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Bust of a Young Bearded Man

ca. 1656–58
oil on panel with arched top
40.4 x 31.3 cm
signed in dark paint, center right: “Rembrandt f”
RR-117

Rembrandt van Rijn
(Leiden 1606 – 1669 Amsterdam)

How to cite
Wheelock, Arthur K., Jr. “Bust of a Young Bearded Man” (2021). In The Leiden Collection Catalogue, 3rd ed. Edited by
Arthur K. Wheelock Jr. and Lara Yeager-Crasselt. New York, 2020–23. https://www.theleidencollection.com/archive/(archived December 2023).
A PDF of every version of this entry is available in this Online Catalogue's Archive, and the Archive is managed by apermanent URL. New versions are added only when a substantive change to the narrative occurs.

Rembrandt van Rijn’s engaging portrayal of a young, bearded man with an intent gaze[1]

is an exciting addition to the master’s oeuvre.

Comparative Figures

Although this modest-scaled panel

painting has a long provenance and was consistently attributed to Rembrandt until thelatter half of the twentieth century, it has been neglected in Rembrandt literaturesince 1930 and more recently considered a work by an unknown master from the“Rembrandt School.”[2] Subsequent restorations, however, have revealed its stunningvisual qualities, as well as the artist’s signature in the wet paint: “Rembrandt f.” The
freshness and vigor of the panel’s execution is entirely consistent with the master’s
style from the latter half of the 1650s.
With this young man, Rembrandt found a model whose face and demeanor fascinatedhim, with features that suggest not only an active, probing mind but also innate
uncertainties about himself and his place in the world. The young man leans forward,
turned somewhat to the right with his hands clasped before him, but he does notdirectly engage with the viewer. Instead, with his head slightly tilted, he glances to theleft, his deeply set eyes cast downward. Nothing is static in this presentation, neither
the figure’s pose nor the way Rembrandt’s paint strokes animate the young man’s

Fig 1. Rembrandt van Rijn, detail ofBust of a Young Bearded Man, ca.
1656–58, oil on panel with arched top,
40.4 x 31.3 cm, The Leiden
Collection, New York, inv. no.
RR-117.

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countenance.
Rembrandt painted swiftly, as though trying to capture the fleeting emotions he saw
unfolding before him. Light entering from the upper left models the man’s narrow,elongated face, with its defined eyes and pronounced nose. Complex layering ofpaints, including quickly brushed ocher and pink impastos around the eyes and thenose, enliven the sitter’s expression in ways that are exciting to behold (fig 1).
Rembrandt applied thin, somewhat translucent paints on the shaded side of the face,
but he also allowed the ocher ground layer to play an active role in modeling the eyeand cheek. He painted the mouth and beard thinly, leaving them somewhat undefined,as though the sitter were about to speak. A hint of pinkish red gives color to theslightly parted lips. Even the background comes alive with rapid brushstrokes thatecho the rhythmic ones Rembrandt used to depict the man’s mop of curly hair.

Fig 2. Rembrandt van Rijn, Portrait of
an Old Man (Possibly a Rabbi), ca.
1645, oil on panel, 22.2 x 18.4 cm,
The Leiden Collection, New York,
inv. no. RR-109.

We have no information about the identity of this sitter, but the intense andpsychologically acute depiction of his countenance and character indicates that he was
known personally to Rembrandt. The elongated structure of his face and his
distinctive features, including his somewhat scraggly beard, suggest that he was an
Ashkenazi Jew, likely an individual who lived in the Jewish neighborhood near
Rembrandt’s home on the Sint Anthonisbreestraat.[3] Rembrandt found great dignity
and spirituality in the faces of his Jewish neighbors, both men and women, young andold, as seen in the compelling oil sketch of an older bearded scholar in The Leiden
Collection (fig 2).[4] According to an early eighteenth-century source, Rembrandt“turned the picturesque tronies [of bearded men] in the Joode Breestraat [where helived] to good advantage.”[5] This practice reinforces stylistic evidence that
Rembrandt painted Bust of a Young Bearded Man in the latter half of the 1650s,
presumably before 1658 when he was forced to move from his home on the Sint
Anthonisbreestraat to the Rozengracht.[6]Fig 3. Rembrandt van Rijn, Bust of aYoung Bearded Man (with eighteenthcentury overpaint), ca. 1656–58, oil on
panel with arched top, 40.4 x 31.3 cm,
The Leiden Collection, New York,
inv. no. RR-117.

For most of this panel painting’s recorded history, the figure looked quite different
than it does today. By the time the work entered the collection of the 1st Baron
Gwydyr (1754–1820) at Grimsthorpe Castle, a later hand had given the young man amore distinguished wardrobe than the one Rembrandt had painted. An eighteenthcentury restorer provided him not only with a broad-brimmed black hat, but also witha wide-collared white shirt and two tassels that hung over a black garment (fig 3). The
efforts to improve the figure’s social status were successful. The first mention of thepainting, a sale catalogue at Christie’s in London in 1829, described it as“Rembrandt—Portrait of a Burgomaster, with arched top.”[7] The painting’s
appearance remained unaltered until at least 1976, when it was sold at Christie’s inLondon as: “Rembrandt, Portrait of a Man, small half-length, in a black hat and blackhabit, bears signature—on panel—arched top.”[8] At some point between 1976 andFig 4. Rembrandt van Rijn, Portrait ofa Seated Woman with Her Hands
Clasped, 1660, oil on canvas, 77.5 x
64.8 cm, The Leiden Collection, New
York, inv. no. RR-113.
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April 2004, when it appeared again at auction, this time with Sotheby’s in London, thepainting had undergone restoration: the eighteenth-century hat, white shirt, tassels,
and black coat had all been removed.[9]Despite the absence of these later additions, Sotheby’s remained unconvinced that thepainting was by Rembrandt, and the auction house sold it as “Rembrandt School,
Seventeenth Century.”[10] The new owner soon contacted Libby Sheldon at University
College London to assess whether the materials and techniques found in this work
were consistent with those found in paintings by Rembrandt and his workshop.
Sheldon examined cross-sections with polarizing light microscopy and energy

Fig 5. Rembrandt van Rijn, detail ofsignature of Bust of a Young Bearded
Man (brightened to increase
readability), ca. 1656–58, oil on panel
with arched top, 40.4 x 31.3 cm, The
Leiden Collection, New York, inv. no.
RR-117.

dispersive X-ray analysis and concluded the materials and painting techniques wereconsistent with Rembrandt’s practice.[11] For example, this panel painting has two
priming layers, a simple layer of white chalk covering the oak support and an
imprimatura layer containing chalk, lead white, and some earth tones. Rembrandt
used this layer to provide a warm, underlying tonality for the painting. In a few areas,
as in the sitter’s upper lip and moustache, Rembrandt left the imprimatura layer
totally exposed, a practice consistent with the complex layering of paints he utilized
throughout his oeuvre to model his forms.
Sheldon rightly observed in this painting many close similarities to Rembrandt’s“tricks in the handling of paint . . . [including] contrasts of thickness and thinness,
warmth and coolness, fluidity and dryness, transparency, and opacity.”[12] Sheemphasized the complex makeup of the paint that included a wide range of brightpigments, even in the lights of the figure’s cheek and the browns in the background.
Finally, as he often did in his paintings, Rembrandt used the blunt end of the brush to
scratch through the wet paint to create highlights by exposing the pale ground, as with

Fig 6. Rembrandt van Rijn, verso ofBust of a Young Bearded Man, ca.
1656–58, oil on panel with arched top,
40.4 x 31.3 cm, The Leiden
Collection, New York, inv. no.
RR-117.

the sitter’s hair at the edge of his forehead in this panel.[13]In 2020, Michel van de Laar, a Dutch restorer of old master paintings, discovered
important additional information about Bust of a Young Bearded Man.[14] His removalof remaining residues of old repaint revealed a significant pentimento near the
figure’s left shoulder, evidence that Rembrandt had adjusted the position of the sitterto emphasize the forward thrust of his body. Drips in the paint, broken brush hairs
embedded in the sitter’s coat, and fingerprints imprinted in wet paint along the panel’sbottom and right edges indicate that the master worked rapidly. Most importantly,
Van de Laar noticed that the signature was integral to the paint surface, and that
Rembrandt had applied it while the paint was still wet.[15] Subsequent research
revealed that the form of the signature is comparable to that on Rembrandt’s Portraitof a Seated Woman with Her Hands Clasped, 1660, which is also signed “Rembrandtf” (fig 4). In both paintings, Rembrandt added a flourish to the stem of the “f” with a

Fig 7. Rembrandt van Rijn, SelfPortrait, Frowning, 1630, etching onlaid paper, 76 x 65 mm, National
Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.,
Rosenwald Collection, inv. no.
1943.3.7051, courtesy National
Gallery of Art, Washington.

stroke that sweeps to the left and then crosses back over the stem and ends in a small© 2024 The Leiden Collection

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circle (fig 5).
The eighteenth-century transformations of Bust of a Young Bearded Man were far
more extensive than just providing Rembrandt’s sitter with a new wardrobe.
Examination of the edges and back of the panel indicates that the painting’s shape has
been altered at the top and right, likely when the image was overpainted. The panel isquite thick, and yet original bevels are only found on the panel’s verso along thebottom and left edges (fig 6).[16] A somewhat narrow bevel exists along the right,
while the panel’s roughly cut arched top has no bevel at all. Strikingly, paint losses
occur along this arched edge, an indication that the paint had already dried when thepanel was cut. Moreover, the panel’s right edge is lighter in color than the opposite
edge. This color differentiation indicates that the right side of the panel has been
exposed to the air for less time than the left, further evidence that the right was cut
later.[17] Finally, Rembrandt’s signature is closer to the right edge than is characteristic

Fig 8. Rembrandt van Rijn, Portrait of
an Old Jew, 1654, oil on canvas, 109 x
85 cm, Hermitage, Saint Petersburg,
inv.no. GE-737, image is used fromwww.hermitagemuseum.org, courtesyof The State Hermitage Museum, St.
Petersburg, Russia.

for him.
This prompts a fascinating question: What was the original size and shape of thepanel, and how might this change have affected the appearance of the sitter? Whileconcrete conclusions remain elusive, certain hypotheses can be advanced. The sitter
would not have been positioned centrally in the picture plane but instead situatedsomewhat to the left, as is often seen in Rembrandt’s portraits from this period of his
career (fig 4). This arrangement would have opened the composition to the right,
creating a greater sense of movement in the young man’s pose. The angle of his body,which is evident in the tilt of his head and the forward thrust of his shoulder, would
have been more pronounced. His body is now somewhat constricted within the archedspace, particularly with his arm cropped at the right. The differences between thelighter tonalities in the background at left and the darker ones at right, where thecontours of the sitter’s body are less defined, would have played a more active role inthe visual and psychological character of the image.
It is also likely, as is often seen in Rembrandt’s portraits, that originally there wasmore “air” above the sitter’s head (fig 4). Rembrandt often used his backgrounds toextend the sitter’s psychological presence beyond his physical being. An element ofthat approach is seen in the rapid, expressive brushwork in this painting, but one canimagine more of this same effect extending beyond the panel’s current confines. The
reductions at the top and right side of the panel were probably no more than a few
centimeters on each side, but, in conjunction with the overpainting, they transformeda somewhat asymmetrical composition depicting a thoughtful Jewish man with anunruly mop of curly hair into a respectable Dutch burgher, quietly posed and centrally
placed in an arch-shaped panel.[18]We must ask, then, whether the change in the panel’s appearance fundamentally© 2024 The Leiden Collection

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altered the master’s artistic intent, given the potential implications for the emotional
valence of this work. Today, it is not entirely clear whether Bust of a Young Bearded
Man is a portrait (conterfeytsel) or a character study (tronie). This painting has many
portrait-like qualities, including the careful and incisive rendering of the sitter’s
features, but one wonders whether this young man would have commissioned thiswork. Since Rembrandt’s insightful portrayal suggests a familiarity with the subject’s
distinctive personality, perhaps he was a friend or associate for whom Rembrandt
painted this work as a gift. This expressive image also exhibits qualities ofRembrandt’s tronies, both in the way it captures a momentary expression, like those in
Rembrandt’s early self-portrait etchings (fig 7), and in its evocation of one’s innerbeing, as in the restrained oil sketches that he painted later in his career (fig 2).
These two approaches were never as distinct as the words conterfeytsel and tronie
might indicate, but one can generally recognize where Rembrandt weighted hisemphasis in his late paintings of elderly men and women, often Jewish, quietly
reflecting on weighty issues (fig 8). In this evocative depiction of a young, bearded
Jew pondering life’s uncertainties, it seems likely that the balance initially lay in the
direction of a tronie, but that the subsequent alteration of the shape of the panel
shifted the equilibrium toward portraiture. One can only marvel that Rembrandt’s
compelling image has retained its visual and emotional power given this striking
change in the painting’s physical character.

- Arthur K. Wheelock Jr., 2021

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Endnotes
1. I would like to thank Caroline van Cauwenberge for her research assistance in compiling information
for this entry.
2. Wilhelm Valentiner, The Thirteenth Loan Exhibition of Old Masters: Paintings by Rembrandt (Exh. cat.
Detroit, Detroit Institute of Arts) (Detroit, 1930), no. 44. The first time that the painting was not fully
attributed to Rembrandt was in 2004, when it was auctioned at Christie’s in London. The sales catalogue
lists the work as “Rembrandt School, 17th Century.” This citation is also the most recent reference tothe painting in the literature.
3. Jews lived in relative harmony with their Dutch neighbors, particularly in a community around the Sint
Anthonisbreestraat where Rembrandt lived, and on the more crowded streets of the adjacent
Vlooienburg island. There were two communities of Jewish people in the Netherlands: the Sephardic
Jews, who came from Spain and Portugal (often via Antwerp), and the Ashkenazi Jews, who came fromeastern Europe, particularly Poland. The Sephardic Jews were often quite prosperous and frequently
adapted Dutch modes of dress. The Ashkenazi Jews, on the other hand, had little wealth and continued
to dress according to their ancient traditions, often wearing broad berets and other types of headdresses.
For the Ashkenazi in Amsterdam, see Steven Nadler, Rembrandt’s Jews (Chicago, 2003), 27–34.
4. As with Bust of a Young Bearded Man, Rembrandt often portrayed Ashkenazi Jews with beards, intense
gazes, and careworn expressions. For a discussion of a painting depicting a model with similar features,
see Arthur K. Wheelock Jr., “Dutch 17th Century, Rembrandt van Rijn, Willem Drost / The
Philosopher / c. 1653,” Dutch Paintings of the Seventeenth Century, NGA Online Editions, accessed 1
July 2021, http://purl.org/nga/collection/artobject/1205.
5. This information is found in the biography of Adriaen van der Werff, written around 1720. For a fuller
discussion of this text, see Jaap van der Veen, “Faces from Life: Tronies and Portraits in Rembrandt’s
Painted Oeuvre,” in Rembrandt: A Genius and His Impact, ed. Albert Blankert (Exh. cat. Melbourne,
National Gallery of Victoria; Canberra, National Gallery of Australia) (Zwolle, 1997), 73.
6. This dating is consistent with the results of the dendrochronological analysis of the oak panel. Peter
Klein concluded that a plausible felling date for the tree was in the 1650s, and that, as of 1656, the panel
would have been available for painting. Peter Klein, report, 9 July 2007, The Leiden Collection
archives.
7. The painting was auctioned at Christie’s, London, 9 May 1829, no. 38, by Peter Drummond-Burrell, 2ndBaron Gwydyr and 21st Baron Willoughby de Eresby, one year after the death of his mother, Priscilla,
20th Baroness Willoughby de Eresby.
8. Sale, Christie’s, London, 21 May 1976, no. 80, for £12,000.
9. Sale, Christie’s, London, 20 April 2004, no. 238. “Rembrandt School, 17th Century. Portrait of a
Bearded Man, Half-Length, Wearing Brown bears signature centre right: Rembrandt oil on panel, arched© 2024 The Leiden Collection

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top 40.5 by 31.3 cm.; 16 by 12 1/4 in.”
10. Apparently, however, not everyone dismissed the possibility that Rembrandt had created it, and thepainting sold for over five times its high estimate, albeit for a relatively modest £33,600.
11. Libby Sheldon, technical examination report, October 2004, The Leiden Collection archives.
12. See Libby Sheldon, technical examination report, October 2004, The Leiden Collection archives.
13. This scratching technique in the hair is also seen in Rembrandt’s Self-Portrait, 1659 (National Gallery of
Art in Washington, D.C.). Rembrandt also applied a series of parallel hatchings over the imprimatura
layer in Bust of a Young Bearded Man to indicate the shape of the moustache.
14. Michel van de Laar, restoration report, 14 December 2020, The Leiden Collection archives.
15. Raking-light photographs make it clear that the painting was signed wet-in-wet. In his report, Michel vande Laar suggested that below the signature were remnants of a date: “165 . . .” However, after close
examination of the painting, I do not see visual evidence of these numbers.
16. The panel is approximately 1.2 cm thick along the left edge and approximately 0.9 cm thick along theright edge.
17. This assessment of the alterations made to the oak panel was greatly aided by the astute observations ofBret Headley of Headley Conservation Services, LLC, Philadelphia, in conversations we had in front of
the panel on 2 March 2021.
18. Otto Naumann has observed (email correspondence, 2 July 2021) that a comparable change in the shapeof a panel is evident in a portrait of Rembrandt in the Wallace Collection. This painting, Rembrandt in a
Black Cap, now attributed to the Studio of Rembrandt, has an arched top that emphasizes the artist’s
head. As with Bust of a Young Bearded Man, however, the panel was originally rectangular in shape andsomewhat higher and wider than in its present configuration. Beveling on the verso is found along thesides and at the bottom, but not at the top. This change in the panel’s shape was likely made in the lateeighteenth century. See Josua Bruyn et al., A Corpus of Rembrandt Paintings, vol. 3, 1635–1642,
Stichting Foundation Rembrandt Research Project (The Hague, 1989), 612–18, no. C 96.

ProvenancePeter Burrell (1754–1820), 1st Baron Gwydyr, Langley Park, Beckenham; by descent to his son, Peter
Drummond-Burrell (1782–1865), 2nd Baron Gwydyr and 22nd Baron Willoughby de Eresby,
Grimsthorpe Castle, Lincolnshire (his father’s sale, Mr. Christie, London, 9 May 1829, no. 38 [throughHenry Bone to Sir John Neeld for £110.50]).
Sir John Neeld (1805–91), 1st Baronet Neeld, Grittleton House, Wiltshire; by descent to his son Sir
Audley Dallas Neeld (1849–1941), 3rd Baronet Neeld, Grittleton House, Wiltshire [to Thomas Agnew
and Sons].
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Bust of a Young Bearded Man
Page 9 of 12[Thomas Agnew and Sons, London, by 1915.]
Edward William Edwards (1874–1956), Cincinnati, by 1930; by descent to his grandson Thomas
Edwards Davidson (1928–94), Cincinnati (sale, Christie’s, London, 21 May 1976, no. 80, for £12,000).
Private collection, Cologne, Germany (sale, Sotheby’s, London, 20 April 2004, no. 238, as byRembrandt School, for £33,600).
Private collection, England [to Fergus Hall Ltd.].
[Fergus Hall Ltd., London, 2020.]
From whom acquired by the present owner in 2021.

Exhibition History
London, Royal Academy of Arts, “Exhibition of Works by Rembrandt: Winter Exhibition, ThirtiethYear,” 1899, no. 11 [lent by Sir Algernon William Neeld].
Detroit, Institute of Arts, “The Thirteenth Loan Exhibition of Old Masters: Paintings by Rembrandt,” 2–31 May 1930, no. 44 [lent by Edward William Edwards].

References
Smith, John. A Catalogue Raisonné of the Works of the Most Eminent Dutch, Flemish and French
Painters. London, 1836, 7: 116, no. 320.
Royal Academy of Arts. Exhibition of Works by Rembrandt: Winter Exhibition, Thirtieth Year. Exh. cat.
London, Royal Academy of Arts. London, 1899, 11, no. 11.
Von Bode, Wilhelm, and Cornelis Hofstede de Groot. Rembrandt: Beschreibendes Verzeichniss seiner
Gemälde mit den heliographischen Nachbildungen: Geschichte seines Lebens und seiner Kunst. Paris, 1900,
4: 217–19, no. 312.
Von Bode, Wilhelm and Cornelis Hofstede de Groot. Rembrandt: beschreibendes Verzeichnis seiner
Gemälde mit den heliographischen Nachbildungen: Geschichte seines Lebens und seiner Kunst. Paris, 1900,
4: no. 312.
Von Bode, Wilhelm and Cornelis Hofstede de Groot. The Complete Work of Rembrandt, History,
Description and Heliographic Reproduction of All the Master’s Pictures, with a Study of His Life. Paris,
1900, 4: 216, no. 312.
Rosenberg, Adolf. Rembrandt: Des Meisters Gemälde in 405 Abbildungen. Stuttgart, 1904, 148.
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Valentiner, Wilhelm Reinhold and Adolf Rosenberg. Rembrandt des Meister Gemälde in 643
Abbildungen. 3rd ed. Stuttgart, 1908, 362.
Hofstede de Groot, Cornelis. Beschreibendes und kritisches Verzeichnis der Werke der hervorragendsten
holländischen Maler des XVII. Jahrhunderts. Stuttgart, 1915, 6: 187, no. 395; 341, no. 819.
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.
London, 1916, 6: 215–16, no. 395; 379, no. 819.
Valentiner, Wilhelm Reinhold. The Thirteenth Loan Exhibition of Old Masters: Paintings by Rembrandt.
Exh. cat. Detroit, Institute of Arts. Detroit, 1930, no. 44.
Vogelaar, Christiaan. “The Leiden Collection.” In Rembrandt and his Contemporaries: History Paintingsfrom The Leiden Collection. Edited by Arthur K. Wheelock Jr. and Caroline Van Cauwenberge, 12. Exh.
cat. Amsterdam, Hermitage Amsterdam. Zwolle, 2023. [Exhibition catalogue also published in Dutch.]

Technical Summary
The support of this arched panel painting is a relatively thick oak board that originated from the Baltic/Polishregions.[1] The wood derives from a tree felled in the 1650s. Based on the number of identified growth rings,
a creation date for the painting is plausible as early as 1656.[2] The panel is beveled along the left, bottom,
and right edges but not along its arched top. The character of the beveling indicates that the completed panel
was cut at the top and right at some point in the painting’s history.[3] The panel’s right edge was also likely
trimmed, although probably by no more than a few centimeters. The bevel along this edge is narrower thanon the left, and the color of the wood is also lighter. This difference in color indicates that this edge has notbeen exposed to air as long as that on the opposite side.[4]The panel verso has the remains of two paper strips, one in the upper left, with a handwritten number “4,”and the other in the upper center with the remains of a printed number, probably “12-.” The imprint of a wax
seal is found in the lower center of the verso. The surface of the verso is rather roughhewn and has not been
thinned or cradled.
In 2004, Libby Sheldon at University College London performed a technical examination on the painting.
She took cross-sections of the paint layers and analyzed the painting with polarizing light microscopy andenergy dispersive X-rays (EDX).[5] Sheldon identified two priming layers, a simple layer of white chalkcovering the support and an imprimatura layer containing chalk, lead white, and some earth tones, including
red, brown, and yellow ocher, as well as umber. She also identified plant black, azurite, crimson lake, smalt,
and an iron-rich yellow pigment, all of which are commonly found in Rembrandt’s work. The complex
makeup of the paint includes a wide range of bright pigments, even in the lights of the figure’s cheek and thebrowns in the background. Sheldon noted that Rembrandt used the blunt end of the brush to scratch throughthe wet paint to create highlights by exposing the underlying imprimatura layer, as with the sitter’s hair at theedge of his forehead.
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Michel van de Laar restored the painting in 2020. With the exception of small damages found at the edges ofthe painting, particularly along the arched top, and areas of minor abrasion in the dark paint on the man’s leftshoulder and sleeve, Van de Laar found the painting to be in good condition.[6] He identified two layers ofpaint in the modeling of the flesh tones on the man’s face: a smooth layer followed by a thicker layer with
impasto around the eyes and nose. In the area of the moustache, however, Rembrandt left the imprimatura
layer largely exposed because of its ocher tonalities. With quickly applied diagonal strokes, the artist thensuggestively indicated the moustache’s hairs. Utilizing his varied and broad range of painting techniques,
Rembrandt toned down the shaded part of the sitter’s face with a brownish scumble.
During his restoration, Van de Laer discovered a significant pentimento near the figure’s left shoulder that
had been hidden by residues of old repaint.[7] He also found drips in the paint, broken brush hairs embeddedin the sitter’s coat, and fingerprints imprinted in wet paint along the panel’s bottom and right edges. Van deLaar also noticed that the signature, “Rembrandt f,” was integral to the paint surface, and that Rembrandt had
applied it while the paint was still wet.[8]The painting has undergone major renovations over its history. It was radically transformed at an early date,presumably in the late eighteenth century (see entry). At that time, the image was repainted to provide thesitter with a broad-brimmed black hat and a black jacket with two white tassels (see fig 3). This repainting
was removed sometime in the late twentieth century.
– Arthur K. Wheelock Jr., 2021

Technical Summary Endnotes

1. The panel is approximately 1.27 cm thick along the left edge and approximately 0.9 cm thick along theright edge.
2. Peter Klein’s dendrochronology report indicates that the youngest heartwood ring was formed in 1639.
Under the assumption of a median fifteen sapwood rings and two years for seasoning, Klein concluded
that the panel would have been available for the artist’s use by 1656. Peter Klein, report, 9 July 2007,
The Leiden Collection archives.
3. Paint losses along the arched top also indicate that the paint had already dried when the panel was cut.
4. This assessment of the alterations made to the oak panel was greatly aided by the astute observations ofBret Headley of Headley Conservation Services, LLC, Philadelphia, in conversations we had in front of
the panel on 2 March 2021.
5. See Libby Sheldon, technical examination report, October 2004, The Leiden Collection archives.
6. These damages were likely due to old restorations.
7. Michel van de Laar, restoration report, 14 December 2020, The Leiden Collection archives.
8. Raking-light photographs make it clear that the painting was signed wet-in-wet. In his report, Van deLaar suggested that below the signature were remnants of a date: “165 . . .” However, there is no visual© 2024 The Leiden CollectionPowered by TCPDF (www.tcpdf.org)

Bust of a Young Bearded Man
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evidence of these numbers. Michel van de Laar, restoration report, 14 December 2020, The Leiden
Collection archives.

© 2024 The Leiden Collection