Two Old Men Disputing (“St. Peter and St.
Paul”)
Leiden School, possibly Jan Lievens(Leiden 1607 – 1674 Amsterdam)ca. 1630
oil on panel
39.1 x 31.9 cm
GD-101© 2024 The Leiden Collection

Two Old Men Disputing (“St. Peter and St. Paul”)
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How to cite
Rahusen, Henriette. “Two Old Men Disputing (“St. Peter and St. Paul”)” (2017). In The Leiden Collection Catalogue, 3rded.

EditedbyArthurK.

Wheelock

Jr.

and

Lara

Yeager-Crasselt.

New

York,

2020–23.

https://www.theleidencollection.com/archive/ (archived December 2023).
A PDF of every version of this entry is available in this Online Catalogue's Archive, and the Archive is managed by apermanent URL. New versions are added only when a substantive change to the narrative occurs.

Resting his hands on the large tome lying open on the table, an elderly man leansComparative Figures

toward his bearded companion across the table. Diffuse light streaming in from theleft catches books and papers at the corner of the table before illuminating thefigures’ faces. The rest of the room remains shrouded in relative darkness. The
bearded man whose back is turned to the viewer wears a bright red skullcap and a
voluminous red robe with silver decorations beneath his heavy dark cloak, attributes
that recall the wardrobe of a cardinal of the Roman Catholic Church.[1] Yet, given the
suppression of Roman Catholicism in the Dutch Republic during the earlyseventeenth century (when this painting was executed), it is unlikely that the scene
actually represents a theological exchange from those years. A far more likely
scenario is that this is a history painting, evoking an imagined discussion between twoelderly churchmen from another time and place.
Most probably, the scene focuses upon the fundamental theological dispute between

Fig 1. Rembrandt van Rijn, Two
Scholars Disputing, 1628, oil on wood
panel, 72.4 x 59.7 cm, National
Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne, inv.
no. 349-4

the apostles Peter and Paul that occurred during the second of their two meetings,
which took place in Antioch around the middle of the first century AD.[2] As
described in Paul’s Epistle to the Galatians, Paul disputed Peter’s position that Gentile(pagan, non-Jewish) converts to Christianity had to comply fully with the laws of the
Torah in order to obtain redemption. Peter’s position was that all converts had tofollow Jewish dietary laws and that male converts had to be circumcised, while Paulargued that a non-Jewish convert’s faith in Christ alone was sufficient.[3]The theological dispute between these two giants of early Christianity over the proper
practices of the faithful had great resonance in the Dutch Republic of the 1620s, aperiod of acrimonious tensions between the moderate Remonstrant and hard-line

Fig 2. Jan Lievens, A Magus at a
Table, ca. 1631–32, Upton House,© 2024 The Leiden Collection

Two Old Men Disputing (“St. Peter and St. Paul”)
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Counter-Remonstrant factions within the Dutch Calvinist community. One aspect ofthat controversy concerned the appropriate level of religious tolerance that should be

Warwickshire, inv. 446728, ©
National Trust Collections

extended to those who practiced faiths other than strict Calvinism. This debate not
only echoed the issues discussed by Peter and Paul in Antioch, but the way Dutch
theologians framed their arguments may also have had an impact on the compositionof this painting. Specifically, in his influential Vrye godes-dienst (Free Religion),published in 1627, Simon Episcopius, one of the leading Dutch proponents ofreligious tolerance, constructed his arguments about the benefits of religious
pluralism in the form of a dispute between two men.[4]The likely visual prototype for this work was Rembrandt van Rijn’s (1606–69) Two
Scholars Disputing (also called St. Peter and St. Paul), 1628, in the National Gallery ofVictoria in Melbourne (fig 1).[5] Not only are the paintings similar in theme andcomposition, but the man wearing the skullcap in the Leiden Collection painting alsoechoes—albeit in reverse—the triangular monumentality of the foreground figure in
the Melbourne painting.[6] The similarities between these works indicate that thispainting was also executed in Leiden in the late 1620s, but the artist’s identity still
remains in doubt.
The attribution of Two Old Men Disputing has, in fact, confounded scholars forgenerations. The painting has variously been attributed to Rembrandt; Jan Lievens(1607–74); “a follower of Rembrandt, possibly Lievens;” the “immediate circle
around Rembrandt, or even more likely, that of Jan Lievens;” and in 2005 it entered
The Leiden Collection as “attributed to Gerrit Dou.”[7] This level of uncertainty dates
to the painting’s earliest appearance in the literature. When Two Old Men Disputing
was sold in Paris in 1787, it was attributed to Rembrandt, but it was sold as a work by
Lievens when it changed hands the following year. Over one hundred years later, theDuke of Westminster sold it once again as a work by Rembrandt, an attribution thatwas maintained for the greater part of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries.[8] By
1980, however, attribution questions resurfaced and the painting was sold as by a“follower of Rembrandt, possibly Lievens.”
In 1982, the Rembrandt Research Project (RRP) called the painting an eighteenthcentury “imitation of Rembrandt’s early style, which was not produced in his own
circle.”[9] In 2005, however, the RRP reassessed the painting’s attribution anddescribed it as being from the “School of Rembrandt,” proposing that it had“originated in the immediate circle around Rembrandt, or even more likely, that of
Jan Lievens.”[10] Whoever the artist, an attribution to Rembrandt cannot be supported:in contrast to Rembrandt’s strong chiaroscuro and balanced and vibrant composition,
this mirrored adaptation, with the unseen light source bouncing off the vellum pages
and the folds of the tablecloth, is more stilted, more sparse, and more somber, and the© 2024 The Leiden Collection

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figures are not modeled with the forceful three-dimensionality so characteristic of
Rembrandt.
The painting has more connections to Jan Lievens’s manner than to that of Gerrit
Dou.[11] A close point of reference is A Magus at a Table, ca. 1631–32, by Lievens inUpton House, Warwickshire (fig 2).[12] Both works include dramatically dark
backgrounds that accentuate the otherwise evenly distributed light’s focus on the
figures and the corner of the table, which has documents dangling over the edge of aheavy, green tablecloth. The delicate handling and the figural types in the painting
also seem to echo Lievens’s manner. Despite the uncertainty regarding the painting’s
authorship, Two Old Men Disputing fits comfortably within the vibrant artistic
environment of Leiden in the late 1620s.

- Henriette Rahusen, 2017

© 2024 The Leiden Collection

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Endnotes
1. The zucchetto or pileolus is a small, round skullcap worn by members of the Roman Catholic clergy. The
color red is reserved for the zucchettos of cardinals. (The pope’s skullcap is white, and those worn byarchbishops and bishops are purple).
2. The suggestion that the two men represent the apostles Peter and Paul was first made by ChristianTümpel in his discussion of Rembrandt van Rijn’s Two Scholars Disputing, 1628 (National Gallery ofVictoria, Melbourne). Christian Tümpel, “Studien zur Ikonografie der Historien Rembrandts,”
Nederlands Kunsthistorisch Jaarboek 20 (1969): 182–87. Tümpel, however, solely focused on the first of
the two visits, when Paul stayed at Peter’s house in Jerusalem for fifteen days (Galatians 1:18). The
dispute at the heart of this painting actually took place during their second meeting (Galatians 2:11–14).
3. Galatians 2:11–14. Click here for a detailed description of the dispute.
4. For the seventeenth-century debate on tolerance, see Jonathan Israel, The Dutch Republic: Its Rise,
Greatness and Fall, 1477–1806, The Oxford History of Early Modern Europe (Oxford, 1995), 502–3.
Episcopius (1583–1643) was born Simon Bischop, but is known by the Latinized version of his last
name.
5. Click here for the object page of the National Gallery of Victoria.
6. For a discussion of Rembrandt’s Two Scholars Disputing in Melbourne, see Josua Bruyn et al. A Corpus
of Rembrandt Paintings, Vol. 1: 1625–1631, Stichting Foundation Rembrandt Research Project (The
Hague, 1982), 159–68, no. A 113, repro. See page 165, repro., for Rembrandt’s Study in Red and Black
Chalk (Staatliche Museen Preußischer Kulturbesitz, Kupferstichkabinett, Berlin), on which the figure in
the foreground of the Leiden Collection painting is based.
The Rembrandt Research Project’s discussion of the Melbourne painting accepts Christian Tümpel’s
interpretation that the two men are the apostles Peter and Paul, representing the Jews and the Gentiles
respectively (pp. 166–67). Neither the Rembrandt Research Project nor Tümpel, however, connected
the historical dispute in Antioch to the theological debate swirling around the Dutch Republic in the1620s.
7. Werner Sumowski, Gemälde der Rembrandt-Schüler, 6 vols. (Landau and Pfalz, 1983–94), 4: 2948,
states that “according to Gerson [this painting is] a Dou-like adaptation of the Melbourne painting.”
8. Rolf Fritz, Gemälde alter Meister (Dortmund, 1967), no. 77, repro., as Elias and Elisa by Rembrandt, ca.
1629. Fritz reproduced an aquatint of the painting in reverse, inscribed “Les Docteurs,” by A. Bissel, ca.
1790–1810, as comparative figure to this painting’s entry. “Les Docteurs” in the caption refers to therole of the Book of Kings prophets Elias (Elijah) and his disciple Elisa (Elisha) as Doctors of the
Church. The full inscription on the aquatint reads: “Peint par Rembrandt gravé par A. Bissell. Les
Docteurs. – Du Cabinet de Monsieur le Baron de Villiez – à Mannheim chez Dom: Artaria.”
9. Josua Bruyn et al. A Corpus of Rembrandt Paintings, Vol. 1: 1625–1631, Stichting Foundation© 2024 The Leiden Collection

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Rembrandt Research Project (The Hague, 1982), 524–28, no. C513. One year later, Werner Sumowski
placed the painting in the “School of Rembrandt” after the Melbourne painting of 1628. Werner
Sumowski, Gemälde der Rembrandt-Schüler, 6 vols. (Landau and Pfalz, 1983–94), 4: 2948, no. 1931.
10. Stichting Foundation Rembrandt Research Project, A Corpus of Rembrandt Paintings, vol. 4, SelfPortraits, ed. Ernst van de Wetering (Dordrecht, 2005), 596, 627–28, no. I C 513 / Br. 424.
11. Ronnie Baer did not include Two Old Men Disputing in her catalogue raisonné of Dou in 1990. See
Ronni Baer, “The Paintings of Gerrit Dou (1613–1675)” (PhD diss., New York University, 1990).
12. Thanks to Arthur K. Wheelock Jr. for pointing out the resemblances with this painting by Lievens.
(Lloyd DeWitt, however, deems the Upton House painting to be “closer to Rembrandt or Dou than
Lievens.” Personal communication, 27 May 2013). The Upton House painting is listed as National Trust
Inventory Number 446728. According to notes from the National Trust, dendrochronology indicates thatthe oak panel came from a tree felled after 1660. However, more recent dendrochronological analysis
by Ian Tyer indicates that insufficient information exists about the wood rings to determine the fellingdate of this panel.

Provenance
François Leroy de la Faudignère (d. 1786) (his sale, A.J. Paillet, Paris, 8 January 1787, no. 324, as by
School of Rembrandt).
Marquis de Montesquiou (his sale, Lebrun, Paris, 9 December 1788, no. 158, as by Jan Lievens).
Mr. La Reynière (his sale, Lebrun, Paris, 3 April 1793, no. 99, as by Jan Lievens).
Duke of Westminster, London (his sale, London, Christie’s, 4 July 1924, no. 90, as by Rembrandt van
Rijn [to Wills for £2415]).
[Paul Bottenwieser, Berlin, 1924–1925].
Dr. Wolfgang Huck, Berlin, 1925 [to P. de Boer].
[P. de Boer, Amsterdam (to Dr. Heinrich Becker for DM 120,000, as by Rembrandt van Rijn).]Dr. Heinrich Becker, Dortmund, 1955 [to Hans M. Cramer].
[Hans M. Cramer, The Hague, 1980, as by a follower of Rembrandt, possibly Jan Lievens.][Newhouse Galleries, New York, 1991, as by Rembrandt van Rijn].
[Bijl-Van Urk B. V., Alkmaar, 2005, as by School of Rembrandt].
From whom acquired by the present owner in 2005.

Exhibition History© 2024 The Leiden Collection

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Berlin, The Academy of Arts, “Gemälde alter Meister aus Berliner Privatbesitz,” July–August 1925, no.
313 [lent by Dr. Wolfgang Huck].
Delft, Prinsenhof Museum, “Drie Rembrandts in de jaren 1953–1956 verkocht door de Kunsthandel P.
de Boer, Amsterdam,” 10 August–2 September 1956, no. 2 [lent by Dr. Heinrich Becker].
Oxford, Ashmolean Museum of Art, on loan with the permanent collection, December 2009–January
2011 [lent by the present owner].
Philadelphia, Philadelphia Museum of Art, “Dutch Treat,” 11 October 2011–6 January 2012 [lent by thepresent owner].
Leiden, Stedenlijk Museum de Lakenhal, “Gerrit Dou: The Leiden Collection from New York,” 9March–31 August 2014 [lent by the present owner].
Ithaca, Cornell University, Herbert F. Johnson Museum, “An Eye For Detail: Dutch Painting from theLeiden Collection,” September 2014–May 2015 [lent by the present owner].
Dordrecht, Dordrechts Museum, “Work, Pray & Admire: New Views on Calvinism and Art,” 11November 2018–26 May 2019 [lent by the present owner].
Kingston, Queen’s University, Agnes Etherington Art Centre, “Leiden circa 1630: Rembrandt Emerges,”
24 August–1 December 2019; Edmonton, Art Gallery of Alberta, 7 March–27 September, 2020;
Regina, MacKenzie Art Gallery, 5 December 2020–21 February 2021; Hamilton, Art Gallery of
Hamilton, 13 March–30 May 2021, no. 14 [lent by the present owner].

References
Smith, John. A Catalogue Raisonné of the Works of the Most Eminent Dutch, Flemish, and French
Painters. London, 1836, 7: 141–42, no. 417 (as by Rembrandt van Rijn).
Hofstede de Groot, Cornelis. Beschreibendes und kritisches Verzeichnis der Werke der hervorragendsten
höllandischen Maler des XVII. Jahrhunderts. Esslingen, 6: no. 343 (as by Rembrandt van Rijn).
Hofstede de Groot, Cornelis. A Catalogue Raisonné of the Works of the Most Eminent Dutch Painters of
the Seventeenth Century Based on the Work of John Smith. Edited and translated by Edward G. Hawke, 6:
196, no. 343 (as by Rembrandt van Rijn). London, 1916.
Von Bode, Wilhelm. “Ein neuaufgefundenes Jugendwerk Rembrandts.” Zeitschrift für bildende Kunst 58(1924/25): 1–4 (as by Rembrandt van Rijn).
The Academy of Arts. Gemälde alter Meister aus Berliner Besitz. Exh. cat. Berlin, The Academy of Arts.
Berlin, 1925, 50, no. 313 (as by Rembrandt van Rijn).
Bauch, Kurt. Die Kunst des jungen Rembrandt. Heidelberg, 1933, 78, 82, 83, no. 75, 195n36 (as byRembrandt van Rijn).
Bredius, Abraham. Rembrandt: Gemälde. Vienna, 1935, 18, no. 424 (as by Rembrandt van Rijn).
© 2024 The Leiden Collection

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Bredius, Abraham. The Paintings of Rembrandt. London, 1937, 24, no. 424 (as by Rembrandt van Rijn).
Hamann, Richard. Rembrandt. Berlin, 1948, 208 (as by Rembrandt van Rijn).
Stedelijk Museum het Prinsenhof. Drie Rembrandts in de jaren 1953–1956 verkocht door de
Kunsthandel P. de Boer, Amsterdam. Exh. cat. Delft, Stedelijk Museum het Prinsenhof. Delft, 1956,
n.p., ill. (as by Rembrandt van Rijn).
Bauch, Kurt. Der frühe Rembrandt und sein Zeit: Studien zur geschichtlichen Bedeutung seines
Frühstils. Berlin, 1960, 143–48, no. 111a, no. 112, 259n106–7 (as by Rembrandt van Rijn).
Bauch, Kurt. Rembrandt: Gemälde. Berlin, 1966, no. 6 (as by Rembrandt van Rijn).
Lauts, Jan. Staatliche Kunsthalle Karlsruhe, Katalog Alte Meister bis 1800. Karlsruhe, 1966, 247, no. 1789(as by Rembrandt van Rijn).
Fritz, Rolf. Sammlung Becker: Gemälde Alter Meister. Dortmund, 1967, no. 77 (as by Rembrandt van
Rijn).
Bredius, Abraham. Rembrandt: The Complete Edition of the Paintings. Edited by by Horst Gerson, 340,
587, no. 424. London, 1969 (as by Workshop of Rembrandt, or copy after Rembrandt).
Hamann, Richard. Rembrandt. Edited by Werner Sumowski, 208, 446, no. 4 (as a copy after
Rembrandt). Berlin, 1969.
Sumowski, Werner. “Kritische Bemerkungen zur neuesten Gemäldekritik.” In Neue Beiträge zur
Rembrandt-Forschung. Edited by Otto von Simson and Jan Kelch, 95 (as by Rembrandt van Rijn).
Berlin, 1973.
Bolten, Jaap and Bolten-Rempt. The Hidden Rembrandt. Oxford, 1978, 172, no. 27 (as by Rembrandt
van Rijn).
Josua Bruyn, et al.. A Corpus of Rembrandt Paintings. Vol. 1, 1625–1631. Stichting Foundation
Rembrandt Research Project. The Hague, 1982, 524–528, no. C 13 (as an eighteenth-century
Rembrandt imitation).
Sumowski, Werner. Gemälde der Rembrandt-Schüler. Vol. 4, Ch. Paudiss – Anonyme. Landau, 1983,
2948, 2998, no. 1931 (as by School of Rembrandt, possibly Willem de Poorter).
Van de Wetering, Ernst, et al. A Corpus of Rembrandt Paintings. Vol. 4: Self-Portraits. Stichting
Foundation Rembrandt Research Project. Dordrecht, 2005, 627–28, no. C 13 (as by Circle ofRembrandt or Jan Lievens).
Bijl, Martin. “Gerrit Dou as a Pupil of Rembrandt.” In Rembrandt and his Circle: Insights andDiscoveries. Edited by Stephanie S. Dickey, 178–79, no. 7.10 (as by attributed to Gerrit Dou).
Amsterdam, 2017.
Eekhout, Marianne. Werk, bid & bewonder: Een nieuwe kijk op kunst en calvinisme. Exh. cat. Dordrecht,
Dordrechts Museum. Dordrecht, 2018, 35, ill.
Coutré, Jacquelyn N., ed. Leiden circa 1630: Rembrandt Emerges. Exh. cat. Kingston, Ontario, Agnes
Etherington Art Centre; Edmonton, Alberta, Art Gallery of Alberta; Regina, Saskatoon, MacKenzie Art
Gallery, Hamilton, Ontario, Art Gallery of Hamilton. Kingston, 2019, 182–85, no. 14.
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Vogelaar, Christiaan. “Ten Years of Struggle: Rembrandt in Leiden and Amsterdam, 1624–34.” In
Young Rembrandt. Edited by Christopher Brown, An van Camp, and Christiaan Vogelaar, 28, fig. 21.
Exh. cat. Leiden, Museum de Lakenhal; Oxford, Ashmolean Museum. Oxford, 2019.

Versions
Painted Versions:
1. After Rembrandt, probably contemporary, Two Scholars Disputing, oil on panel, 39.5 x 33 cm, Staatliche
Kunsthalle, Karlsruhe, inv. no. 1798.

2. After Rembrandt, probably contemporary, Two Scholars Disputing, previously Lahmann Collection,
Weisser Hirsch, Dresden.

Print:
1. Pietro Monaco (1707–72), after Rembrandt, The Prophesy of the Prophet Elisha, ca. 1730–1739,
engraving, 505 x 363 mm, British Museum, London, inv. no. 1865,0520.773.

Technical Summary
The painting was executed on a single plank with a vertical grain. The plank is oak, from the Baltic region,
with a fell date of 1601 and an earliest probable use date of 1609.[1] The panel has been thinned and adhered
to a supplemental wooden support, which is comprised of four vertically grained boards. Thin wooden shims
have been attached to the left and right edges with tongue and groove joins. There is evidence that a cradle
was once attached to the reverse of the supplemental support. Fifteen dark rectangles, indicating the areas of
the wood that were not covered by the cradle members, are visible on the reverse of the panel.
The panel was prepared with a light-colored ground that is visible where it stops at the edges of the wood. It
was thinly and evenly applied. The paint was built up in successive layers. The X-radiograph shows an earlier
composition with a standing figure and a seated figure in larger format than the current composition. It is
unclear if this indicates an earlier composition altogether, or just artist’s changes to the current composition.
The head of the seated man in the earlier composition is slightly higher and to the right of the head of theseated man in the current composition. There is low impasto along the contours of the earlier figures. In
raking light, the contours of another larger standing man are visible between the open book and the man
facing the viewer.
Infrared photography[2] reveals several slight artist’s changes: the shape of the upper portion of the figure’s
head facing the viewer appears to have been enlarged twice, the same figure’s proper left hand has been
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shifted further toward the back of the book, the beard of the figure seen in profile has been made thinner,and the length of the two pages dangling over the table edge have been shortened and moved to the right.
The painting is in very good condition. There are three previously restored vertical splits along the top andbottom edges of the panel. These were probably created by the cradle, as it would have restricted the panel’s
movement. The panel exhibits vertical planar distortion along these splits, creating a washboard effect.
Further technical information about this artwork is available in The Rembrandt Database.

Technical Summary Endnotes

1. Peter Klein, dendrochronological report, 14 January 2007; Ian Tyers, dendrochronological report,
September 2008.
2. Infrared photographs were taken at 780nm, 850nm, and 1000nm.

© 2024 The Leiden Collection