Three Musicians (Allegory of Hearing)
Rembrandt van Rijn
(Leiden 1606 – 1669 Amsterdam)ca. 1624–25
oil on panel
21.6 x 17.6 cm
RR-105© 2020 The Leiden Collection

Three Musicians (Allegory of Hearing)
Page 2 of 25

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, 2nd ed.
Edited by Arthur K. Wheelock Jr. New York, 2017–20. https://theleidencollection.com/artwork/the-threemusicians/ (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

Three Musicians (Allegory of Hearing)
Page 3 of 25

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

Comparative Figures

discoveries in Dutch art transpired in the auction house Nye & Company inBloomfield, NJ: the appearance 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, NineteenthCentury” and garnered little attention during the viewing period.[2] At theauction, 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 theauction 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 soldpainting was thought to be an early Rembrandt (which the under bidderrevealed upon bowing out), the room burst into cheers and applause. Almost
immediately, this discovery was featured in newspapers around the globe.[3]Fig 1. Rembrandt van
Rijn, Unconscious
Patient (Allegory of Smell),
RR-111 (panel with eighteenthcentury additions before
restoration)

It is not entirely surprising that the connection between the painting and themost celebrated seventeenth-century Dutch artist had not been made earlier,and by more 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 normallyassociated with Rembrandt’s works (fig 1). The painting was also covered inlayers of yellow varnish and dirt, concealing many of the subtleties of thecomposition.

Moreover,compoundingthedifficultyofrecognizing

Rembrandt’s hand was the fact that his panel had been inserted into a larger
panel, and that the composition had been extended on all sides by a later
hand.
Once the association with Rembrandt had been made, it became clear to all

Fig 2. Rembrandt van Rijn, ThreeMusicians (Allegory of Hearing),
RR-105those familiar 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 indifferent private collections in the first half of the twentieth century. Just when
this series was dispersed is not known, but probably not before the earlyeighteenth century, at which time, it seems, all of these compositions wereexpanded 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)

Fig 3. Rembrandt van Rijn, Stone
Operation (Allegory of Touch),© 2020 The Leiden Collection

Three Musicians (Allegory of Hearing)
Page 4 of 25

and Stone Operation (Allegory of Touch) (fig 3).[6] The other painting,

RR-102

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 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 of Rembrandt’s color, the visualconnections to the other known panels from Rembrandt’s series became
ever more evident (fig 6). Unlike decisions made when other paintings fromthis series were restored, in this case it was decided not to remove the earlyeighteenth-century

addition,thus

retaining

thispanel’scomposite

Fig 4. Rembrandt van Rijn,
Spectacles Seller (Allegory ofSight), ca. 1624 oil on panel 21 x
17.8 cm (8 ¼ x 7 in Museum De
Lakenhal, Leiden, S 5697

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 ashared experience in a dark, undefined space. Rembrandt robed his figuresin bright pink and light blue attire, which, lit by artificial light sources seen andunseen, provide splashes of color that greatly enliven the images. These
surgeons, patients, and singers—young, old, male, female, crude andrefined—are unforgettably expressive characters involved in activities thatconnect the senses of smell, touch and hearing in ways both humorous andempathetic, whether reviving a fainted patient, undertaking a surgicaloperation, or singing from an open songbook.

Fig 5. Signature detail, Rembrandt
van Rijn, Unconscious Patient(Allegory of Smell), RR-111

Allegory of Smell features a young man wearing a colorful, loosely-draped
housecoat, who has fainted and is slumped in a chair. An extremely worried
old woman wearing a fur-trimmed hooded mantle tries to revive him byholding a white handkerchief to his nose, presumably one containing
smelling salts.[9] An equally old man, his right hand covered by a white cloth,
holds the youth’s bare right forearm and anxiously awaits to see if thewoman’s efforts succeed. His colorful wardrobe, earring and gold chains, aswell 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 the youth 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 his white cloth to wipe up the blood after completingFig 6. Rembrandt van
Rijn, Unconscious Patient(Allegory of Smell), RR-111,
without eighteenth-century addition(after restoration)

his procedure.
© 2020 The Leiden Collection

Three Musicians (Allegory of Hearing)
Page 5 of 25

Patients being bled were generally portrayed with their lower arm exposed,
exactly as in the image of another bloodletting (fig 8).[12] Once pricked with alancet (a two-edged 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 a bloodletting, a condition deemed to indicate thetreatment’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. Rembrandt’s image,indeed, not only mocks the elderly woman’s excessive concern about thepatient’s condition and the quack’s profession, but also the young man’s
lack of inner fortitude.
Stone Operation (Allegory of Touch) is an equally humorous depiction of oneof the five senses. In a darkened room that hardly suggests a professional

Fig 7. Rembrandt van
Rijn, Unconscious
Patient (Allegory of Smell),
RR-111, with eighteenth-century
addition (after restoration)

atmosphere, a barber-surgeon wields a scalpel to remove a stone from thehead of his patient, who clenches his fists and teeth in pain. The only lightilluminating the scene is the candle held by an intense elderly woman with awrinkled face and clenched jaw. Allegory of Touch belongs to a tradition ofimages hearkening back to the early sixteenth century, in which travelingquacks 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 oldfashioned dress, bulbous hooked noses, gruesome teeth and deeply
wrinkled faces, fit firmly within this tradition. Although such surgeries were, infact, not performed, the phrase “to have a stone removed from one’s head”
was part of the popular vernacular and was used to ridicule those considered
to be foolish or easily duped.[15]Fig 8. Egbert van Heemskerck,
Portrait of the Barber Jacob
Fransz Hercules and his Family in
his Barbershop, 1669, oil oncanvas, 70 x 59 cm, Amsterdam
Museum, Amsterdam, inv. SA
2121

Three Musicians (Allegory of Hearing) similarly depicts an evening scene, but
in this instance one illuminated by an unseen light source. In this joyful
image, two elderly singers, one male and one female, are joined by a young
man who peers down over 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 song with the beat of his raised hand as theold woman, with an equally wrinkled face, leans forward enthusiastically tojoin him in song.[16] The comedy here resides in the advanced age of the two
primary singers, for generally images of Allegory of Hearing (fig 10) depict
young lovers singing and playing instruments together. Even at theiradvanced 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© 2020 The Leiden Collection

Three Musicians (Allegory of Hearing)
Page 6 of 25

lined tabard and the woman’s colorful turban are not contemporary attire,and help indicate the allegorical character of the scene.[17]Just how Rembrandt devised the various scenes in his series of the Five

Fig 9. Lucas van Leyden, The
Surgeon, 1524, etching, 11.7 x 7.6
cm, National Gallery of Art, Gift ofthe Estate of Leo Steinberg,
2011.139.35

Senses, and the sequence in which he intended them to be viewed, is notknown. 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 noprecedent, however, for connecting Allegory of Smell to bloodletting. Quite to
the contrary, artists like Hendrick Goltzius depicted The Sense of Smell in aseries 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 theNetherlands, and in particular Leiden, in 1624, the very year in which heexecuted The Five Senses. Significantly, the many ailments that bloodletting
was thought to cure included the plague.[19]Fig 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, 1943.3.4640

The excitement surrounding the appearance of an unknown early Rembrandt
at the auction in 2015, and the enthusiastic reactions to this small panel in
the art world, contrasts remarkably with the reservations about the otherthree panels from Rembrandt’s series of Five Senses expressed throughout
most of the latter half of the twentieth century. Indeed, the evolution of ourunderstanding of Rembrandt’s work is fascinating, for it has proceeded in fits
and starts. One of the most contentious areas in Rembrandt studies
concerns the budding master’s early works in Leiden, during the period 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 andpublished in the 1930s.
Three Musicians (Allegory of Hearing) was the first of these paintings to be
introduced in the Rembrandt literature. In 1933 Vitale Block published ThreeFig 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, 1943.3.4640

Musicians 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, and postulated that it belonged to a lost
© 2020 The Leiden Collection

Three Musicians (Allegory of Hearing)
Page 7 of 25

series of the five senses. By the time of Block’s publication, the painting had
already been acquired by the Dutch industrialist and collector 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, whowrote 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 Bloch and Valentiner
recognized, the paintings’ vibrant colors share qualities found in other earlyworks by the young Rembrandt, among them The Baptism of the Eunuchand Balaam and the Ass, both executed in 1626.[22] Similarly, the broad,Fig 12. Rembrandt van Rijn, Christ
Driving the Money-Changers fromthe Temple, 1626, oil on panel, 44
x 33 cm, Pushkin Museum,
Moscow, F-1900.

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 the Temple, also 1626 (fig 12). Nevertheless, as theyrightly perceived, Stone Operation and Three Musicians probably dateslightly earlier than Rembrandt’s works of 1626.
The awkward characteristics of Stone Operation (Allegory of Touch) andThree Musicians (Allegory of Hearing) troubled many later scholars, and theattribution of these 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 proposed that they were the work of a young
Gerrit Dou (1613–75).[24] Although in 1968 Wurfbain and Haak renewed theattribution of these paintings to Rembrandt and believed them to becontemporaneous with Christ Driving the Money-Changers from the Temple,
Gerson, in his 1969 revision of Bredius, felt that an attribution to Rembrandt

Fig 13. Lucas Vorsterman, after
Sir Anthony van Dyck, Portrait of
Jan Lievens, c. 1632, engraving,
24.1 x 15.8 cm., from the
Iconography, National Gallery ofArt, Washington

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 thetwo paintings were exhibited in Leiden with an attribution to Rembrandt, thistime 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 accepted or rejected.[28]In

1987–88

Stone

Operation(AllegoryofFig 14. Jan Lievens, Allegory of
the Five Senses, ca. 1622, oil on
panel, 78.2 x 124.4 cm, private
collection

Touch)and Three Musicians (Allegory of Hearing) underwent a radical conservation© 2020 The Leiden Collection

Three Musicians (Allegory of Hearing)
Page 8 of 25

treatment in which their added panel surrounds were removed.[29] By thattime, dendrochronological examinations had demonstrated that Rembrandt’s
original core images were painted on oak panels datable to the earlyseventeenth century, but that the added panels were much later in date.[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[32]

on Rembrandt’s original panels.

The paintings improved markedly in

Fig 15. Jan Lievens, Tric Trac
Players, 1624/25, oil on panel, 98
x 106 cm, Spier Collection, London

appearance, and doubts about their attribution to Rembrandt subsided. In
volume 4 of Corpus of Rembrandt Paintings, published in 2005, Ernst van deWetering declared that the restoration of the paintings 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
should date to the early 1620s rather than the period after his six-monthapprenticeship in 1626 with Pieter Lastman (1583–1633). Schnackenburg

Fig 16. Eighteenth-century
addition, formerly for Rembrandt
van Rijn, ThreeMusicians (Allegory of Hearing),
RR-105

noted that the paintings reflect an unrestrained artistic personality, “one in
need of practice but willing to take a risk.”[34] Van Straten similarly publishedthem as an example of Rembrandt’s pre-Lastman era, executed around1624/25, solidifying the works’ place as among the earliest works executedby 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
relatestylistically(1592–1656).

[36]

to

the

innovationsofGerritvan

Honthorst

Benesch, however, also saw in Rembrandt’s figures theexperience 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), withwhom 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 Lievens well, records that the young artist returned fromhis 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 achievements of Van Honthorst and the otherUtrecht

Caravaggisti.[38]Rembrandt

completed

his

own

three-year© 2020 The Leiden Collection

Three Musicians (Allegory of Hearing)
Page 9 of 25

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 evensharing a studio with his friend before continuing his tutelage under Lastmanin 1626.[40] Significantly, the model for the youngest member of the group in
Rembrandt’s Three Musicians (Allegory of Hearing) is Lievens himself (fig 13).[41]In theme and execution, these paintings are remarkably similar to Lievens’s
work from 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 figuresin brightly colored dress. The tight pyramidal groupings, flattened
backgrounds, and strong chiaroscuro light effects are also similar to those in
Lievens’s Tric Trac Players of 1624/25 (fig 15). Rembrandt’s boldbrushwork, 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, Unconscious Patient (Allegory of Smell), Stone Operation(Allegory of Touch) and Three Musicians (Allegory of Hearing) also
demonstrate Rembrandt’s own inventive personality. Lievens worked on alarge scale, which embues his figures with both grandeur and gravitas.
Rembrandt’s works, on the other hand, are relatively small, and anticipate
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:
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 this young 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 and achieves 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 be that the eighteenth-century additions actually© 2020 The Leiden Collection

Three Musicians (Allegory of Hearing)
Page 10 of 25

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 tightcropping of the main figure is so illogical—the tips of his fingers and the backof his head are both cut by the edge of the panel—that one doubts thecropping represents Rembrandt’s intent. Moreover, the pictorial elements inthe 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 location of 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 the rounded alembic (glass
distillation vessel) painted on the extension behind the surgeon-barberextends onto Rembrandt’s original.
Similar arguments can be made with Allegory of Hearing, the only otherinstance where the eighteenth-century addition is still preserved, althoughseparated from Rembrandt’s original panel.[43] Strikingly, the extended handof the young singer and the candle lighting the scene are both found on thepainted extension (fig 16). Candle-lit 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
by inserting panels into larger ones. Generally, when these expansions were
made, the core panel was set into a customized, shallow opening in thelarger panel, so that the reverse 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 how often one finds it in works by such
artists as Gerrit Dou and Frans van Mieris the Elder (1635-81).[44] Sometimes
these extensions seem to have been conceived and executed at the timethat the work was created, and sometimes paintings were enlarged at a later
date by the original artist. Occasionally, panels were inserted into larger
panels by later artists, who then also expanded upon the originalcompositions of 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 this hypothesis is related to Rembrandt’s painting of 1626, Christ
Driving the Money-Changers from the Temple, which is signed RHF, exactly© 2020 The Leiden Collection

Three Musicians (Allegory of Hearing)
Page 11 of 25

as is Unconscious Patient (Allegory of Smell). This work was also expanded
by being inset into a larger panel. Although this extension was removed in1930 and is now lost, an old photograph of the enlarged composition
suggests that the extension was painted by Rembrandt, or at least based on
his original composition.[45]Should Rembrandt have conceived his depictions of the five senses in sucha composite manner, then the question remains: what happened to these
original

extensions

that

persuadedsomeeighteenth-century

restorer/artist/dealer/owner to remove and replace them? Did the larger
panel develop splits or warp? Did the paint not adhere properly to the groundso that it was flaking or otherwise unstable? Unfortunately, there isapparently no way to know what might have occurred that necessitated sucha radical reworking of the paintings in this series.
Whatever the historical circumstances surrounding the dramatic structuralchanges that occurred in the early eighteenth century with Unconscious
Patient (Allegory of Smell), Stone Operation (Allegory of Touch) and ThreeMusicians (Allegory of Hearing), these works offer special insights about
Rembrandt’s artistic beginnings. In these paintings one sees how he, as ayoung man, experimented with the colors and brushwork that would so
define his later work, and how he began to manipulate light and shade in amanner 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 the master.

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

© 2020 The Leiden Collection

Three Musicians (Allegory of Hearing)
Page 12 of 25

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 benefited enormously 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 inPaterson, 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, and Gary 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 havebeen removed. Only one of these larger added panels has been preserved, the one that oncesurrounded 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 private collectors: 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, wasfirst published in 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.
© 2020 The Leiden Collection

Three Musicians (Allegory of Hearing)
Page 13 of 25

9. The use of smelling salts or some sort of ammonia-based compound was (and remains) a
method for reviving 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 likely that smelling salts with this penetrating smell
were widely available. It is even reasonable to suppose 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 drawingthat Willem Buytwech executed in 1616 (Teylers Museum, Haarlem, inv. O* 23). It also
appears in Egbert van 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 (figure 8).
13. See Ger Luijten, cat. entry for Constantijn Daniel van Renesse, The Quack, 1651, in Mirror ofEveryday 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 vanRenesse, 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 byHenriette Rahusen, the Dutch word for “stone” is “steen,” and even today the Dutch
describe a boil with pus as a “steenpuist.” Thus, it is possible 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 SomeSeventeenth-Century Dutch Paintings,” Imago Musicae 1 (1984): 75–102; Pieter J. J. vanThiel, “Marriage Symbolism in a Musical Party 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© 2020 The Leiden Collection

Three Musicians (Allegory of Hearing)
Page 14 of 25(London, 2002), 199. See also Jane R. Stevens, “Hands, Music, and Meaning in SomeSeventeenth-Century Dutch Paintings,” Imago Musicae 1 (1984): 75–102; Pieter J. J. vanThiel, “Marriage Symbolism in a Musical Party 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 theSeventeenth-Century 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 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 this catalogue 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 Bedeutungseines 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 Brediusand 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, “DieAusstellung ‘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. B1and 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 anddetermined that the core panels of Stone Operation (Allegory of Touch) and Three© 2020 The Leiden Collection

Three Musicians (Allegory of Hearing)
Page 15 of 25

Musicians (Allegory of Hearing) came from the same tree. He noted that the latest growthrings dated to 1597, and postulated a felling date of about 1612. He also determined that theadded 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 theacquisition of 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 Allegoryof Hearing and Allegory of Touch came from the same oak tree originating in the eastern
Baltic region. As with Klein, he determined that the latest growth ring present on the twopanels was 1597, but he concluded that they came 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 indicate that they came also from the same tree. The latest growth ring Tyers found
was 1705, and he concluded 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 theadded panels on Allegory of Hearing and Allegory of Touch were from the same tree, it canbe safely assumed that the extensions on all three panels 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 andoverpainted areas of Three Musicians (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 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 diagrams of the overpainted areas on Allegory of Hearing and Allegory of Smell prior totheir restoration in the late 1980s, 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,” in The 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;© 2020 The Leiden Collection

Three Musicians (Allegory of Hearing)
Page 16 of 25

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 the Young Rembrandt, ed. Ernst van de Wetering andBernhard 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 andGerbrand 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.
Benesch qualified the influence of Van Honthorst’s Caravaggism on Rembrandt generally as
filtered through the work 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 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 andBernhard Schnackenburg, eds., The Mystery of the Young Rembrandt (Exh. cat. Kassel,
Museum Schloss Wilhelmshöhe, Gemäldegalerie Alte Meister; Amsterdam, Museum Het
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 late 1620s owing to the great, andsometimes 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© 2020 The Leiden Collection

Three Musicians (Allegory of Hearing)
Page 17 of 25

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 the Young 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 ofSight) 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 and 410. 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.

Provenance[N. Katz, Dieren, 1930].
Dr. Cornelis Johannes Karel van Aalst (1866–1939), Hoevelaken, by 1933, 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 Baron van Dedem (1929–2015), The Netherlands and United Kingdom, bought fromdescendants of Nicolaas Johannes van Aalst on 22 July 1984 [Johnny van Haeften, London,
2007].
From whom acquired by the present owner in 2007.

Exhibition History
Leiden, Museum De Lakenhal, “Rembrandt als Leermeester,” 1 June–1 September 1956,
no. 2 [lent by Mr. N. J. 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. 2 [lent by G. Cramer Oude Kunst© 2020 The Leiden Collection

Three Musicians (Allegory of Hearing)
Page 18 of 25

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. 65 [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. S28A [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 of Modern Art, 7 February–22 March 1987, no. 2 [lent by Willem Baron van Dedem].
Stockholm, National Museum, “Rembrandt och hans tid: Människan i Centrum/Rembrandt
and His Age: Focus on Man,” 2 October 1992–6 January 1993, no. 46 [lent by Willem Baronvan Dedem].
The Hague, Royal Picture Gallery Mauritshuis, “The Amateur’s Cabinet: SeventeenthCentury Dutch Masterpieces from Dutch Private Collections,” 10 October 1995–7 January
1996, no. 21 [lent by Willem Baron van Dedem].
Kassel, Museum Schloss Wilhelmshöhe, Gemäldegalerie Alte Meister, “The Mystery of theYoung Rembrandt,” 3 November 2001–27 January 2002; Amsterdam, Museum Het
Rembrandthuis, 20 February–26 May 2002, no. 9 [lent by Willem Baron van Dedem].
Leiden, Museum De Lakenhal, on loan with the permanent collection (“Rembrandtjaar”),
2006, no. B1465 [lent by Willem Baron van Dedem].
Tokyo, National Museum of Western Art, “Rembrandt: The Quest for Chiaroscuro,” 12March–12 June 2011; Nagoya: Nagoya City Art Museum, 25 June–4 September 2011 [lent by
the present owner].
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 of Arts, 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].
Worcester, Worcester Art Museum, on loan with the permanent collection, August 2014–1
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 thepermanent collection, 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© 2020 The Leiden Collection

Three Musicians (Allegory of Hearing)
Page 19 of 25

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:
Masterpieces from The Leiden Collection,” 28 March 2018–22 July 2018 [lent by the present
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
Bloch, Vitale. “Zum frühen Rembrandt.” Oud Holland 50 (1933): 100–2, no. 4.
Bredius, Abraham. Rembrandt: Gemälde. Vienna, 1935, no. 421.
Bredius, Abraham. The Paintings of Rembrandt. 2 vols. London, 1937, 1:24, no. 421.
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, no. 64.
Benesch, Otto. “An Early Group Portrait by Rembrandt.” Art Quarterly 3 (1940): 3, 10, 11, no.
7.
Benesch, Otto. “Caravaggism in the Drawings of Rembrandt.” In Extrait des Actes duXVIIème Congrès International d’Histoire de l’Art. The Hague, 1955.

Reprinted in Otto

Benesch, Collected Writings. Edited by Eva Benesch, 1: 175–78, 189, no. 105. 2 vols. New
York, 1970.
Knuttel, Gerard. Rembrandt: De meester en Zijn Werk. Amsterdam, 1956, 240 (as not by
Rembrandt).
Van Gelder, Jan Gerrit, et al., eds. Rembrandt als Leermeester. Exh. cat. Leiden, Museum
De Lakenhal. Leiden, 1956, 14, no. 2.
Rosenberg, Jakob. “Die Rembrandt Ausstellungen in Holland.” Kunstkronik 9 (1956): 354 (asa copy after Rembrandt).
Bauch, Kurt. Der frühe Rembrandt und sein Zeit: Studien zur geschichtlichen Bedeutungseines Frühstils. Berlin, 1960, 227–29, no. 19 (as by School of Rembrandt).
Galerie Cramer. Galerie Hans Cramer. Sales cat. The Hague, Galerie Cramer. The Hague,
1965/66, 19.
© 2020 The Leiden Collection

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Galerie Cramer. Galerie Hans Cramer. Sales cat. The Hague, Galerie Cramer. The Hague,
1966/67, 21.
Bauch, Kurt. Rembrandt: Gemälde. Berlin, 1966, 48, no. 421 (as in the manner of Gerrit Dou).
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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
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Foundation Rembrandt Research Project. The Hague, 1982, 399–404, no. B 1.
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Paintings Illustrated in Colour. New York, 1985, 34, no. 13. Originally published as
Rembrandt, zijn leven, zijne schilderijen: ein nieuwe biografie, met all beschikbare schilderijen
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by an early follower of Rembrandt).
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Van de Wetering, Ernst, et al. A Corpus of Rembrandt Paintings. Vol. 4, SelfPortraits. Stichting Foundation Rembrandt Research Project. Dordrecht, 2005, 627, no. I B1.
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Yeager-Crasselt, Lara. “The Leiden Collection and the Dutch Golden Age.” In Rembrandt,
Vermeer and the Dutch Golden Age. Masterpieces from The Leiden Collection and the
Musée du Louvre. Edited by Blaise Ducos and Lara Yeager-Crasselt, 26, n. 8, 28. Exh. cat.
Abu Dhabi, Louvre Abu Dhabi. London, 2019. [Exhibition catalogue also published in Frenchand Arabic.]
Blanc, Jan. “Being Modern, Being Dutch: The Seventeenth-Century Invention of the GoldenAge.” In Rembrandt, Vermeer and the Dutch Golden Age. Masterpieces from The Leiden
Collection and the Musée du Louvre. Edited by Blaise Ducos and Lara Yeager-Crasselt,© 2020 The Leiden Collection

Three Musicians (Allegory of Hearing)
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42. 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, 76, 78, no. 15. [Exhibition catalogue also publishedin French and Arabic.]
Manuth, Volker, Marieke de Winkel, and Rudie van Leeuwen. Rembrandt. The Complete
Paintings. Cologne, 2019, 64, 577-78, no. 118.
Coutré, Jacquelyn N. “Rembrandus Hermanni Leydensis: Rembrandt, son of Harmen, of
Leiden.” In Leiden circa 1630: Rembrandt Emerges. Edited by Jacquelyn N. Coutré, 13-14,
no. 2. Exh. cat. Kingston, Agnes Etherington; Edmonton, Art Gallery of Alberta; Hamilton, Art
Gallery of Hamilton. Kingston, 2019.

Technical Summary
The support, a single plank of vertically grained, rectangular-shaped Baltic oak with no bevels,
has been thinned.1 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,measuring 31.6 x 25 cm., on which the painted composition had been extended. The composite
panel had been cradled. 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 lateseventeenth-century.[2] Moreover, pigment analysis had determined that the overpainting on theextension and original panel contained an eighteenth-century pigment.[3] The decision was thus
made to remove the added panel as well as the extensive overpainting on the core panel.[4]The oak panel support is covered by a thin ground, presumably natural chalk, i.e., calcium
carbonate. A brown imprimatura 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. Areas containing white, such as the left figure’s turban and shawl fringe,
the right figure’s collar and button on his sleeve, and the songbook, are painted in low impasto.
An x-radiograph suggests minor composition changes to the position of the fingers of the proper
left hand holding the songbook. No underdrawing is apparent in infrared images captured at
780–1000 nanometers. The figures are well preserved, but the imprimatur layer in the background© 2020 The Leiden Collection

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has been restored with thin glazes, and the edges of the panel filled and inpainted.[5] The painting,which is unsigned and undated, has not undergone conservation treatment since its acquisition in
2007.
The eighteenth-century panel addition, which was removed in the late 1980s, has been saved
and, fortunately, is part of the Leiden Collection. The sides of the enlargement were unequal inwidth, measuring, respectively, at the lower, upper, left, and right edges: 1.4 cm, 8.6 cm, 3.6 cm,
and 3.6 cm.

The painted composition on the addition includes a candle, the young man’s

extended hand, a curtain, and the backrest of the chair.
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. Subsequent dendrochronologicalexamination by Ian Tyers (undertaken in October 2016) revised the dating of the added
panel. The latest growth ring Tyers found on the extension was 1705, and he concluded thatthat panel was made from a tree felled after ca. 1713.
3. 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 andoverpainted areas of Three Musicians (Allegory of Hearing) contained the pigment Berlin
blue, which was not commonly used until about 1720 (report on file in The Leiden Collection).
4. 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 diagrams of the overpainted areas on Allegory of Touch and Allegory of Hearing prior totheir 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, 405–11, nos. B1 and B2.
5. Ernst van de Wetering, in Stichting Foundation Rembrandt Research Project, A Corpus of
Rembrandt Paintings, vol. 6, Rembrandt’s Paintings Revisited, ed. Ernst van de Wetering etal. (Dordrecht, 2015), 6:480–81, nos. 1, 2, 3., noted that the Dutch restorer, Menno Dooijes,
had to use a scalpel when he removed the extensive overpaint on Rembrandt’s original
panel. Van de Wetering writes that: “the adhesion of the 18th-century additions to the original
paint was stronger than the adhesion of the original paint to the ground of the panels.” Given© 2020 The Leiden CollectionPowered by TCPDF (www.tcpdf.org)

Three Musicians (Allegory of Hearing)
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that Three Musicians (Allegory of Hearing) now lacks any indication of the interior space inwhich the figures resided, one wonders if Rembrandt’s paint in the background of this panel
was inadvertently removed during this restoration process. The other paintings in this series
all have background elements.

© 2020 The Leiden Collection