Rembrandt and The Leiden Collection
How to cite
Chapman, H. Perry. “Rembrandt and The Leiden Collection” (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 essay 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

Rembrandt and The Leiden Collection
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Rembrandt’s artistic origins in Leiden and early successes
in Amsterdam, seen through the lens of The Leiden
Collection.
The range of impressive paintings from the 1620s and 1630s in The Leiden Collection
shows how Rembrandt van Rijn (1606–69) became so tremendously successful in hisday, and why he ranks among the greatest, most admired artists of all time. Born inLeiden in 1606, Rembrandt moved to Amsterdam in the early 1630s, where he soon
became the most famous and innovative, most in-demand painter in that great urban

Fig 1. Pieter Lastman, David Gives
Uriah a Letter for Joab, 1619, oil
on panel, 42.8 x 63.3 cm, The
Leiden Collection, New York, inv.
no. PL-100.

center. Throughout his career he demonstrated an unprecedented level of artistic selfawareness, as well as virtually unparalleled drive and ambition; his exceptional
knowledge of artistic traditions contributed to his creative efforts.[1]Rembrandt had an enormous impact on his contemporaries. The traditional view that
Rembrandt was an independent, singular genius who set himself apart from his society
is, to a certain extent, true at later stages of his career. However, during his early years
he was very much part of his artistic community, as both an esteemed colleague and a
dedicated, inspiring teacher. Rembrandt worked in an artistic milieu that thrived on
productive exchange and friendly rivalry. Much as for athletes, competition was
thought to inspire artists to do their best; and virtuous rivalry—as opposed todestructive envy, the great metaphorical enemy of painting—was regarded as essential
to the advancement of art. The most promising young artists were encouraged to

Fig 2. 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.

surpass their masters. Colleagues were encouraged to vie with each other, whether
informally or in sanctioned competitions. Rembrandt and his contemporaries would
have known of the ancient Greek painters Apelles and Protogenes, who competed over
who could draw the finer line.[2] Closer to home, they had the model of Lucas van
Leyden (1494–1533) and Albrecht Dürer (1471–1528), who “tried to compete against
and outdo one another, and … on occasion Lucas immediately engraved the same
histories or other subjects that Dürer had made,” and who “regarded each other’s works
with great admiration,” according to the biographer Karel van Mander (1548–1606).[3]The concept of emulation, meaning imitation with the aim of transforming andimproving upon an admired model, would have been deeply ingrained in the minds of[4]

ambitious artists.

Rembrandt’s many and varied responses to the art of his

predecessors—his teacher Pieter Lastman (1583–1633), his fellow townsman Lucasvan Leyden, the great Peter Paul Rubens (1577–1640), the famed Italian RenaissanceFig 3. Rembrandt van Rijn, ThreeMusicians (Allegory of Hearing), ca.
1624–25, oil on panel, 21.6 x 17.6
cm, The Leiden Collection, New
York, inv. no. RR-105.

masters, and the renowned ancients—can be broadly characterized as emulative, as can
the responses of his successors to his art. The depth and breadth of Rembrandt’s
creative exchanges with his colleagues, students and followers during the 1620s and© 2024 The Leiden Collection

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1630s are amply on display in paintings in The Leiden Collection.

Talent and Education
In his autobiography, written in about 1630, Constantijn Huygens (1596–1687)
pondered the extent to which his upbringing and experiences had formed his character,and the extent to which he was a product of his inborn nature.[5] A gifted writer andmusician who aspired to nobility and had attained an important position at court,
Huygens was the secretary to the stadholder Frederick Hendrick (1584–1647), thenominal ruler of the Dutch Republic. As secretary, from the word “secret,” Huygens
was the stadholder’s close advisor, as well as his art agent.[6] Huygens was also
Rembrandt’s first champion. In his autobiography, he described visiting two young andextraordinarily promising painters in Leiden, Rembrandt and Jan Lievens (1607–74).
One wonders whether Huygens posed his question of nature vs. nurture to Rembrandt,

Fig 4. Rembrandt van Rijn,
Unconscious Patient (Allegory of
Smell), ca. 1624–25, oil on panel,
inset into an eighteenth-century
panel, 31.75 x 25.4 cm, The Leiden
Collection, New York, inv. no.
RR-111.

or, with his precocious self-confidence and sense of his potential for greatness, wasRembrandt, himself, already curious about this issue? The artist Rembrandt became
was partly due to his innate and—in seventeenth-century terms—God-given talent anddrive, but it was also a function of his circumstances.
Rembrandt’s father owned a mill and some property in Leiden.[7] As was typical ofartists, Rembrandt’s family was of the solid, or broad, middle class. Painters worked
with their hands and so were among those who practiced trades or professions, andwere members of guilds. Yet they ranked above other craftsmen such as tailors andgoldsmiths. As producers of luxury goods with intellectual cachet and moral import,
painters catered to and hobnobbed with the educated elite, and they themselves were
often well educated. Indeed, by this time, painting had achieved a special status as not
only a manual craft but also as one of the liberal arts. Painters, broadly speaking, liked

Fig 5. 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.

to think of themselves as creating with their minds, not just their hands.
Rembrandt quickly became one of the most highly self-conscious of these artists, inpart because he grew up in the intellectual milieu of a university town—Leiden
University had been founded by William the Silent (1533–84) in 1575. Compared tomany painters, Rembrandt was well educated. His family had enough ambition for
him, and sufficient funds, to send him to the local elite Latin School, which preparedstudents—exclusively boys—to go to university. At the Latin School he would haveread the classics and must have learned Latin and perhaps some Greek, which would
have been good preparation for becoming a history painter, to which Rembrandt would
soon aspire. Although, at age fourteen, in 1620, Rembrandt was registered at the
University, he apparently did not attend. By then, according to his first biographer, Jan
Orlers (1570–1646) of Leiden, he had discovered his passion for painting anddrawing.[8]Fig 6. Adriaen Brouwer, The Bitter
Potion, mid-1630s, oil on panel,
47.4 x 35.5 cm, Städel Museum,Frankfurt am Main, inv. no. 1076,© Städel Museum, photo: U.
Edelmann.
© 2024 The Leiden Collection

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His parents, recognizing his talent, set him on the costly course of becoming a painter.
Compared with training in other crafts and trades, apprenticing with a master painterwas an expensive undertaking.[9] First, starting in 1620, Rembrandt apprenticed forabout three years in the studio of the Leiden painter Jacob van Swanenburgh(1571–1638); there he would have learned the basics of painting and acquired an
appreciation of Italian art, as Van Swanenburgh had spent about fifteen years in Italy,
including a stint in Naples that coincided with Caravaggio’s brief but productive stayFig 7. Jan Lievens, Allegory of theFive Senses, ca. 1622, oil on panel,
78.2 x 124.4 cm, Private
Collection.

there in 1606. Although Van Swanenburgh’s few known paintings are not what would
be called Caravaggesque, they do rely on strong contrast of light and dark; it may havebeen in Van Swanenburgh’s studio that Rembrandt first developed an appreciation fordramatic lighting effects.
Exactly what happened immediately after his apprenticeship with Van Swanenburgh
remains open to speculation, because the young Rembrandt was faced with a uniquesituation: the presence, in Leiden, of the talented and precocious Jan Lievens, who wasat once younger than Rembrandt and considerably more advanced in his career.
Lievens, born in 1607, the year after Rembrandt, had started painting at age eight. He
had apprenticed first with Joris Verschoten (ca. 1587–1652) in Leiden, and then for

Fig 8. Jan Lievens, Card Players,ca. 1625, oil on canvas, 97.5 x
105.4 cm, The Leiden Collection,
New York, inv. no. JL-102.

about two years with his “second master” Pieter Lastman, the most important history
painter in Amsterdam at that time. In 1619, at age twelve, he had set up as anindependent master in his own studio, which was probably in his parents’ house. In
1623/24, Rembrandt may have wanted to catch up with the more skilled andaccomplished Lievens. Attending Latin School had meant that Rembrandt got a latestart as a painter, although, in the long run, having an education in the classics would
benefit him enormously. But at the moment he needed additional training. Perhaps
inspired by Lievens, Rembrandt, in 1624/25 at age eighteen or nineteen, went to
Amsterdam for a six-month finishing-up apprenticeship with the famous Lastman who,
like Van Swanenburgh, had spent time in Italy from 1604 to 1607.
From Pieter Lastman, Rembrandt learned a great deal about staging an historicalnarrative. Lastman’s David Gives Uriah a Letter for Joab, 1619 (fig 1), in The Leiden
Collection, exemplifies the kind of work that Rembrandt would have seen and learned

Fig 9. Attributed to Gerrit Dou,
Self-Portrait (?) at an Easel , ca.
1628–29, oil on panel, 66.6 x 50.9
cm, The Leiden Collection, New
York, inv. no. GD-112.

from in the master’s studio. To judge by several early works in which Rembrandt
reprised themes and compositions by Lastman—for example, Rembrandt’s Balaam
and the Ass of 1626 reworks Lastman’s painting of the same subject of 1622—histeacher encouraged not just imitation but emulation, which entailed a desire to outdo
the model on which the work was based.[10] The competitive spirit that Lastman taught
his pupil, evident in Rembrandt’s responses to his master’s compositions, came tocharacterize Rembrandt’s relations with his students and later colleagues.[11] Lastman
may also have encouraged Rembrandt to develop his own style. At least that appears tohave been something that Rembrandt inspired in his own students, and which, in turn,Fig 10. Rembrandt van Rijn, Artist
in His Studio, ca. 1628–29, 24.8 x
31.7 cm, Museum of Fine Arts,
Boston, inv. no. 38.1838, ©2017
Museum of Fine Arts, Boston.
© 2024 The Leiden Collection

Rembrandt and The Leiden Collection
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was recommended by his pupil Samuel van Hoogstraten (1627–78).[12]When Rembrandt returned to Leiden in 1625, he set up as an independent master andsoon began to attract a local clientele. He also established, or resumed, his remarkableworking relationship with Jan Lievens, which lasted until about February 1632, when
Lievens left for England.[13] Within those same few years his fame spread, andRembrandt was making paintings for clients in Amsterdam and The Hague. By 1633
he had decided to move to Amsterdam, where he would spend the rest of his life. Key
works in The Leiden Collection from the 1620s and early 1630s shed light on
fascinating aspects of Rembrandt’s early career and his relations with, and impact on,
his colleagues.

Rembrandt’s earliest known paintings

Fig 11. Rembrandt van Rijn, SelfPortrait with Shaded Eyes, 1634, oil
on panel, 71.1 x 56 cm, The Leiden
Collection, New York, inv. no.
RR-110.

The Leiden Collection owns three of Rembrandt’s earliest known paintings, whichappear to date from 1624/25, just before Rembrandt went to study with Pieter
Lastman: the wonderfully youthful Stone Operation (Allegory of Touch) (fig 2), ThreeMusicians (Allegory of Hearing) (fig 3), and recently rediscovered Unconscious Patient(Allegory of Smell) (fig 4), which is monogrammed with Rembrandt’s first known
signature “RHF.” These three works, along with a fourth, Spectacles Seller (Allegory ofSight) in the Museum de Lakenhal, Leiden (fig 5), once belonged to a series of the fivesenses.[14] The five senses were a popular subject, but Rembrandt’s innovative
approach of depicting it as medicinal, or quasi-medicinal, cures was unlike any other.
In his series, sight was represented by spectacles, a means to improve impaired
eyesight; touch by the stone operation—a trepanation procedure in which a surgeon
bores a hole into a patient’s skull—a remedy for madness;[15] smell by smelling salts,

Fig 12. Rembrandt van Rijn, SelfPortrait, ca. 1628, oil on panel, 22.6
x 18.7 cm, Rijksmuseum,
Amsterdam, inv. no. SK-A-4691.

used to revive a patient who had fainted; and hearing by music, considered to be abalm for the soul and an antidote for melancholy.[16]These remedies were all real, though often suspect, cures in Rembrandt’s day, at a time
when medicine was viewed both with respect and with ridicule and skepticism, and theline between a doctor and a quack was not always clear. The colorful, antiquatedcostumes, exaggerated facial expressions, and gently mocking tone of several of thepanels suggest that Rembrandt was well aware of both the risks of dealing with medical
practitioners, and the pictorial traditions that cast doctors as quacks and patients as
dupes. We might imagine that a still missing fifth sense, Allegory of Taste, would haveshown a patient responding violently to a foul tasting curative elixir of the sort that
doctors dispensed and quacks hawked at fairs, as in Adriaen Brouwer’s The Bitter
Potion of the mid-1630s (fig 6).[17]Fig 13. Jan Lievens, Self-Portrait,ca. 1629–30, oil on panel, 42 x 37
cm, The Leiden Collection, New
York, inv. no. JL-105.

Such an inventive take on the popular subject of the five senses would have been an
excellent choice for a young, emerging painter to show off the range of his skills and© 2024 The Leiden Collection

Rembrandt and The Leiden Collection
Page 6 of 20

his originality. Rembrandt’s Stone Operation, Unconscious Patient, and Three Musiciansmight be taken as youthful works of a fledgling painter who has not yet masteredanatomy or facial structure and who, for figures and faces, relies more on stylized
types and formulae than on nature. Yet, despite their amateurishness, the raw talent of
the series of the Senses prefigures what would become the distinguishing marks ofRembrandt’s distinctively original and unruly style: rough handling and visible
brushwork, compelling expression of emotion through faces and gestures, attention to
the dramatic effects of artificial lighting, and delight in the colors, textures and overall
historicizing effects of old-fashioned and exotic costumes. Indeed, we can imagine
that, when Rembrandt went to study with Lastman, the Amsterdam master would haverecognized in them Rembrandt’s exceptional talent, albeit one that needed to be
trained.

Fig 14. Rembrandt van Rijn, SelfPortrait Aged 23, 1629, oil on
panel, 89.7 x 73.5 cm, Isabella
Steward Gardner Museum, Boston,inv. no. P21n6.

In 1718, Rembrandt’s first biographer, Arnold Houbraken (1660–1719), regarded the
young Rembrandt as a notably unbridled talent, as is evident by a somewhat puzzling
anecdote in his text. According to Houbraken, Rembrandt, having delivered a picture
to “a lord in The Hague” (presumably Constantijn Huygens), wanted to get home
quickly with his payment and so took the Leiden coach. When the driver and otherpassengers got out for a stop at an inn, “the horses bolted and the coach abruptly set
off” carrying Rembrandt “for nothing and free of charge” back to Leiden.[18] This
unconventional trip home might be (and has been) taken as a comment on Rembrandt’s
pride after making a profitable sale; however, horses running wild was also a metaphor
for untrained talent. This association is made explicit in Houbraken’s text when hequotes the poet Joost van den Vondel (1587–1679), , who writes that “without art andstudy to rein it in…. a genius, however gifted, will run wild like an unbroken horse.

Fig 15. Rembrandt van Rijn, The
Artist in Oriental Costume, with aPoodle at His Feet, 1631, oil on
panel, 66.5 x 52 cm, Musée du Petit
Palais, Paris, inv. no. 925.

Meanwhile another, tamed by art and learning, succeeds like the stallion controlled andtrained with the crop and spur of a good groom… and everywhere gains praise fromconnoisseurs.”[19]Houbraken then insinuates that Rembrandt was never really “tamed by art andlearning.” He writes that Rembrandt “would confine himself to no one else’s rules andeven less follow the example of the most celebrated artists who had earned forthemselves eternal fame by selecting the beautiful.”[20] Houbraken’s early eighteenthcentury bias toward classicism blinded him to Rembrandt’s learning and knowledge ofthe art of the past. However, what Houbraken criticized as independence and favoringof the natural over the ideal were evident in Rembrandt’s art from the outset.

Friendship and Rivalry
The series of Senses sheds light on Rembrandt’s relationship with Jan Lievens.

Fig 16. Isaac de Jouderville,
Portrait of Rembrandt in Oriental
Dress, ca. 1631, oil on panel, 70.8 x
50.5 cm, The Leiden Collection,
inv. no. IJ-100.

Although he would have known of other pictorial precedents, especially in prints,© 2024 The Leiden Collection

Rembrandt and The Leiden Collection
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Rembrandt may have been inspired to paint his inventive variation on the senses by
Lievens, who, about two years earlier, at age fifteen, had painted an equallyunconventional Allegory of the Five Senses (fig 7): in a single composition, Lievens cast
the theme as a bawdy tavern scene. Whatever their working relationship at this earlydate, it seems that we might regard Rembrandt’s choice to paint the same genre subject
as Lievens, in a similar Utrecht Caravaggesque format, as motivated by the desire bothto learn from and to compete with Lievens.
For a period from the mid-1620s until about 1632, Rembrandt and Lievens worked
unusually closely, as if in self-imposed direct competition, often painting or drawing
the same subject. The flurry of works that they produced during this period suggeststhat they thrived on emulating and learning from each other.[21] What Ernst van deWetering has called their “symbiotic” working relationship has led to theassumption—undocumented but plausible—that Rembrandt and Lievens shared a

Fig 17. Rembrandt van Rijn, SelfPortrait as a Burger, 1632, oil on
panel, 64.4 x 47.6 cm, The BurrellCollection, Glasgow, inv.nr.
35/600, © CSG CIC Glasgow
Museums and Libraries Collections.

studio.[22] More likely, their learning side-by-side, and painting neck-and-neck such
subjects as Samson and Delilah and the Raising of Lazarus, was the outcome of a selfconscious and deliberate shared studio ethos of friendly competition.[23] To say thatfrom the outset Rembrandt and Lievens were close colleagues does not fully capture
the nature of their friendship, which they must have regarded in seventeenth-century
terms. Friendship was a humanist concept that carried connotations of virtue. Early
modern ideas of friendship stemmed from Cicero and Aristotle and were expressed in
Erasmus’s adages “Friendship is equality” and “A friend is a second
self.”[24] Friendship between artists could spur virtuous rivalry and foster creativity, as
it inspired artists to encourage each other to do their best.
So, too, would their frequent painting of each other’s portraits have been in the spirit offriendship, perhaps in imitation of Lucas van Leiden and Albrecht Dürer, who had
portrayed each other a century before.[25] Rembrandt appears to have painted Lievens

Fig 18. Gerrit Dou, Self-Portrait,ca. 1645–46, oil on panel, 12.4 x
8.3 cm, Kremer Collection.

in Three Musicians from the Senses (fig 3), as well as in the Musical Allegory of 1626 in
the Rijksmuseum.[26] Lievens first known likeness of Rembrandt is in Card Players, ofabout 1623/24, in The Leiden Collection (fig 8); he also included Rembrandt in Pilate
Washing His Hands of 1625/26, and he painted a Portrait of Rembrandt in about
1629.[27]Constantijn Huygens may have encouraged this remarkable artistic symbiosis. Scouting
for talent sometime in the late 1620s, Huygens visited the Leiden studios, or sharedstudio, of the young Rembrandt and his younger colleague Lievens. Shortly thereafter,in about 1630, he wrote about them as if they were a “young and noble” pair andpredicted they would surpass even the greatest masters, including Rubens and themasters of Italy and antiquity. Although Huygens’s visit came well after they had
started working together, their painting of the same subjects ramped up after thisFig 19. Rembrandt van Rijn, SelfPortrait at Age 34, 1640, oil oncanvas, 102 x 80 cm, National
Gallery, London, inv. no. NG672,© National Gallery, London / Art
Resource, NY.
© 2024 The Leiden Collection

Rembrandt and The Leiden Collection
Page 8 of 20

initial contact with Huygens. Huygens was so impressed with what he saw in Leiden
that he must have had Rembrandt and Lievens compete for a commission for thestadholder; the competition pieces are Christ on the Cross by Rembrandt and Lievens’s
painting of the same subject, both dated 1631 and both of which are based on a
prototype by Peter Paul Rubens, who was favored at court.[28] Rembrandt received thecommission. In his autobiography, Huygens compares the two and judges Rembrandt
to be the better history painter, based on his ability to represent a biblical figure withdramatic and convincing emotions. The deeply expressive, moving Raising and Descentfrom the Cross are the first two panels of the series of Christ’s Passion that Rembrandt
painted over the course of the 1630s.[29]Huygens judged Lievens to be the better portraitist, and in about 1628 or 1629
commissioned from him the Portrait of Constantijn Huygens now in the

Fig 20. Govert Flinck, Self-Portrait, 1643, oil on panel, 73.1 x 53.5
cm, The Leiden Collection, New
York, inv. no. GF-103.

Rijksmuseum.[30] However, Huygens was likely also responsible for Rembrandt’s
receiving the commission to paint, in 1632, a portrait of Amalia van Solms (1602–75),
wife of Frederick Hendrik, as well as intimate friendship portraits of Maurits Huygens(1595–1642), Constantijn’s brother, and the engraver Jacques de Gheyn III(1596–1641).[31] Since Lievens had departed for England in early 1632, we cannot
know whether, had he been available, he might have received some of thesecommissions. Early on, Rembrandt may have taken cues from the more established,
more accomplished Lievens, yet he also went his own way from the outset: in response
to Lievens’s more controlled handling, large-scale figure and theatrical expressivemode, Rembrandt was distinguishing himself through a rough painterly style and anaturalness in representing the passion. Creative competition, in other words, provided
a way for each artist to pursue and push his own style. In 1632, however, the two young

Fig 21. Ferdinand Bol, SelfPortrait, Behind a Parapet, 1648, oilon canvas, 85.5 x 71 cm, The
Leiden Collection, New York, inv.
no. FB-107.

Leideners went their separate ways, Lievens to England and Rembrandt soon to
Amsterdam and ultimately to greater success. Their continued friendship is suggestedby the eight paintings by Lievens that Rembrandt owned at the time of his bankruptcy
in 1656; according to the inventory made at the time, paintings of The Raising of
Lazarus by Rembrandt and Lievens, presumably the paintings of circa 1630 and 1631,
were hanging close together in Rembrandt’s house, perhaps as souvenirs of their timeof intense mutual productivity.[32]Rembrandt and Gerrit Dou
Friendly and productive influence and exchange of ideas also colored the relationshipbetween Rembrandt and his first pupil Gerrit Dou (1613–75). Dou would turn out torank among the most successful of Rembrandt’s pupils. The founder of what would
come to be called the Leiden school of fijnschilders (“fine painters”), he was famed for

Fig 22. Rembrandt van Rijn, YoungGirl in a Gold-trimmed Cloak, 1632,
oil on oval panel, 59 x 44 cm, The
Leiden Collection, New York, inv.
no. RR-104.

an unusually fine, detailed, meticulous manner of painting that was almost
diametrically opposed to Rembrandt’s loose rough handling. One wonders whether© 2024 The Leiden Collection

Rembrandt and The Leiden Collection
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Rembrandt recognized Dou’s extraordinary talent early on and encouraged him todevelop it.
Dou, a native of Leiden and the son of a glass painter, became Rembrandt’s pupil in
February 1628 at the age of fourteen, after initially training with an engraver and a
glass painter in his father’s workshop.[33] The Leiden Collection’s Self-Portrait (?) at theEasel (fig 9) is one of several works either by or attributed to Dou, painted in response
to Rembrandt’s Artist in His Studio of circa 1628 (fig 10).[34] Rembrandt’s small studioscene completely transformed the pictorial tradition of the artist’s studio. Whereas,since the fifteenth century studio scenes had for the most part featured Saint Luke
painting or drawing the Virgin Mary, Rembrandt rendered the studio as an ordinary
place, a spare room with a plain plank floor and cracked plaster walls. The closed door,
in the shadows at right, suggests that this was also a solitary place. Working alone,Fig 23. Rembrandt van Rijn,
Portrait of a Man in a Red Coat,
1633, oil on oval panel, 63.7 x 50.8
cm, The Leiden Collection, New
York, inv. no. RR-108.

without interruption, was already associated with artistic invention and the creative
temperament. Indeed, that this is also the site of something extraordinary—of divine
artistic inspiration—is suggested by the bright light that hits the front of the painter’spanel, which we see only from the back. Most likely, this painter stands back from his
panel because he is inventing his composition in his mind before he begins to paint.[35]Dou, or possibly another artist who painted much like Dou, was quite taken with
Rembrandt’s innovative little painting—as the perfect opportunity for creative artistic
dialogue. Self-Portrait (?) at the Easel (fig 9) pointedly replicates the back view of thepainting on the easel, yet switches out what is a panel in Rembrandt’s painting for alarge canvas on a stretcher. Rembrandt’s painter stands far back from, and is dwarfed
by, his panel, as if to suggest that he is either inventing or contemplating his
composition. In contrast, Dou’s painter sits close enough to the canvas to be wielding
his brush, making the point that he is engaged in a different kind of creativity. In

Fig 24. Rembrandt van Rijn andWorkshop, Portrait of Antonie
Coopal, 1635, oil on Brazilian
chestnut (sucupira), 83.5 x 67.6,
The Leiden Collection, New York,
inv. no. RR-103.

response to the plainness of Rembrandt’s studio, this one displays a wealth of fineobjects—a plumed helmet, armor, a book, a trumpet, a scarf of many colors—that, as
elements of history paintings, evoke the intellectual underpinnings of the artist’s workand that, because of their many fine textures and reflective materials, are especiallysuited to showcasing a fine painting style.[36] The differences between these two studioscenes point to the close working relationship between Rembrandt and Dou, but also to
the different directions that the two painters would take in their professional lives. Dou
would cultivate refinement as his signature style and fashionable persona, whereas
Rembrandt would become increasingly independent.

Self-Portraits
While Rembrandt pictured the studio only in the Boston painting and in a later etching,Fig 25. Rembrandt van Rijn,
Minerva in Her Study, 1635, oil oncanvas, 138 x 116.5 cm, The
Leiden Collection, New York, inv.
no. RR-107.

The Artist Drawing from a Model, he painted, etched and drew more self-portraits than© 2024 The Leiden Collection

Rembrandt and The Leiden Collection
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anyone up until the twentieth century. The proliferation of studio scenes and selfportraits in the seventeenth-century Netherlands was symptomatic of the heightened
self-awareness of Dutch painters and of the demand for such pictures from a clientele
that had developed a taste for collecting paintings and a fascination with painters.[37] At
just this time, Huygens was writing his autobiography, so perhaps he had an impact on
Rembrandt’s interest in self-portrayal.[38]Self-Portrait with Shaded Eyes (fig 11), in The Leiden Collection, dates to the period ofRembrandt’s most prolific and most varied production of self-portraits, which spanned
from the late 1620s through the 1630s. His preoccupation with self-portrayal began in
his early days in Leiden and was an interest he shared with both his precocious
colleague Jan Lievens and his first pupil Gerrit Dou. In some of his earliest painted selfportraits, such as that in the Rijksmuseum of circa 1628 (fig 12), Rembrandt
experimented with suggesting his psychological and emotional presence, and probably
his melancholic artistic temperament, by evocatively shading his eyes.[39] Rembrandt’s

Fig 26. Rembrandt van Rijn,
Minerva in Her Study, ca. 1631, oil
on panel, 60.5 x 49 cm, Staatliche
Museen zu Berlin, Gemäldegalerie,
Berlin, inv. no. 828c, ©
Gemäldegalerie der Staatlichen
Museen zu Berlin - Preußischer
Kulturbesitz, photo: Anders, Jörg P.

trademark loose handling is evident in his visible brushstrokes and use of a sharp
implement to incise his unruly hair (a technique he appears to have learned fromLievens). The Rijksmuseum Self-Portrait is so casual, and so unlike formal portraits,that some scholars have questioned whether it was even meant as aportrait.[40] However, Jan Lievens’s equally informal Self-Portrait of 1628/29 in The
Leiden Collection (fig 13), along with Rembrandt’s many other self-images of theseyears, suggest that the young Leideners shared an interest in expressive
self-portrayal.[41] Through these innovative and strikingly informal self-portraits, they
were asserting their capacity for invention.
At the same time, Rembrandt was painting more formal, yet equally imaginative, selfportraits, as for example the fanciful Self-Portrait, Age 23 of 1629, in the Isabella

Fig 27. Rembrandt van Rijn, Juno,
ca. 1662–65, oil on canvas, 127 x
123.8 cm, Hammer Museum, Los
Angeles.

Stewart Gardner Museum, Boston (fig 14).[42] Remarkably, by 1633 a similar selfportrait by Rembrandt was in the collection of Charles I of England (1600–49) at
Whitehall Palace, where it hung alongside several self-portraits by other artists.[43] That
Rembrandt’s fame had spread so early to England must have been due, at least in part,to Constantijn Huygens or the stadholder. In these and other early self-portraits,
Rembrandt wears not contemporary attire, but quasi-historical clothing—a beret and agold chain through which he fashions himself as a “noble” artist. “Noble” is inquotations because his elaborate chains evoke only the gold chains of honor that court
artists received from their ruler patrons. Rembrandt would never get such a chain;instead, through fanciful chains he advanced a new kind of nobility attained neither bybirth nor at court, but solely through his brush. Indeed, Constantijn Huygens
considered Rembrandt’s and Lievens’s middle-class, common origins to be “theweightiest argument I know against the so-called nobility of blood.”[44]© 2024 The Leiden Collection

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Rembrandt’s most elaborate painted self-portrait of this period is the full-length SelfPortrait in Oriental Dress of 1631, in which Rembrandt dons quasi-historical attire tocast himself as an Oriental ruler (fig 15).[45] The Leiden Collection’s copy of thispainting, Isaac de Jouderville’s Rembrandt in Oriental Dress (fig 16), provides insight
into the master’s teaching practice. Isaac de Jouderville (ca. 1612–48), who was
Rembrandt’s second apprentice in Leiden, probably painted it alongside the master, as
is indicated by the fact that he did not depict the large dog, which Rembrandt added
somewhat later. De Jouderville’s painting is one of a number of copies of Rembrandt’s
self-portraits, which indicates that copying the master’s self-portraits was a workshop
assignment.
In contrast to these fanciful self-portraits, Self-Portrait of 1632 in Glasgow (fig 17)
comes as a surprise, for it is one of the few self-portraits in which Rembrandt painted
himself in fashionable contemporary attire.[46] Like Constantijn Huygens in the portrait
by Jan Lievens, Rembrandt wears a fine hat of imported beaver felt and a soft ruff
collar of the sort then in style. With this assertive image, Rembrandt marked his newfound financial and artistic success, for he portrays himself as he would one of his wellto-do sitters. He may look like his clients here, but he was not of their class and neverwould be. Further, through this self-portrait Rembrandt conveyed his lofty ambitions.
Specifically, he claimed his affinity with, and aimed to emulate, Peter Paul Rubens,for Rembrandt modeled his painting (and related etching) after Rubens’s Self-Portraitof 1623 (Royal Collection) that was in the collection of Charles I, which Rembrandt
would have known through an engraving by Paulus Pontius (1603–58).[47] Some years
later, in about 1645, Gerrit Dou would base his exceptionally small and finely
painted—and so characteristically his—Self-Portrait on Rembrandt’s painting or
etching (fig 18).[48]In his other self-portraits of the mid-1630s, such as those of 1634 and 1635 in the
Louvre, and Self-Portrait with Shaded Eyes from 1634 in The Leiden Collection (fig 11), Rembrandt reverted to the imaginary historicized mode.[49] Self-Portrait with Shaded
Eyes shows Rembrandt wearing a fur-lined cloak over an old-fashioned chemise, as
well as the black beret that he would repeatedly use to identify himself as an artist. By
shading his eyes, Rembrandt evoked his inner self, perhaps to suggest his melancholic
temperament.[50]These self-portraits from the mid-1630s prefigure the culmination of Rembrandt’s
fanciful self-portrait mode in the etched Self-Portrait Leaning on a Stone Sill of 1639
and Self-Portrait at Age 34 of 1640, in the National Gallery, London (fig 19).[51] The
London self-portrait, possibly the painting described as “Rembrandts contrefeijtsel
antijcks” in the 1657 inventory of the Amsterdam merchant and art dealer Johannes deRenialme (1600–57), is arguably the master’s most remarkable and most influential© 2024 The Leiden Collection

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self-portrait.[52] It assimilated and made pointed reference to two famous Italian
portraits that Rembrandt had seen in Amsterdam in 1639, Raphael’s Portrait ofBaldassare Castiglione and Titian’s Portrait of a Man, which was then thought torepresent the Italian poet Ariosto.[53] Through this act of emulation, Rembrandt
inserted himself into and claimed to be worthy of a place in this lineage of great
masters.
Rembrandt’s London self-portrait is especially relevant here because it was sotremendously influential, and The Leiden Collection holds two outstanding examples
of its impact. For his Self-Portrait of 1643, Govaert Flinck (1615–60) (fig 20), who
had been Rembrandt’s student in 1634–35, drew both on Rembrandt’s painting and his
etched Self-Portrait Leaning on a Stone Sill of 1639. Likewise, in his Self-Portrait,
Behind a Parapet of 1648 (fig 21), Ferdinand Bol (1616–80), who had studied with
Rembrandt in the 1630s, made reference to and pointedly transformed Rembrandt’s
painting. Flinck and Bol were among several of Rembrandt’s students andassistants—others included Dou, Samuel van Hoogstraten and Arent de Gelder(1645–1727)—who, years after they had studied with Rembrandt, paid homage to theirmaster by emulating Self-Portrait at Age 34.

Portraits
Whereas Rembrandt portrayed himself primarily in historicized costume andimaginary guises, and only on a few occasions in contemporary dress, he painted thevast majority of his commissioned portraits in a formal and fashionable mode. These
would have been called counterfeytsels, a term that derives from “counterfeit” meaning,in the context of portraiture, an exact or naturalistic likeness. But Rembrandt also
painted likenesses of real, though probably not paying, people in imaginary historicized(quasi-) portraits called tronies, a term that derives from the Dutch word for head,
meaning a type of character study. Several impressive paintings in The Leiden
Collection speak to Rembrandt’s portrait production, its range, and the complexity of
the issues surrounding it.
Young Girl in a Gold Trimmed Cloak (fig 22) is typical of Rembrandt’s imaginary,evocative tronies in that it occupies an ambiguous space between portrait andhistoricized character study. On the one hand, the young girl wears fanciful oldfashioned clothing and is not painted the way Rembrandt would portray a paying client.
On the other hand, she must have been a known model, for Rembrandt painted hermore than once, and his pupil Isaac de Jouderville also portrayed her. Rembrandt has
portrayed her in much the same “antiek” historical, possibly pastoral, costume in which
he would soon portray his wife Saskia.[54]Rembrandt painted his first formal portrait of an Amsterdam sitter, Portrait of Nicolas© 2024 The Leiden Collection

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Ruts, in 1631.[55] In 1632, he was commissioned (presumably via Constantijn Huygens)to portray several sitters from The Hague, including Amalia van Solms, wife of
stadholder Frederick Hendrik, and, in a pair of friendship portraits, Maurits Huygens,
Constantijn’s brother and the secretary of the Council of State, and artist Jacob de
Gheyn III. However, Rembrandt must have recognized that wealthy, bustling
Amsterdam offered him greater potential and, eventually, greater independence, for by
1633 he had moved there permanently. At first, because he was not a citizen, he could
not open his own studio in Amsterdam. Instead, he went to work for the painter-dealer
Hendrick Uylenburgh (1587–1661), with whom he had already been in business since1631. Initially, he lodged in Uylenburgh’s house and headed up Uylenburgh’s growing
workshop, or “academy” as it was called, where he made his success portraying a rangeof sitters in an array of portrait modes. With these, Rembrandt dominated portrait
production in Amsterdam for the decade of the 1630s, painting some of Amsterdam’s
wealthiest and most important citizens. For example, the innovative, extraordinarily
large and presumably quite expensive Shipbuilder and His Wife, 1633, the double
portrait of Jan Pietersz Bruyningh and his wife Hillegont Pietersdr Moutmaker, and theextraordinarily elegant and costly full-length pendants of Marten Soolmans and Oopjen
Coppit, date from this following year.[56]Two portraits in The Leiden Collection exemplify Rembrandt’s portrait production in
Uylenburgh’s studio and some of the issues surrounding it. Although we do not know
the identity of its marvelously lively sitter, Portrait of a Man in a Red Coat of 1633 (fig 23) must be a commissioned portrait. The man wears fashionable but unusual
clothing, in that Dutch men of the period were typically portrayed in black. His red
coat, with its braided fasteners, suggests he might be either a military man or, perhaps,
a foreigner. That he turns to the right makes it likely that this portrait once had apendant. Rembrandt has here captured the individual’s character and liveliness, andseemingly exercised a certain liberty in rendering him with such a warm andimmediate personality—as a man bold enough to wear red.
The elegant, animated Portrait of Antonie Coopal (fig 24) is a second formal portrait
associatedwith

Rembrandt’s

time

as

head

of

Uylenburgh’s“academy.”

Whereas Portrait of a Man in a Red Coat appears to be entirely by Rembrandt’s hand,
Portrait of Antonie Coopal of 1635 was probably a collaborative work, painted together
with a member of his workshop. Recent technical and stylistic analysis indicates that,while Rembrandt conceived of and blocked out the composition for the portrait, theexecution of the fashionable broad lace collar was carried out with studio assistance.

Monumental Histories
Painted in 1635, the same year as Portrait of Antonie Coopal, the Leiden’s Collection’s© 2024 The Leiden Collection

Rembrandt and The Leiden Collection
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magnificent Minerva in Her Study (fig 25) is one of Rembrandt’s great history
paintings of the 1630s. In its grandeur and monumentality, the large Minerva isemblematic of the new, more ambitious direction that opened up to Rembrandt after
he left Uylenburgh’s “academy” in 1635 to set up his own studio as a citizen of
Amsterdam. From the very beginning of his career in Leiden, Rembrandt had aspired
to be a history painter. Although he was occupied largely with fulfilling commissions
for portraits while with Uylenburgh, Rembrandt also found time to develop anothertype of painting that blurred the boundaries between portrait and history painting: thelarge-scale historical “portrait,” of which the Minerva is the most accomplished.
This painting was the culmination of what must have been for Rembrandt aninnovative type: the heroic woman from antiquity. These include Bellona of 1633,
Artemisia of 1634, and the two Floras of 1634 and 1635, both of which are thought torepresent Saskia.[57] An etching of 1635, The Great Jewish Bride, which presumably
also represents a woman from antiquity, comes closest to the monumentality of
Minerva.
When the painting is compared with Rembrandt’s much smaller, far less monumental
Minerva of circa 1631 (fig 26), and with the large but somewhat awkward Bellona, themagnificence of The Leiden Collection’s Minerva in Her Study becomes apparent. By
placing Minerva at her desk, with its impressive tomes and globe, Rembrandt brings
the goddess down to earth in a way that only a Dutch artist could do. At the same time,
he brilliantly amplifies her presence by enhancing her with a range of beautifully
painted sumptuous, shining fabrics. The extraordinary effort that Rembrandt devoted
to conceptualizing and painting this Minerva suggests that he accorded the subject
special significance. Minerva (the Greek Pallas Athena) was the goddess of war, buthere, with her helmet and gorgon-headed shield behind her, she represents peace andwisdom, and specifically the wisdom under which the arts flourish in times of peace.
In that capacity, Minerva was painting’s protector, a role that Hendrick Goltzius(1558–1617) had accorded her in 1611.[58] Although Goltzius painted her undraped,
Rembrandt must have known that Minerva was the protector of crafts more broadly,
and of weaving and embroidery specifically. In the Iliad, Homer describes her as
wearing a dress that she embroidered herself, along with a “splendid cloak.”[59]That Rembrandt, quite fittingly, treated Minerva in Her Study as a demonstration of his
skill with the brush is suggested by the sheer quality of handling, especially of drapery.
Rembrandt showcases his ability to paint many different kinds and textures of fabric,from Minerva’s gold embroidered brocade cloak, purple-ish embroidered satin dress,
and blue sash with gold tassels (all of which correspond to classical descriptions ofher), to the lush carpet on the table before her. In the art theory of the time, drapery
was regarded as notoriously difficult to master, which explains the ubiquity of© 2024 The Leiden Collection

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multicolored scarves in self-portraits and pictures of artists’ studios by Rembrandt andGerrit Dou, especially. Karel van Mander, in Het Schilderboeck of 1604, wrote thatpainting drapery, clouds and hair required geest (“spirit or imagination”).[60] With
Minerva’s golden locks, Rembrandt meets the challenge of painting hair.
Given Minerva’s significance to the Art of Painting, we might imagine that Rembrandt
made the painting for an erudite collector. Whatever prompted it, Minerva appears tohave been part of Rembrandt’s larger project, starting when he set out on his own in
1635, to establish himself as a painter of large, monumental histories, such as
Belshazzar’s Feast of circa 1636 and The Blinding of Samson of 1636.[61] But these aredramatic narratives. In many ways, Minerva—with her imposing strength, alert
intelligence, and steadfast self-possession—looks forward to the paintings of powerfulhistorical women from Rembrandt’s late career, above all Juno of 1662–65 (fig 27).[62]As the marvelous paintings in The Leiden Collection illustrate, the crucial
distinguishing features of Rembrandt’s art—emotional expression and the ability togive compelling human presence and character to sitters for portraits and historicalfigures alike—were evident in his paintings early on. These were the qualities hecultivated and advanced in the very best of his works. Rembrandt was also an
extraordinary colleague and teacher who helped to foster the art and advance thecareers of the artists around him. As demonstrated by Lievens, Dou, and many othersin The Leiden Collection, Rembrandt stood at the very center of a remarkable artistic
moment that thrived on, and drew its distinctive nature from, a culture of virtuous
rivalry and emulation.

- H. Perry Chapman, 2017

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Rembrandt and The Leiden Collection
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Endnotes
1. Since the publication of this essay in 2017, the number of paintings by Rembrandt in The Leiden
Collection has grown. A future contribution will address these recent acquisitions.
2. Pliny, Natural History. Book XXXV. 88, 81.
3. Karel van Mander, Het Schilder-boeck (Haarlem, 1604), fol. 212v.
4. Eric Jan Sluijter, Rembrandt’s Rivals: History Painting in Amsterdam 1630–1650, OCULI: Studies in theArts of the Low Countries 14 (Amsterdam, 2015), 19–22; James Clifton, “Vasari on Competition,” The
Sixteenth Century Journal 27, no. 1 (Spring 1996), 23–41.
5. Albert H. Kan, De jeugd van Constantijn Huygens door hemzelf beschreven (Rotterdam, 1971), 17, citedin H. Perry Chapman, Rembrandt’s Self-Portraits (Princeton, 1990), 12.
6. Michael McKeon, The Secret History of Domesticity: Public, Private, and the Division of Knowledge(Baltimore, 2009), 228–32.
7. For the full details of Rembrandt’s life, see his biography in this catalogue.
8. Jan Jansz. Orlers, Beschrijvinge der Stadt Leyden (Leiden, 1641), 375.
9. John Michael Montias, Artists and Artisans in Delft: A Socio-Economic Study of the Seventeenth Century(Princeton, 1982).
10. Rembrandt van Rijn, Balaam and the Ass, 1626 (Musée Cognacq-Jay, Paris); Pieter Lastman, Balaam
and the Ass, 1622, The Israel Museum, Jerusalem. Rembrandt’s Baptism of the Eunuch, 1626 (Museum
Catherijneconvent, Utrecht), similarly reworks Lastman’s painting of the same subject of 1623 in the
Staatliche Kunsthalle, Karlsruhe.
11. This attitude is evident more broadly among Dutch seventeenth-century painters.
12. Samuel van Hoogstraten, Inleyding tot de hooge schoole der schilderkonst: anders de zichtbaere
werelt (Rotterdam, 1678), 11–2, 175; Eric Jan Sluijter, Rembrandt’s Rivals: History Painting in
Amsterdam 1630–1650, OCULI: Studies in the Arts of the Low Countries 14 (Amsterdam, 2015), 106.
13. Christiaan Vogelaar, “Een jong en edel Leids schildersduo,” in Rembrandt en Lievens in Leiden: Eenjong en edel schildersduo, ed. Christiaan Vogelaar (Exh. cat. Leiden, Museum de Lakenhal) (Zwolle,1991), 12–23.
14. Ilona van Tuinen, “A Newly Discovered Painting by Rembrandt van Rijn: The Unconscious Patient(Smell),” in Jordaens Rembrandt: Two New Early Works (Paris, 2016), 20–37.
15. Trepanation, or trepanning, in which a surgeon bores, or scrapes, a hole into a patient’s skull in order torelieve pressure, is one of the oldest medical procedures on record. In Rembrandt’s time it was thought
to relieve various mental disorders; it was also practiced by frauds who would pretend to remove stones
from patients’ heads.
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Rembrandt and The Leiden Collection
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16. The notion that music has curative powers is expressed in the inscription on the lid of the virginal in
Vermeer’s Lady at the Virginals with a Gentleman (Royal Collection): MUSICA LETITIAE CO[ME]S /MEDICINA DOLOR[IS] (“music is a companion in pleasure and a balm in sorrow”). For the history ofmusic as a remedy for melancholy, see Doris Silbert, “Melancholy and Music in the Renaissance,” Notes(Second Series) 4, no. 4 (1947): 413–24; Penelope Gouk, “Music, Melancholy, and Medical Spirits in
Early Modern Thought,” in Music as Medicine: The History of Music Therapy Since Antiquity, ed.
Peregrine Horden (Aldershot, 2000), 173–94.
17. Adriaen Brouwer, The Bitter Potion, ca. 1636–38 (Städel Museum, Frankfurt am Main).
18. Arnold Houbraken, De groote schouburgh der Nederlantsche konstschilders en schilderessen, 3 vols.
(Amsterdam, 1718–21; revised edition, The Hague 1753; reprinted in 1976), 1: 255.
19. In this text, Vondel is referring to the Allegory of the Chariot from Plato’s Phaedrus. Joost van den
Vondel, Aanleidinge ter Niederduitsche Dichtkunste, cited in Arnold Houbraken, De groote schouburgh
der Nederlantsche konstschilders en schilderessen (Amsterdam, 1718–21; revised edition, The Hague
1753; reprinted in 1976), 1: 267.
20. Arnold Houbraken, De groote schouburgh der Nederlantsche konstschilders en schilderessen, 3 vols.
(Amsterdam, 1718–21; revised edition, The Hague 1753; reprinted in 1976), 1: 267.
21. Christiaan Vogelaar, ed. Rembrandt en Lievens in Leiden: Een jong en edel schildersduo (Exh. cat.
Leiden, Museum de Lakenhal) (Zwolle, 1991).
22. Ernst van de Wetering, “De symbiose van Lievens en Rembrandt,” in Rembrandt en Lievens in Leiden:
Een jong en edel schildersduo, ed. Christiaan Vogelaar (Exh. cat. Leiden, Museum de Lakenhal) (Zwolle,1991), 39–47.
23. Rembrandt, Samson and Delilah, 1628 (Staatliche Museen, Gemäldegalerie, Berlin); Jan Lievens,
Samson and Delilah, ca. 1626–30, Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam; Rembrandt van Rijn, The Raising of
Lazarus, ca. 1630 (Los Angeles County Museum of Art); Jan Lievens, The Raising of Lazarus, 1631
(Art Gallery and Museum, Brighton).
24. David Bomford, “Peter Paul Rubens and the Value of Friendship,” in Virtue: Virtuoso, Virtuosity in
Netherlandish Art 1500–1700, ed. Jan de Jong, et al., Netherlands Yearbook for History of Art 54(Zwolle, 2004), 229–57.
25. Karel van Mander, Het Schilder-boeck (Haarlem, 1604), fol. 212v.
26. Rembrandt van Rijn, Musical Allegory, 1626, Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam.
27. Jan Lievens, Pilate Washing His Hands, ca. 1625/26, Museum de Lakenhal, Leiden; Jan Lievens, Portraitof Rembrandt, ca. 1629 (Private Collection, on loan to the Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam).
28. Rembrandt van Rijn, Christ on the Cross, 1631 (Saint-Vincent Church, Le Mas d’Agenais); and Jan
Lievens, Christ on the Cross, 1631 (Musée des Beaux Arts, Nancy).
29. Rembrandt van Rijn, Raising of the Cross and Descent from the Cross, both 1633 (Alte Pinakothek,
Munich).
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30. Jan Lievens, Portrait of Constantijn Huygens, ca. 1628/29 (Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam).
31. Rembrandt van Rijn, Amalia van Solms, 1632 (Musée Jacquemart-André, Paris); Maurits Huygens, 1632
(Kunsthalle, Hamburg); Jacques de Gheyn III, 1632 (Dulwich Picture Gallery, London).
32. Rembrandt van Rijn, The Raising of Lazarus, ca. 1630 (Los Angeles County Museum of Art); Jan
Lievens, The Raising of Lazarus, 1631 (Art Gallery and Museum, Brighton). A transcription of theinventory made at the time of Rembrandt’s bankruptcy in 1656 is in Walter L. Strauss and Marjon vander Meulen, The Rembrandt Documents (New York, 1979), 349–88, Doc. 1656/12. See also Bob vanden Boogert, ed., Rembrandt’s Treasures (Exh. cat. Amsterdam, Museum Het Rembrandthuis) (Zwolle,
1999).
33. See the biography of Gerrit Dou in this catalogue.
34. Rembrandt van Rijn, Artist in His Studio, ca. 1628 (Museum of Fine Arts, Boston).
35. Ernst van de Wetering, Gheschildert tot Leyden Anno 1626 (Exh. cat. Leiden, Museum de Lakenhal)(Leiden, 1976), 20; and Ernst van de Wetering, “De symbiose van Lievens en Rembrandt,” inRembrandt en Lievens in Leiden: Een jong en edel schildersduo, ed. Christiaan Vogelaar (Exh. cat.
Leiden, Museum de Lakenhal) (Leiden, 1991), 44.
36. Although the attribution of the Leiden Collection studio scene is not yet secure, other paintings by Dou,
both scenes of artists in their studios, as well as self-portraits such as that in Dresden of 1647, show thatDou continued to respond to Rembrandt long after Rembrandt left Leiden.
37. H. Perry Chapman, Rembrandt’s Self-Portraits (Princeton, 1990); H. Perry Chapman, “The Imagined
Studios of Rembrandt and Vermeer,” in Inventions of the Studio, Renaissance to Romanticism, ed.
Michael Cole and Mary Pardo (Chapel Hill, 2005), 108–46; Katja Kleinert, Atelierdarstellungen in derniederländischen Genremalerei des 17. Jahrhunderts. Realistisches Abbild oder glaubwürdiger Schein?
(Petersberg, 2006).
38. See H. Perry Chapman, Rembrandt’s Self-Portraits (Princeton, 1990), 32 and fig. 35, for a self-portrait
drawing of 1622 in which Constantijn Huygens has portrayed himself with shaded eyes as Rembrandt
would later do in The Leiden Collection’s Self-Portrait with Shaded Eyes (see entry in this catalogue).
39. H. Perry Chapman, Rembrandt’s Self-Portraits (Princeton, 1990), 24–33.
40. Ernst van de Wetering, et al. A Corpus of Rembrandt Paintings, Vol. 4: Self-Portraits, Stichting
Foundation Rembrandt Research Project (Dordrecht, 2005), 111.
41. See also Gerrit Dou’s somewhat fanciful Self-Portrait of circa 1631 in the Brooklyn Museum.
42. Rembrandt van Rijn, Self-Portrait, Age 23, 1629 (Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, Boston).
43. The self-portrait in the collection of Charles I was either Rembrandt, Self-Portrait as a Young Man, ca.
1630 (Walker Art Gallery, Liverpool), or a version of this same painting. Ernst van de Wetering, et al. A
Corpus of Rembrandt Paintings. Vol. 4: Self-Portraits, Stichting Foundation Rembrandt Research Project(Dordrecht, 2005), 92, attributes the Liverpool Self-Portrait to Isaac de Jouderville. For the argumentthat the Liverpool Self-Portrait as a Young Man is by Rembrandt, see Xanthe Brooke, Face to Face:© 2024 The Leiden Collection

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Three Centuries of Artists’ Self-portraiture (Exh. cat. Liverpool, Walker Art Gallery) (Liverpool, 1994).
44. Albert H. Kan, De jeugd van Constantijn Huygens door hemzelf beschreven (Rotterdam, 1971), 78–81,
translated in Gary Schwartz, Rembrandt: His Life, His Paintings: A New Biography with All Accessible
Paintings Illustrated in Colour. (London, 1985), 73.
45. Rembrandt van Rijn, Self-Portrait in Oriental Dress, 1631 Musée du Petit Palais, Paris).
46. Rembrandt van Rijn, Self-Portrait, 1632 (Glasgow Museums, The Burrell Collection).
47. Peter Paul Rubens, Self-Portrait, 1623 (Royal Collection Trust, Buckingham Palace, London); Paulus
Pontius, after Peter Paul Rubens, Self-Portrait, engraving, 1630.
48. Gerrit Dou, Self-Portrait, ca. 1645–46 (Kremer Collection).
49. Rembrandt, Self-Portrait, 1634 (Musée du Louvre, Paris); Rembrandt van Rijn, Self-Portrait, 1635,(Musée du Louvre, Paris).
50. H. Perry Chapman, Rembrandt’s Self-Portraits (Princeton, 1990), 24–33.
51. Rembrandt van Rijn, Self-Portrait Leaning on a Stone Sill, 1639, etching; and Self-Portrait at Age 34,
1640 (National Gallery, London).
52. For the Renialme inventory, see Walter L. Strauss and Marjon van der Meulen, The Rembrandt
Documents (New York, 1979), Doc. 1657/2.
53. Raphael, Portrait of Baldassare Castiglione (Musée du Louvre, Paris); Titian, Portrait of a Man(National Gallery, London).
54. Rembrandt van Rijn, Saskia van Uylenburgh, the Wife of the Artist, 1634/35 and 1638/40, National
Gallery of Art, Washington.
55. Rembrandt van Rijn, Portrait of Nicolas Ruts, 1631 (Frick Collection, New York).
56. Rembrandt van Rijn, Shipbuilder and His Wife, 1633 (Royal Collection Trust, Buckingham Palace,
London); Jan Pietersz Bruyningh and his Wife Hillegont Pietersdr Moutmaker, 1634 (Museum of Fine
Arts, Boston); Marten Soolmans and Oopjen Coppit, 1634 (Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam and Musée du
Louvre, Paris).
57. Rembrandt van Rijn, Bellona, 1633, Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York; Artemisia, 1634 (Prado
Museum, Madrid), and the two Floras of 1634 ( State Hermitage Museum, St. Petersburg) and 1635
(National Gallery, London). The Floras appear to be historicized portraits of Saskia, which would makesense given that the guise of the goddess of love and fertility would be appropriate for Rembrandt’s newwife (and he would later represent her and Hendrickje as Flora).
58. In 1611 Goltzius painted Minerva together with Mercury as life-size protectors of painting. In 1613, headded Hercules and Caucus, to make a kind of triptych (Frans Hals Museum, Haarlem). For Minerva asprotector of painting in prints of the period, see the entry on Minerva in Her Study in this catalogue.
59. Volker Manuth and Marieke de Winkel, Rembrandt’s “Minerva in Her Study” of 1635: The Splendor andWisdom of a Goddess (Sales cat. New York, Otto Naumann, Ltd.) (New York, 2002).
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60. Karel van Mander, Het Schilder-boeck: Waer in Voor eerst leerlustighe leught den grondt der Edel Vry
Schilderconst in Verscheyden deelen Wort Voorghedragen (Haarlem, 1604), VIII.37, f. 37; and marginal
notation X.8, f. 43.
61. Rembrandt van Rijn, Belshazzar’s Feast, ca. 1636 (National Gallery, London); and The Blinding of
Samson, 1636 (Städel Museum, Frankfurt am Main).
62. Rembrandt van Rijn, Juno, ca. 1662–65 (Hammer Museum, Los Angeles).

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