbon-containing paint used to model
the girl’s features. After one discounts this faulty interpretation of thereflectogram, there are, in fact, no compositional or technical reasons forquestioning the attribution of this oil sketch to Rembrandt.
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A fundamental question when considering the attribution is whether the work
is stylistically consistent with Rembrandt’s oil studies from the mid-1640s.
This issue is particularly important because no Rembrandt scholar has
attributed the painting to the master since 1966, when Bauch deemed thepainting to be a partial copy after Rembrandt’s Holy Family. In this respect,
the historical situation related to Head of a Girl parallels that of a number ofother oil sketches that have been considered to be partial copies by pupils,
but that actually may have been preliminary studies Rembrandt made forhistory paintings. Van de Wetering has identified a number of these, mostly
expressive head studies that demonstrate a quick and fluid touch, often
boldly executed with thick impastos.[12] Van de Wetering, however, has not
reattributed Head of a Girl to Rembrandt, and he, like other recent
Rembrandt scholars, considers it to be a copy by a member of Rembrandt’s
workshop.[13]The reason that scholars have resisted attributing this oil sketch toRembrandt may be that the young woman is more carefully rendered thanthe preliminary oil sketches generally associated with Rembrandt’s hand, allof which are boldly and expressively brushed. Indeed, Head of a Girl has thecharacter of a figure study rather than a quick compositional sketch. In thisrespect it resembles the various head studies of Christ that Rembrandt andhis workshop painted from a young Jewish model in the late 1640s, none ofwhich were actually preliminary studies for paintings. A particularly closecomparison to Head of a Girl is the Head of Christ from Berlin (fig 4). Bothyoung models are posed looking down and to the right, their averted gazes
evoking a sense of mystery and inward reflection.[14] Their features are
similarly rendered, as is the application of paint. In each instance the facehas been worked up from a brown monochrome sketch, which has been left
exposed in the temple and in the shaded portions of the nose and proper
right eye socket. The foreheads and cheekbones of both figures have been
comparably enlivened with freely brushed impastos.
Thus, in addition to its high quality, the stylistic, compositional, and technicalcharacter of this compelling head study warrant defending its attribution to
Rembrandt. It is probable that the master executed this painting around 1645
as a preparatory study for the figure of Mary in Holy Family.[15]- Ilona van Tuinen, Arthur K. Wheelock Jr., 2017

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Endnotes

1. Wilhelm von Bode and Cornelis Hofstede de Groot, The Complete Work of Rembrandt, 8vols. (Paris, 1897–1906), 5: 29, 156, no. 373, dated the painting to “about 1650.” The
attribution to Rembrandt was subsequently upheld by Wilhelm Valentiner and Cornelis
Hofstede de Groot. See Wilhelm R. Valentiner, Rembrandt: beschreibendes Verzeichnissseiner Gemälde mit den heliographischen Nachbildungen: Geschichte seines Lebens undseiner Kunst [The Complete Work of Rembrandt, History, Description and Heliographic
Reproduction of All the Master’s Pictures, with a Study of His Life], 406, 562, 576 (where hementioned a faint date of 1653 on the panel, albeit “undeutlich und nich ganz zweifellos” adate which can no longer be detected or has since disappeared, and which does not appear
to have been original); Cornelis Hofstede de Groot, A Catalogue Raisonné of the Works of
the Most Eminent Dutch Painters of the Seventeenth Century Based on the Work of John
Smith, ed. and trans. Edward G. Hawke. 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), 6: 251, no. 495. In
1935, however, Abraham Bredius, Rembrandt: Gemälde (Vienna, 1935), no. 375, expressedsome doubts about the Rembrandt attribution.
2. Jakob Rosenberg, Rembrandt, 2 vols. (Berlin, 1948), 51, 122, fig. 165 (rev. ed. [London,
1968], 91, 196, 198, fig. 163).
3. In 1966 Kurt Bauch, Rembrandt: Gemälde (Berlin, 1966), 48, no. 375, considered the painting
to be a partial copy after Holy Family executed in the “manner of Fabritius,” while Werner
Sumowski, “Zu einem Gemälde von Carel Fabritius,” Pantheon 26, no. 4 (1968): 282–83,
firmly attributed it to Carel Fabritius. Subsequently, Sumowski reassessed the attribution andgave it to Nicolaes Maes before changing his mind and identifying it as a work by Samuel van
Hoogstraten. See Werner Sumowski, Gemälde der Rembrandt-Schüler, 6 vols. (Landau,
1983–94), 3:2008, under no. 1322, as by Nicolaes Maes; 6: 3627, under no. 1322, as by
Samuel van Hoogstraten. Bob van den Boogert, “Rembrandt Werkstatt: Kopf eines
Mädchens (Teilkopie nach Die Heilige Familie mit den Engeln),” in Rembrandt: Genie auf derSuche, ed. Ernst van de Wetering and Jan Kelch (Exh. cat. Amsterdam, Museum Het
Rembrandthuis; Berlin, Gemäldegalerie, Staatliche Museen zu Berlin) (Berlin, 2006), 334–35,
no. 47, argued that the work was a copy of an earlier stage of the Holy Family, possibly by
Van Hoogstraten. In 2000, Léon Krempel listed this oil sketch among the doubtful attributions
to Nicolaes Maes in his monograph on the artist, but, in 2010, he described it as “attributedto” Maes. See León Krempel, Nicolaes Maes (1634–1693): Studien zu den datierten
Gemälden (Petersberg, 2000), 334–35, no. B 12, fig. 356; Marlene Dumas, Chris Dercon, andLéon Krempel, Tronies: Marlene Dumas and the Old Masters (Exh. cat. Munich, Haus der© 2020 The Leiden Collection

Head of a Girl
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Kunst) (Düsseldorf, 2010), 36, 108. On 10 November 2010 Krempel sent an email to the
Leiden Collection indicating that he attributed the painting to Maes (curatorial files, The
Leiden Collection, New York).
4. Neither Horst Gerson, in Abraham Bredius and Horst Gerson, Rembrandt: The Complete
Edition of the Paintings (London, 1969), 541, 579, no. 375; nor Ernst van de Wetering,“Rembrandt: The Holy Family, 1645,” in Ernst van de Wetering et al., A Corpus of Rembrandt
Paintings, vol. 5: Small-Scale History Paintings, Stichting Foundation Rembrandt Research
Project (Dordrecht, 2011), 5: 371–78, no. V 4, copy 1, attribute the painting to a specific artist
from Rembrandt’s workshop.
5. Ernst van de Wetering, “Rembrandt’s Oil Studies: New Light on an Old Problem,”in Rembrandt: Quest of a Genius, ed. Bob van den Boogert (Exh. cat. Amsterdam, Museum
Het Rembrandthuis; Berlin, Gemäldegalerie, Staatliche Museen zu Berlin) (Zwolle, 2006),
179–207.
6. Michiel Franken, “Learning by Imitation: Copying Paintings in Rembrandt’s Workshop,”in Rembrandt: Quest of a Genius, ed. Bob van den Boogert (Exh. cat. Amsterdam, Museum
Het Rembrandthuis; Berlin, Gemäldegalerie, Staatliche Museen zu Berlin) (Zwolle, 2006),
153–77, particularly 169–70. See also Michiel Franken, “Lernen durch Nachahmung: ?berdas Kopieren von Gemälden in Rembrandts Werkstatt,” in Rembrandt: Genie auf der Suche,ed. Ernst van de Wetering and Jan Kelch (Exh. cat. Amsterdam, Museum Het
Rembrandthuis; Berlin, Gemäldegalerie, Staatliche Museen zu Berlin) (Berlin, 2006), 145–63,
particularly 156–57.
7. The presence of the V-shaped neckline confirms that the New York painting was executedaround 1645, the date of the Hermitage painting, which makes an attribution to Nicolaes
Maes, who studied with Rembrandt between 1649 and 1653, implausible.
8. See Ernst van de Wetering, “Rembrandt’s Oil Studies: New Light on an Old Problem,”in Rembrandt: Quest of a Genius, ed. Bob van den Boogert (Exh. cat. Amsterdam, Museum
Het Rembrandthuis; Berlin, Gemäldegalerie, Staatliche Museen zu Berlin) (Zwolle, 2006),
179–207.
9. Bob van den Boogert, “Rembrandt Werkstatt: Kopf eines Mädchens (Teilkopie nach Die
Heilige Familie mit den Engeln),” in Rembrandt: Genie auf der Suche, ed. Ernst van deWetering and Jan Kelch (Exh. cat. Amsterdam, Museum Het Rembrandthuis; Berlin,
Gemäldegalerie, Staatliche Museen zu Berlin) (Berlin, 2006,) 334–35, no. 47. Ernst van deWetering et al., “Rembrandt: The Holy Family, 1645,” in Ernst van de Wetering et al., A
Corpus of Rembrandt Paintings, vol. 5: Small-Scale History Paintings, Stichting Foundation
Rembrandt Research Project (Dordrecht, 2011), 371–78, no. V 4, copy 1.
10. Bob van den Boogert, “Rembrandt Werkstatt: Kopf eines Mädchens (Teilkopie nach Die
Heilige Familie mit den Engeln),” in Rembrandt: Genie auf der Suche, ed. Ernst van deWetering and Jan Kelch (Exh. cat. Amsterdam, Museum Het Rembrandthuis; Berlin,© 2020 The Leiden Collection

Head of a Girl
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Gemäldegalerie, Staatliche Museen zu Berlin) (Berlin, 2006) 334–35, no. 47; Ernst van deWetering, “Rembrandt: The Holy Family, 1645,” in Ernst van de Wetering et al., A Corpus of
Rembrandt Paintings, vol. 5: Small-Scale History Paintings, Stichting Foundation Rembrandt
Research Project (Dordrecht, 2011), 371–78, no. V 4, copy 1, fig. 8. In this respect, theirassessments follow the arguments of Michiel Franken, “Lernen durch Nachahmung: ?ber das
Kopieren von Gemälden in Rembrandts Werkstatt,” in Rembrandt: Genie auf der Suche, ed.
Ernst van de Wetering and Jan Kelch (Exh. cat. Amsterdam, Museum Het Rembrandthuis;
Berlin, Gemäldegalerie, Staatliche Museen zu Berlin) (Berlin, 2006), 145–63, particularly
156–57.
11. See Ernst van de Wetering, Rembrandt: The Painter at Work, 2nd ed. (Amsterdam, 2000),
23–32, for a discussion of Rembrandt’s use of a preliminary monochrome modeling, oftenwith a watery medium. We are grateful to Michiel Franken for relating his account of the
discussion of underdrawing in Rembrandt’s oeuvre at the technical conference at the
National Gallery in London in November 2014 in conjunction with the exhibition Rembrandt:
The Late Works.
12. See Ernst van de Wetering, “Rembrandt’s Oil Studies: New Light on an Old Problem,”in Rembrandt: Quest of a Genius, ed. Bob van den Boogert (Exh. cat. Amsterdam, Museum
Het Rembrandthuis; Berlin, Gemäldegalerie, Staatliche Museen zu Berlin) (Zwolle, 2006),
179–207, particularly 196–207. In this article, Van de Wetering reattributes a number of oil
sketches to Rembrandt, including Weeping Woman in the Detroit Institute of Arts, a work thatrecent scholars have argued was a partial copy by a member of the workshop after the
master’s Christ and the Woman Taken in Adultery, 1644, in the National Gallery, London.
13. Ernst van de Wetering et al., “Rembrandt: The Holy Family, 1645,” in Ernst van de Wetering
et al., A Corpus of Rembrandt Paintings, vol. 5: Small-Scale History Paintings, Stichting
Foundation Rembrandt Research Project (Dordrecht, 2011), 5: 371–78, no. V 4, copy 1.
14. See Rembrandt and the Face of Jesus, ed. Lloyd DeWitt, Blaise Ducos, and George S.
Keyes (Exh. cat. Paris, Musée du Louvre; Philadelphia Museum of Art; Detroit, Detroit
Institute of Arts) (Calenzano, 2011), 62–63, cat. 35.
15. The results of dendrochronological analysis of this panel have not proved particularly helpful
in dating the painting. According to Peter Klein, in a 2000 report made for Salomon Lilian, B.
V., copy on file at the Leiden Collection, New York, the youngest year ring of the panel dates
to 1613 and the panel comes from the same tree as Rembrandt’s Old Man in Military
Costume (ca. 1630–31, oil on panel, 66 x 55.9 cm, Los Angeles, J. Paul Getty Museum, inv.
78.PB.246) and Supper at Emmaus (private collection). Ian Tyers, in a report dated
November 2010, copy on file at The Leiden Collection, New York, states that the youngest
year ring of the panel dates as early as 1567.

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Provenance
Sir Charles A. Turner, London, by 1898, as by Rembrandt.
Paul von Schwabach (1876–1938), Berlin, by 1909, as by Rembrandt.
Dünsing Collection, Boizenburg, by 1948 [Frederick Mont, New York, 1950], as byRembrandt.
Private collection, United States, by 1969 (Sale, Sotheby’s, New York, 28 January 1999, no.
236, as by Nicolaes Maes [Salomon Lilian B. V., Amsterdam]).
Michiel and Debbie Zwetsloot, Scotland, by 2007.
From whom acquired by the present owner in 2007, as by Samuel van Hoogstraten.

Exhibition History
Amsterdam, Stedelijk Museum, “De Rembrandt Tentoonstelling te Amsterdam,” 8
September–31 October 1898, no. 82, as by Rembrandt [lent by Sir Charles A. Turner].
London, Burlington Fine Arts Club, “Exhibition of Pictures by Dutch Masters of theSeventeenth Century,” 1900, no. 48, as by Rembrandt [lent by Sir Charles A. Turner].
London, Whitechapel Art Gallery, “Dutch Exhibition,” 30 March–10 May 1904, no. 156, as byRembrandt [lent by Sir Charles A. Turner].
Amsterdam, Museum Het Rembrandthuis, “Rembrandt, Quest of a Genius,” 1 April–2 July
2006; Berlin, Gemäldegalerie, Staatliche Museen zu Berlin, 4 August–5 November 2006, no.
47, as by workshop of Rembrandt [lent by a private collection].
Munich, Haus der Kunst, “Tronies: Marlene Dumas and the Old Masters,” 29 October2010–6 February 2011, as attributed to Nicolaes Maes [lent by the present owner].
Washington, D.C., The National Gallery, on loan with the permanent collection, 19 October
2016–2 February, 2017, as by Rembrandt van Rijn [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 [lentby the present owner].
Moscow, The Pushkin State Museum of Fine Arts, “The Age of Rembrandt and Vermeer:© 2020 The Leiden Collection

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

References
Stedelijk Museum. Rembrandt: schilderijen bijeengebracht ter gelegenheid van de inhuldiging
van Hare Majesteit Koningin Wilhelmina/Rembrandt: collection des oeuvres du maître réunies
à l’occasion de l’inauguration de S. M. la Reine Wilhelmine, au musée de la ville à
Amsterdam. Exh. cat. Amsterdam, Stedelijk Museum. Amsterdam, 1898, no. 82.
Hofstede de Groot, Cornelis. De Rembrandt Tentoonstelling te Amsterdam. Exh. cat.
Amsterdam, Stedelijk Museum. Amsterdam, 1898, no. 82.
Burlington Fine Arts Club. Exhibition of Pictures of Dutch Masters of the SeventeenthCentury, introduction by Walter Armstrong. Exh. cat. London, Burlington Fine Arts Club.
London, 1900, 33, no. 48.
Von Bode, Wilhelm, and Cornelis Hofstede de Groot. Rembrandt: beschreibendes
Verzeichniss seiner Gemälde mit den heliographischen Nachbildungen: Geschichte seines
Lebens und seiner Kunst. 8 vols. Paris, 1897–1906, 5:29, 156, no. 373.
Whitechapel Art Gallery. Whitechapel Art Gallery: “Dutch Exhibition.” Exh. cat. London,
Whitechapel Art Gallery. London, 1904, 22, no. 156.
Valentiner, Wilhelm R. and Adolf Rosenberg. Rembrandt: Des Meisters Gemälde. Stuttgart
and Berlin, 1909, 406, 562, 576.
Graves, Algernon. A Century of Loan Exhibitions 1813–1912. 5 vols. London, 1913, 4:2144,
no. 156.
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: 251, no. 495. 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.
Bredius, Abraham. The Paintings of Rembrandt. 2 vols. Oxford, 1942, no. 375 (as of doubtful
attribution to Rembrandt).
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Rosenberg, Jakob. Rembrandt. 2 vols. Berlin, 1948, 51, 122, no. 165. Rev. ed. Rembrandt:
Life and Work. London, 1968, 91, 196, 198, no. 163.
Bauch, Kurt. Rembrandt: Gemälde. Berlin, 1966, 48, no. 375 (as in the style of Carel
Fabritius).
Sumowski, Werner. “Zu einem Gemälde von Carel Fabritius.” Pantheon 26 (1968, no. 4):
282–83 (as by Carel Fabritius).
Bredius, Abraham. Rembrandt: The Complete Edition of the Paintings. Revised by Horst
Gerson. London, 1969, 541, 579, no. 375 (as by workshop of Rembrandt).
Arpino, Giovanni, and Paolo Lecaldano. L’opera pittorica complete di Rembrandt. Milan,
1969, under “altre opere rembrandtiane gia considerate dalla critica o presenti in pubbliche
raccolte.”
Sumowski, Werner. Gemälde der Rembrandt-Schüler. 6 vols. Landau and Pfalz, 1983–94,
3:2008, under no. 1322 (as by Nicolaes Maes); 6:3627, under no. 1322 (as by Samuel van
Hoogstraten).
Van Thiel, Pieter. “De Rembrandt-tentoonstelling van 1898.” Bulletin van het Rijksmuseum 40(1992): 11 – 93, no. 82.
Krempel, León. Nicolaes Maes (1634–1693). Petersberg, 2000, 334–35, no. B 12, no. 356 (asby possibly Nicolaes Maes).
Van den Boogert, Bob. “Rembrandt Werkstatt: Kopf eines Mädchens (Teilkopie nach Die
Heilige Familie mit den Engeln).” In Rembrandt: Quest of a Genius. Edited by Ernst van deWetering et al. Exh. cat. Amsterdam, Rembrandt House Museum; Berlin, Gemäldegalerie,
Staatliche Museen zu Berlin. Cologne, 2006, 334–35, no. 47 (as workshop of Rembrandt,
possibly by Samuel van Hoogstraten).
Franken, Michiel. “Learning by Imitation: Copying Paintings in Rembrandt’s Workshop.”
In Rembrandt: Quest of a Genius. Edited by Bob van den Boogert. Exh. cat. Amsterdam,
Museum Het Rembranthuis; Berlin, Gemäldegalerie, Staatliche Museen zu Berlin. Zwolle,
2006, 169–70 (as by school of Rembrandt).
Liedtke, Walter. “Young Woman with a Red Necklace.” Dutch Paintings in the Metropolitan
Museum of Art. 2 vols. New York, 2: 749–53, no. 170, n. 3 (as an uncertain attribution).
Van de Wetering, Ernst, et al. A Corpus of Rembrandt Paintings. Vol. 5: Small-Scale History
Paintings. Stichting Foundation Rembrandt Research Project. Dordrecht, 2011, 374-377, figs.
6-8 (as by workshop of Rembrandt).
Dumas, Marlene, Chriss Dercon, and Léon Krempel. Tronies: Marlene Dumas and the Old
Masters. Exh. cat. Munich, Haus der Kunst. Düsseldorf, 2010, 36, 108 (as by attributed to
Nicolaes Maes).
Ducos, Blaise. “Head of a Girl.” In Masterpieces of The Leiden Collection: The Age of
Rembrandt. Edited by Blaise Ducos and Dominique Surh. Exh. cat. Paris, Musée du Louvre.
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Head of a Girl
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Paris, 2017, 62, no. 21.
Yeager-Crasselt, Lara. “Head of a Girl.” In Rembrandt and His Time: Masterpieces from The
Leiden Collection. Edited by Lara Yeager-Crasselt, 50–51; 175, no. 16. 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 from The Leiden Collection. Exh. cat. Shanghai, Long Museum, West Bund.
Shanghai, 2017, 69.
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, 22; 32. 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 “Head of a Girl.” In The Age of Rembrandt and Vermeer: Masterpiecesof The Leiden Collection. Edited by Polina Lyubimova, 178–79; 243, no. 56. 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.
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, 91–2, no. 25. [Exhibition catalogue also published in
French and Arabic.]

Technical Summary
The support, a single plank of vertically grained, rectangular, wedge-shaped, eastern Baltic oak
derived from a tree felled after 1575, has bevels along all but the left side.[1] The upper edge has ajagged cut and may have been trimmed slightly. The unthinned and uncradled panel has two
handwritten inscriptions and an old paper label, but no hand or machine toolmarks, wax seals,
stencils, import stamps or panel maker’s marks.
A light-colored, radio-opaque ground has been thinly and evenly applied followed by a browntransparent glaze. The paint has been applied thinly though the background and in a thick pastewith low rounded brushmarkings through the figure’s hair, face, and neck. A gap between the
background paint and flesh tones along the figure’s proper left shoulder and entire head allows ahalo of the transparent brown glaze to remain visible.
No underdrawing or compositional changes are readily apparent in infrared images captured at
780–1000 nanometers.
The painting is unsigned and undated.
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Head of a Girl
Page 13 of 13

The painting has not undergone conservation treatment since its acquisition and remains in agood state of preservation.
Further technical information about this artwork is available in The Rembrandt Database.

Technical Summary Endnotes

1. The characterization of the wood is based on Ian Tyers’s 2010 dendrochronology report. The
panel underwent dendrochronological analysis by Peter Klein in 2000.

© 2020 The Leiden Collection