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Rembrandt as Universal Artist
How to cite
Wheelock, Arthur K., Jr. “Rembrandt as Universal Artist” (2020). In The Leiden Collection Catalogue, 4th ed. Edited by
Arthur K. Wheelock Jr. and Elizabeth Nogrady with Caroline Van Cauwenberge. New York, 2023–.
https://theleidencollection.com/essays/rembrandt-as-universal-artist/ (accessed November 10, 2024).
A PDF of every version of this essay is available in this Online Catalogue's Archive, and the Archive is managed by apermanent URL. New versions are added only when a substantive change to the narrative occurs.

© 2024 The Leiden Collection

Rembrandt as Universal Artist
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As I write this essay in the fall of 2020, we face many uncertainties in our daily lives
caused by a worldwide pandemic, civil unrest, systemic racism, climate change, andeconomic concerns. In unsettled times like these, works of art can provide solace andguidance and inspire hope. They reflect our core values and basic humanity.
Rembrandt van Rijn (1606–1669) is one of those masters whose enduring legacy,
which is both universal and personal, seems to matter now more than ever because of
his ability to convey deeply felt emotions to which we can all relate.[1]Rembrandt (fig 1) derived his essential humanism from the triumphs and tragedies of
his own life as well as from his studies of artistic and literary traditions, including theBible and mythology, and he assimilated these experiences in paintings, drawings, andetchings. He depicted the physical characteristics of those he portrayed, but also theirthoughts and feelings, from pride and dignity to worry and embarrassment. Throughhis artistic sensitivities and human insight, Rembrandt’s figures come alive, whether he

Fig 1. Rembrandt van Rijn, SelfPortrait with Shaded Eyes, 1634, oil
on panel, 71.1 x 56 cm, The Leiden
Collection, New York, inv. no.
RR-110.

rendered them from life or his imagination.
Rembrandt firmly belonged to the tradition of the “universal” artist, a designation wellestablished in the Netherlands by the Dutch theorist Karel van Mander (1548–1606)
for identifying great masters, such as Raphael (1483–1520) and Lucas van Leyden(1494–1533), who worked in a variety of media and depicted a broad range ofsubjects.[2] However, from the very earliest years of his career, when he was still active
in Leiden, Rembrandt redefined the essence of this concept by emphasizing, as well,the emotional and spiritual realms of the human experience in his art.
This distinctive quality of Rembrandt’s artistic genius was already recognized in thelate 1620s by Constantijn Huygens (1596–1687) (fig 2), one of the premierconnoisseurs of the day and secretary to the Prince of Orange, Frederick Hendrick.
After a visit to Leiden to meet Rembrandt and his colleague Jan Lievens (1607–1674),
Huygens wrote admiringly of Rembrandt’s ability to capture the “movements of theFig 2. Jan Lievens, Portrait ofConstantijn Huygens, ca. 1628–29,
oil on panel, 99 x 84 cm.
Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam, on loan
from the Musée de la Chartreuse,
Douai.

soul.”[3] This remarkable aspect of Rembrandt’s manner drew continued admiration insubsequent centuries, particularly by the late nineteenth-century German scholar
Wilhelm von Bode (1845–1929), whose outlook was deeply influenced by the
Romantic movement and its ideals of creative genius. Bode admired the way
Rembrandt’s chiaroscuro effects allowed him to suppress surface details so that hecould render “souls rather than existences.” For Bode, Rembrandt’s art marked “aclimax in the development of universal art.”[4] Although the full story of Rembrandt’s
path to becoming a universal artist is beyond the scope of this essay, its essence isfound in each of the master’s paintings in The Leiden Collection, which give shape tothe following narrative.

Rembrandt’s Life Trajectory as Seen through His Art

Fig 3. Rembrandt van Rijn, SelfPortrait in a Cap, Wide-Eyed andOpen-Mouthed, 1630, etching, 50 x
45 mm, Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam,
inv. no. RP-P-OB-697.
© 2024 The Leiden Collection

Rembrandt as Universal Artist
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Rembrandt’s appearance and life story are known to us from many sources, but none socompelling as the self-portraits he made over the course of his career. We watch him
age from a rough-hewn, unrefined young artist in Leiden, where strong contrasts oflight and dark capture momentary expressions (fig 3), to a respectable and successful
burgher after he moved to Amsterdam in the early 1630s (fig 1). We also observe,through the eyes of the artist, how late in life his body, if not his indomitable spirit,
began to weaken and fail (fig 4). Rembrandt did not idealize his features in his
paintings, drawings, and etchings, and, over time, we see his bulbous nose widen andhis jowly cheeks grow ever more distended. The one constant in his late portraits is his
steady gaze, often heavy and not without sadness, but with a sense of dignity andequanimity that reflects Rembrandt’s conviction that his legacy was equal to that of any
master from antiquity or the Renaissance.

Fig 4. Rembrandt van Rijn, SelfPortrait, 1658, oil on canvas, 133.7
x 103.8 cm, The Frick Collection,
New York, inv. no. 1906.1.97.

Rembrandt’s character emerged from the vagaries of his life, and his successes andfailures, as well as his excesses and limitations, provided him with a broad range ofexperiences that informed the depth and breadth of his art. While he rendered all
aspects of the world with great sensitivity, he was particularly fascinated with thehuman face, whether old or young. He drew, etched, and painted both strangers on thestreet and members of his family—another reason that we can relate so directly to theworld in which he lived. For example, Rembrandt captured the forceful personality ofhis mother (fig 5) and the quiet solemnity of his blind father. We feel connected toRembrandt’s beloved Saskia (fig 6), whom he rendered from the very day that they
were betrothed in 1633 to when she lay bedridden before her untimely death in 1641.
Only one of their children, Titus, survived infancy, and through Rembrandt’s paintings

Fig 5. Rembrandt van Rijn, The
Artist's Mother, Head and Bust,
1628, etching, 66 x 63 mm,
Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam, inv. no.
RP-O-1961-1196.

and drawings we watch him grow to early manhood, not only in genre-like portraits but
also when he served as a model in his father’s biblical and mythological scenes. Finally,
Rembrandt’s dear companion Hendrickje (fig 7), who came into his life in the
mid-1640s, often features in his work. Their life together, while caring and supportive,
was not without economic distress: in 1656, Rembrandt had to declare a form ofbankruptcy and, a few years later, he was forced to sell his large home and extensive
art collection.[5] In 1663, Hendrickje tragically died of the plague, a pandemic notunlike the one we are facing today, which tore through the Netherlands. These
powerful life experiences inform the empathy that one always feels in the presence of
one of Rembrandt’s works.
When Rembrandt died at age sixty-three in 1669, he was largely alone, predeceased by
Hendrickje and Titus. At his death, moreover, the art world had largely passed him by.
After years of success, his dark and roughly brushed portraits and religious, historical,
and mythological paintings lost favor, not only among younger patrons but also with

Fig 6. Rembrandt van Rijn, Saskia
van Uylenburgh, the Wife of theArtist, probably begun 1634/35 andcompleted 1638/40, oil on panel,
62.5 x 49 cm, National Gallery ofArt, Washington, D.C., WidenerCollection, inv. no. 1942.9.71.

Amsterdam’s city fathers who had become enthralled by more elegant artistic styles.
Nevertheless, even as many of Rembrandt’s contemporaries turned away from him, he© 2024 The Leiden Collection

Rembrandt as Universal Artist
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did continue to receive commissions from those who seemingly realized that his
artistic creations probed the very essence of human life by fusing the physical andspiritual in ways never before reached (fig 8).

Rembrandt in Leiden in the Early 1620s
Rembrandt’s story begins in Leiden on July 15, 1606, when he was born to a miller,
Harmen Gerritsz van Rijn, and his wife, Neeltgen van Zuytbrouck.[6] As the youngest
son of at least ten children, Rembrandt was not expected to carry on his father’sbusiness but was allowed to follow his natural instincts, which were, according to his
first biographer, “toward the art of painting and drawing.”[7] The family wasprosperous enough to send him to the Leiden Latin School, where he remained forFig 7. Rembrandt van Rijn,
Hendrickje Stoffels (?), probably
1654–56, oil on canvas, 101.9 x
83.7 cm, National Gallery, London,
inv. no. NG6432.

seven years, and to the University of Leiden, where he was enrolled from 1620 to atleast 1622.[8] Such an education would have given him a solid foundation in theology
and the literature of classical antiquity. This familiarity with narratives from the Bible
and Roman mythology provided him with the intellectual framework for becoming ahistory painter, then understood to be the highest echelon for an artist.
Rembrandt was raised as a Protestant, yet his family’s sympathies lay not with theOrthodox Calvinists but with the Remonstrants—a faction of the Dutch Reformed
Church that opposed the Orthodox Calvinists’ position on predestination. Calvinist
doctrine maintained that God’s elect were chosen even before the fall of Adam, andthat those selected for damnation could not ameliorate their destiny through repentanceand faith. The Remonstrants argued, on the other hand, that God would save those who
had fallen if they lived in “true obedience of faith.”[9] Debates between the

Fig 8. Rembrandt van Rijn, Portraitof a 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.

Remonstrants and the Orthodox Calvinists, known as the Counter Remonstrants, wereintense during the early to mid-1620s, particularly at the University of Leiden, while
Rembrandt was a student.
Although Rembrandt’s own religious views are not known, the importance that theRemonstrants placed on personal faith is consistent with Rembrandt’s emphasis on the
inner life of his subjects. There was nothing dogmatic about his ideology, however. He
would eventually have important contacts with individuals from a wide range ofreligious traditions—not only Remonstrants and Counter Remonstrants—who would
inform and broaden the perspective he had derived from his family and earlyeducation. Rembrandt studied with two masters who were Roman Catholics: in theearly 1620s with Jacob Isaacsz van Swanenburgh (1571–1638) in Leiden, and in the
mid-1620s with Pieter Lastman (1583–1633) in Amsterdam. He also had close

Fig 9. Rembrandt van Rijn, Portraitof 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.

relationships with Mennonites, including the Amsterdam art dealer Hendrick
Uylenburgh (ca. 1587–1661), for whom he worked as a master painter in the early
1630s, as well as associations with many Jews—not only individuals who served as© 2024 The Leiden Collection

Rembrandt as Universal Artist
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models (fig 9) but also those who commissioned paintings and etchings from him. This
acceptance of and engagement with different religious traditions helps account for thebroad humanity of his art.
To judge from the type and character of the images Rembrandt produced throughout
his long career, he found spiritual affinities with each of these religious traditions. He
was well versed in the Bible, but another important literary source for Biblical themes
was Jewish Antiquities, a book recorded in his 1656 inventory.[10] Written by the Jewish
historian Flavius Josephus (ca. 37–100 CE), this tome describes the psychological stateof Old Testament figures faced with painful choices, frequently as a result of God’s

Fig 10. Jacob van Swanenburg, The
Sibyl Showing Aeneas theUnderworld Charon’s Boat, ca.
1620, oil on panel, 93.5 x 124 cm,
Museum De Lakenhal, Leiden, inv.
no. S 251.

commands—subjects that Rembrandt also gravitated toward throughout his career
because of their expressive possibilities and wider implications for human behavior. In
order to depict stories from the Bible and antiquity with a sense of authenticity,
Rembrandt began to collect artifacts from many parts of the world, including Africa,
Turkey, and India.[11] He also amassed a large collection of prints and drawings by andafter such masters as Raphael, Titian (ca. 1488–1576), Albrecht Dürer (1471–1528),
and Lucas van Leyden that provided him with inspiration for his own inventions.
The first evidence of Rembrandt choosing an artistic career dates to 1620 when, at theage of 16, he entered the studio of Van Swanenburgh, a prominent history painter inLeiden. Van Swanenburgh’s paintings depicting fiery scenes of hell (fig 10) were bythen already rather old fashioned, and they had no perceptible influence on the young
artist. Nonetheless, this Leiden master, almost certainly guided by Karel van Mander’s
Het Schilder-boeck (The Art of Painting) (fig 11), taught Rembrandt the fundamentals

Fig 11. Title page of Karel van
Mander, Het Schilder-Boeck,
Haarlem, 1604, Leiden University
Library, Leiden, inv. no. 21220 E
9of painting.
Van Mander’s important art treatise, originally published in Haarlem in 1604 andreprinted in 1618, just two years before Rembrandt entered Van Swanenburgh’s studio,
provided both practical advice and a historical and theoretical framework for thebroader significance of art in the cultural landscape of the time.[12] Van Mander noted,
for example, that an aspiring young artist should draw constantly, first copying prints
and paintings by older masters and subsequently drawing after nature. He should learn
to express himself through a variety of techniques, including painting, drawing, andprintmaking. Importantly, Van Mander emphasized that history painting, which
encompassed allegorical scenes and subjects drawn from the Bible, antiquity, or Greek
and Roman mythology, was the most noble and prestigious genre of painting.[13]History paintings focus on uplifting or cautionary narratives that encourage one to

Fig 12. Jan Lievens, Self-Portrait,ca. 1629-30, oil on panel, 42 x 37
cm, The Leiden Collection, New
York, inv. no JL-105.

contemplate the meaning of life. They deal with ethical and moral choices that
confront individuals in times of crisis, where emotions and passions are expressed indramatic and evocative ways. History painters had to be learned artists, knowledgeable
about stories and cultures from the past, but also able to work from the imagination.[14]© 2024 The Leiden Collection

Rembrandt as Universal Artist
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Van Mander’s Het Schilder-boeck not only provided guidelines for producing a work ofart, but it also recounted the great achievements of artists from the past—not only
Italians, such as Raphael, but also Netherlandish artists, including Lucas van Leyden,

Fig 13. Pieter Lastman, David
Gives Uriah a Letter for Joab, 1619,
oil on panel, 42.8 x 63.3 cm, The
Leiden Collection, New York, inv.
no. PL-100.

both of whom he specifically celebrated for being “universal” artists. Van Mander
wrote that Van Leyden was “naturally gifted” and “never stopped drawing everythingfrom life: faces, hands, feet, houses, landscapes and all manner of fabrics, in which hetook a particular pleasure. He was in fact universal, or familiar with . . . all that the artof painting comprehends: for he painted histories, portraits, landscapes and figures inoil and watercolor and practiced glass-painting and engraving from an early age.”[15]Rembrandt clearly embraced Van Mander’s assessment of Lucas van Leyden as auniversal artist, for this Leiden native was, in many ways, Rembrandt’s spiritual
forefather. He was a model worthy of emulation; indeed, Rembrandt based one of his
earliest etchings on a Van Leyden composition. He also recognized that Van Leyden’sFig 14. Jan Lievens, Card Players,ca. 1625, oil on canvas, 97.5 x
105.4 cm, The Leiden Collection,
New York, inv. no. JL-102.

self-portraits helped ensure his lasting reputation, which may be one reason that
Rembrandt featured self-portraits in his work.[16]Rembrandt and Lievens in Leiden in the Mid-1620s and
Early 1630s
Rembrandt left Van Swanenburgh’s workshop in 1624, likely because he wanted topaint in a more modern manner and found a sympathetic colleague in Jan Lievens (fig12). Although one year younger than Rembrandt, this Leiden native had alreadyestablished himself as a precocious master. Like Rembrandt, Lievens had first trainedin Leiden, but in 1617, his parents sent him to Amsterdam to study for two years with
Pieter Lastman, the preeminent history painter of the day. In Lastman’s studio, Lievens
would have seen history paintings, such as David Gives Uriah a Letter for Joab (fig 13), that depict narrative episodes from the Bible. Lievens learned from Lastman key

Fig 15. Rembrandt van Rijn,
Unconscious Patient (Allegory of
Smell), ca. 1624-25, oil on panel,
inset into an eighteenth-century
panel, 31.75 x 25.4 cm, The Leiden
Collection, New York, inv. no.
RR-111.

principles of the genre, including the arrangement of figures within a composition andhow gesture and glance help create a compelling narrative.
Having gained this knowledge, Lievens returned to Leiden around 1620. It seems,
however, that the young artist soon went briefly to Utrecht to train with Gerrit van
Honthorst (1592–1656), who had just returned to Utrecht from Rome. Van Honthorst
had embraced the revolutionary style of painting developed by Caravaggio(1571–1610), with dramatic chiaroscuro effects (contrasts of light and dark), which headapted in scenes that often featured candlelight. Lievens enthusiastically embraced
Van Honthorst’s much-acclaimed Caravaggist manner in both his history paintings andscenes of daily life, such as the Card Players of ca. 1625 (fig 14). Aside from its
pronounced chiaroscuro effects, Card Players has a visual power that comes fromLievens’s tightly cropped composition and the physicality of his figures. Strikingly,

Fig 16. Rembrandt van Rijn, Stone
Operation (Allegory of Touch), ca.
1624-25, oil on panel, 21.5 x 17.7
cm, The Leiden Collection, New
York, inv. no. RR-102.
© 2024 The Leiden Collection

Rembrandt as Universal Artist
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Rembrandt was the model for the seated smiling figure holding a pipe, the earliest
known depiction of this young Leiden artist. The fact that Rembrandt served as one of
Lievens’s models clearly indicates that the two artists knew each other well—andperhaps even shared a studio.
Rembrandt painted his earliest known works, his multipanel Allegory of the Senses,
around this time, presumably in Lievens’s workshop. Three paintings from this seriesof the five senses are in The Leiden Collection: Unconscious Patient (Allegory of Smell)(fig 15), Stone Operation (Allegory of Touch) (fig 16), and Three Musicians (Allegory of Hearing) (fig 17). In these works, Rembrandt fully embraced Lievens’s
modern manner, including his bold brushstrokes, strong chiaroscuro effects, closely
cropped composition, and sense of humor. Moreover, just as Rembrandt is an actor in
the Card Players, young Lievens appears as a participant in the Allegory of Hearing,Fig 17. Rembrandt van Rijn, ThreeMusicians (Allegory of Hearing), ca.
1624-25, oil on panel, 21.6 x 17.6
cm, The Leiden Collection, New
York, inv. no. RR-105.

the earliest known image of that artist.
This allegorical series reveals Rembrandt’s imaginative approach to the wellestablished pictorial tradition of the five senses. Each of the panel paintings features
three tightly framed figures who focus on a shared experience in a dark, undefined
space. Rembrandt robed his figures in bright pink and light blue attire that, lit byartificial light sources seen and unseen, provides splashes of color that greatly enliven
the images. As depicted, these surgeons, patients, and singers—young and old, maleand female, crude and refined—are unforgettably expressive characters involved in
activities that connect the senses of smell, touch, and hearing in ways both humorousand empathetic, whether reviving a fainted patient, undertaking a surgical operation, or
singing from an open songbook. In Three Musicians (Allegory of Hearing) (fig 17), forexample, an unforgettable bespectacled man with wrinkled forehead holds a large

Fig 18. Rembrandt van Rijn,
Samson and Delilah, 1628, oil on
panel, 60.3 x 50.1 cm, Staatliche
Museen, Gemäldegalerie, Berlin,
inv. no. 812A.

music book and beats time with his raised hand to guide the other members of histrio—an elderly woman wearing a colorful striped turban and young man in a dark
beret—both of whom eagerly lean forward to join him in song. Stone Operation (Allegory of Touch) (fig 16) is no less humorous, as a barber-surgeon in old-fashioned
dress wields a scalpel to remove a stone from the head of a patient clenching his fists
and grimacing in pain. Rembrandt had an irreverent sense of humor, and theexaggerated expressions and gestures of the figures in these paintings almost induce
one to laugh out loud at the recognizable human foibles he depicted.
In 1625, shortly after painting Allegory of the Senses, Rembrandt followed in Lievens’s
footsteps and went briefly to Amsterdam to study with Pieter Lastman, from whom he,like Lievens, learned key principles of history painting. After Rembrandt returned to
Leiden in 1626, he matured quickly as an artist and composed a number of history
paintings that both emulated and competed with those of Lastman by depicting thesame subjects in more dynamic ways. In a similar manner, during the late 1620s

Fig 19. Jan Lievens, Boy in a Capeand Turban (Portrait of Prince
Rupert of the Palatinate), ca. 1631,
oil on panel, 66.7 x 51.8 cm, The
Leiden Collection, New York, inv.
no. JL-104.

© 2024 The Leiden Collection

Rembrandt as Universal Artist
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Rembrandt also competed with his Leiden colleague Lievens: the two young artists
often portrayed the same narratives in their paintings, prints, and drawings. Theirstylistic approaches were so similar that attributions of their works were sometimes
disputed.[17]Lievens’s and Rembrandt’s innate artistic abilities, and their shared desire to portraythemselves as outsiders who felt free to express themselves in new and different ways,
brought them great notoriety, even at their early age. Their fame spread to The Hague
and to Constantijn Huygens, who traveled to Leiden in 1628–29 to see these two young
artists, in part because he was in search of new home-grown talent for the Prince ofOrange’s art collection. Huygens was enthralled with what he saw, particularly aportrait that Lievens painted of him (fig 2). He registered his praise in an epigram that
reads, in part: “This is the face of Huygens, who was meditating, / If you look for thesoul, you will see the one who is full of breath.”[18]Fig 20. Jan Lievens, Head of an
Old Woman: ''Rembrandt's Mother'',ca. 1628 red and black chalk onyellow-hued, buff-colored laid
paper, 10.8 x 8.5 cm, The Leiden
Collection, New York, JL-103.

Huygens wrote at length about the two artists in his autobiography, where hedistinguished between their artistic strengths and weaknesses. He noted that while
Lievens “chooses a larger scale,” “Rembrandt was superior . . . in his sure touch andliveliness of emotions,” qualities that were essential for painting expressive history
scenes (fig 17). Much as with his praise for Lievens, Huygens lauded Rembrandt’s
ability to capture the “movements of the soul,” which he contended rivalled theachievements of the great masters from antiquity, including Protogenes, Apelles, andParrhasius.[19] Huygens’s assertions about this young master’s expressive abilities
explicitly raised the level of his creations to that of artists renowned through the ages,
an implication that Rembrandt took to heart.
Huygens’s visit to Leiden would have real consequences for both Lievens’s andRembrandt’s careers, for both subsequently received princely commissions from
Huygens that greatly enhanced their prestige and public esteem for theirFig 21. Rembrandt van Rijn, Bustof a Bearded Old Man, 1633, oil on
paper, mounted on panel, 10.6 x 7.2
cm, The Leiden Collection, New
York, inv. no. RR-116.

works. Among these commissions were requests that each artist portray Prince Rupertof the Palatinate, a nephew of the Prince of Orange. Lievens’s likeness of Prince
Rupert in The Leiden Collection is one of these masterpieces (fig 19). Lievens
depicted Prince Rupert exotically dressed in a golden cape attached with a chain clasp
as well as a blue and gold turban festooned with the soaring plume of a bird ofparadise. The young sitter looks like a Turkish or Persian character from a biblicalstory, but the brilliant, shimmering yellow, gold, and blue fabrics of this wardrobereflect a style of dress then in vogue at the Dutch court.[20]Despite their successes, both Rembrandt and Lievens remained rebels, anxious to maketheir marks in Leiden by breaking with established conventions of decorum and artisticpresentation. Around 1630, Rembrandt, in particular, made a number of etched selfportraits in which he presents himself as unbeholden to social norms, including freely

Fig 22. Rembrandt van Rijn, YoungGirl in a Gold-Trimmed Cloak,
1632, oil on oval panel, 59 x 44 cm,
The Leiden Collection, New York,© 2024 The Leiden Collection

Rembrandt as Universal Artist
Page 9 of 20

rendered images showing himself as coarse, rough-hewn, and unrefined as he smiles,

inv. no. RR-104.

frowns, or snarls directly at the viewer (fig 3). The courtly contact they had throughHuygens created inner conflicts for both artists, who struggled to reconcile theiridentity as rebels, working outside the norms of Dutch society, with being court artists
who would be expected to conform to a certain code of demeanor. Rembrandt, inparticular, was caught in a vortex of conflicting artistic ideals and styles of painting,from comic to serious and from refined to broadly executed, which he never quite
reconciled into a consistent whole—a tension that makes his work fascinating andunpredictable. This sense of being an outsider but also wanting to be accepted by the
Dutch court and society in general also constitutes an important factor in theuniversality of Rembrandt’s art, which touches on all aspects of the human condition.
Throughout their careers, both Lievens and Rembrandt were captivated with thechallenge of rendering the human countenance, and they depicted the faces of thoseFig 23. Rembrandt van Rijn,
Portrait of a Man in a Red Coat,
1633, oil on oval panel, 63.7 x 50.8
cm, The Leiden Collection, New
York, inv. no. RR-108.

around them in paintings, drawings, and etchings. In these head studies, known astronies, they rendered not only themselves but also family members, see (fig 4), (fig 5),
and (fig 12), friends, and working-class people they encountered in and around Leiden,some of whom they dressed in imaginative, exotic costumes. Both artists were
fascinated with the faces of the old, for in age they found “character,” whether in thecreases that lined a wizened visage or in the wisdom that radiated from those who haveexperienced the vagaries of life. They painted, drew, and etched tronies from life(“naar het leven”), from memory (“van onthout”), or from the imagination (“uit dengheest”), but always with the aim of enhancing the expressive character and inner lifeof the figures they were depicting. Tronies were often independent works of art, but
Rembrandt and Lievens later adapted many such character studies in their history
paintings.[21]One of Rembrandt’s most compelling tronies is Bust of a Bearded Old Man (fig 21), a

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

small painting that he executed in 1633 on a sheet of paper no larger than a playing
card. Rembrandt’s bold and energetic brushstrokes—particularly those rendering theelder’s furrowed brow, unkempt hair, and beard—create a dynamic image even though
the elder, with eyes obscured in shadow, looks down in a moment of quiet reflection.
Rembrandt signed and dated this tronie, signifying that he greatly valued its expressive
character and viewed it as being no less significant than a full-scale painting. He may
have executed this treasure for a friend or collector, since it is unlikely that he would
have made such a small work for the open market.

Rembrandt in Amsterdam during the 1630s
The dynamic relationship that Rembrandt and Lievens enjoyed in Leiden as theychallenged each other to greater and greater levels of artistic expression ended in the

Fig 25. Rembrandt van Rijn,
Minerva in Her Study, 1635, oil oncanvas, 138 x 116.5 cm, The
Leiden Collection, New York, inv.
no. RR-107.
© 2024 The Leiden Collection

Rembrandt as Universal Artist
Page 10 of 20

early 1630s, when Lievens left for London and Rembrandt moved to Amsterdam, bothin search of larger and more prestigious artistic centers.[22] Amsterdam was a much
more cosmopolitan city than Leiden, and Rembrandt’s move gave him an opportunity
to feature his skills as a portrait painter, which he had hardly displayed prior to 1631. It
seems likely that Rembrandt’s move came about in part through the invitation ofHendrik Uylenburgh, who ran a so-called “academy,” which was primarily a workshop
for portrait commissions.[23] Rembrandt acted as head of Uylenburgh’s workshop andquickly established his reputation in Amsterdam as a portrait painter.
The cosmopolitan environment Rembrandt encountered in Amsterdam encouraged theartist to abandon the persona of a rebel artist that he had developed in Leiden and to

Fig 26. Rembrandthuis,
Amsterdam (façade)present himself as a respectable member of society, particularly by 1634 when hemarried Hendrick Uylenburgh’s younger cousin, Saskia (fig 6). In one of the mostengaging self-portraits from this period of his career, Self-Portrait with Shaded Eyes
(fig 1), the artist, wearing a fur-trimmed jacket, gazes at the viewer from beneath adark beret worn at a jaunty angle. As he peers out from an oval framing element,
Rembrandt presents himself as a sincere and scholarly artist-suitor, far different fromdisreputable painters who were characterized by such slurs as “hoe schilder hoe wilder”(the more of a painter the wilder he is).
Rembrandt appears here with his face largely in shadow, an unusual approach to selfportraiture, announcing, yet again, that he thought differently about presenting himself
to the world than did his contemporaries. By leaving both eyes in the shade of his
beret’s soft brim, and hence somewhat undefined, Rembrandt encourages the viewer to

Fig 27. Rembrandt van Rijn, Holy
Family, 1645, oil on canvas, 117 x
91 cm, The State Hermitage
Museum, St. Petersburg, inv. no.
741.

look carefully at the image, thereby becoming more fully engaged with the artist’s
persona. Rembrandt modeled the face with blended strokes and subtle half-lights thatfurther enhance his physical reality and psychological presence.
In Amsterdam, Rembrandt found an enthusiastic clientele eager to acquire his
portraits.

They admired the way Rembrandt created lifelike images through hisinnovative poses, subtle rendering of flesh tones, and control of light and dark. YoungGirl in a Gold-Trimmed Cloak (fig 22), signed and dated 1632, is one such work.
Rembrandt modeled the young woman’s face with smoothly blended strokes andrendered her blond hair with flowing touches of the brush. He vividly characterized her
distinctive features—pronounced forehead, slight pout, and double chin—in ways that
capture her unique personality. Although she gazes directly out at the viewer, her bodyslightly turns in space, an effect Rembrandt enhanced through his handling of light.

Fig 28. Rembrandt van Rijn, Headof a Girl, ca. 1645, oil on panel,
20.8 x 17.4 cm, The Leiden
Collection, New York, inv. no.
RR-112.

For example, Rembrandt juxtaposed the illuminated left side of her body against adark background while doing the opposite at the right, where light illuminates theocher wall behind her shaded form. The differing character of the glints shining off thegold trim on the woman’s jacket also reflect this subtle twist of her body, which© 2024 The Leiden Collection

Rembrandt as Universal Artist
Page 11 of 20

enhances the lifelike character of this image.
Another painting that Rembrandt executed soon after he came to Uylenburgh’s
Amsterdam workshop is Portrait of a Man in a Red Coat (fig 23). Artist and sittermust have immediately found that they had an easy rapport. Rembrandt depicted his
subject with moustache twirled upward and a friendly demeanor as he looks directly
out at the viewer. The essence of the sitter’s easy personality is evident in his robustfeatures, arched eyebrows, and generous girth. The red doublet he wears, which
Rembrandt brushed with an appropriate freedom of touch, and particularly thegarment’s horizontal braided clasps add sparkle to this image. The sitter’s conspicuous
attire, so different from the black wardrobes often found in other portraits at that time,
may indicate that he was a member of the military, but it is also likely that he dressed
this way because it suited him.

Fig 29. Rembrandt van Rijn, Studyof a Woman in a White Cap, ca.
1640, oil on panel, 47.3 x 39 cm,
The Leiden Collection, New York,
inv. no. RR-101.

Rembrandt attracted a number of students who came to learn his method of painting inUylenburgh’s studio, among them Govaert Flinck (1615–1660), Ferdinand Bol(1616–1680), and Jacob Backer (1608–1651), all artists represented in The Leiden
Collection. As was customary in Dutch workshops, Rembrandt occasionally had pupils
and assistants aid him in meeting the high demand for commissioned portraits. In such
instances, the master would paint the face and hands, while the assistant would help
execute the costume. Such seems to have been the case with Portrait of Antonie Coopal, which is signed by Rembrandt and dated 1635 (fig 24). Here, the manner in which
Coopal’s face is rendered is consistent with Rembrandt’s touch, but the elaborate lacecollar lacks the nuanced modelling of other collars in Rembrandt portraits of themid-1630s. After Rembrandt left Uylenburgh’s workshop and began painting on his
own, he continued to involve students and apprentices in his creative process, teachingthem not only the value of tronies for probing the human psyche but also theFig 30. Rembrandt van Rijn, SelfPortrait, 1659, oil on canvas, 84.5 x
66 cm, National Gallery of Art,
Washington, D.C., Andrew W.
Mellon Collection, inv. no.
1937.1.72.

importance of history painting.
Rembrandt’s active engagement in portraiture in Amsterdam during the 1630s did notpreclude him from painting magnificent biblical and mythological scenes, among themMinerva in Her Study (fig 25) of 1635. Rembrandt believed that to be a universal
master, one must excel in history painting, and he began executing history paintings at
a scale and with a visual power beyond anything he had created in his Leiden period.
Although we do not know what motivated Rembrandt to paint in such an imposing
manner at this time, he probably sought to emulate and even compete with theachievements of the Flemish master Peter Paul Rubens (1577–1640), then recognized
as the greatest history painter of the day. Constantijn Huygens, who was an admirer ofRubens, noted that the Flemish master was without equal in his inventiveness and thevariety of his subject matter and that he was “experienced in all the humanities.”[24]Fig 31. Rembrandt van Rijn, SelfPortrait with Two Circles, ca. 1665,
oil on canvas, 114.3 x 94 cm,
Kenwood House, The Iveagh
Bequest, inv. 57.

Huygens further described Rubens as the “Apelles of our time,” a designation that© 2024 The Leiden Collection

Rembrandt as Universal Artist
Page 12 of 20

would have registered with Rembrandt, whom Huygens had also compared to Apelles
after visiting the young artist in Leiden.
Minerva was an appropriate subject for an artist who sought to compete with Rubens.
In Rembrandt’s painting, this Olympian goddess is regal in both appearance anddemeanor as she quietly sits at a tapestry-covered table. Light, which enters from theupper left, illuminates not only the laurel wreath crowning Minerva’s head, but also her
flowing blond hair, the shimmering gold-embroidered cloak draped over her shoulder,
and, importantly, the whites of her eyes. Although the goddess’s facial features are
somewhat similar to those of Saskia (fig 6), they are generalized and idealized, much
as Rubens would have done, in a manner befitting an important Olympian deity.
Rembrandt depicted Minerva as the goddess of wisdom, engaged in learning andreflecting on scholarly discourse in a manner that connects directly to the humanexperience. With her left hand resting on a large leather-bound folio, she looks up
toward the viewer, her alert, open expression indicating that she is contemplating thetext she has just read. The nearby globe further signifies the broad scope of her
knowledge. Arrayed behind her are attributes associated with her role as goddess of
war and peace: a helmet, sword, and large oval shield, with its frightening image ofMedusa’s severed head. Rembrandt, however, explicitly depicts Minerva facing awayfrom such associations with war to pursue her scholarly interests.
Rembrandt likely painted this work for one of Amsterdam’s regents, civic leaders whobelieved that a peaceful environment was beneficial to international trade and hence toAmsterdam’s prosperity. His intent, thus, was not solely to portray a mythologicalgoddess but also to demonstrate how her example could help guide contemporarysocial and political concerns in the Dutch Republic.

Rembrandt’s Mature Period in the 1640s and 1650s
In 1639, five years after his marriage to Saskia and at the height of his artistic success,Rembrandt purchased a large house on the Sint-Anthonisbreestraat in Amsterdam (fig26). To acquire the house, he had to borrow heavily, assuming a debt that would
eventually figure in his financial problems of the mid-1650s. Rembrandt and Saskia
had four children, but only Titus, born in 1641, survived infancy. After a long illness,
Saskia died in 1642, the year Rembrandt painted perhaps his most renowned
composition, The Night Watch (Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam). After Saskia’s death,Rembrandt seemed to find comfort in taking long walks in the countryside, withsketchbook in hand, making landscapes and figure studies, much as Karel van Mander
had urged artists to do. He also found solace in painting quiet and intimate scenes fromthe Bible set in domestic interiors, which reflected the new reality he faced as a single
father to a small child who needed love and caring from his devoted parent. This© 2024 The Leiden Collection

Rembrandt as Universal Artist
Page 13 of 20

personal tragedy and his varied reactions to it expanded Rembrandt’s life experiencesin ways that had a huge impact on the character of his later work, which now conveyed
an even greater empathy for those who suffered losses and disillusionment in theirlives.
One subject that Rembrandt featured in his paintings of the 1640s was the Holy
Family, as with this intimate scene in the Hermitage (fig 27). As noted above,
Rembrandt often made tronies in anticipation of his history paintings, to study not only
expression but also effects of light and dark. One such tronie is Head of a Girl (fig 28),
which served as the model for Mary in the Hermitage painting. In this freely
executed tronie, Rembrandt illuminated the young woman’s face with strong lightfalling from the upper left while he used more nuanced strokes of the brush to render
her shaded cheek. Largely through the tilt of her head, he captured a sense of
tenderness that he would adapt in his portrayal of Mary gazing down at the sleeping
Christ Child.
Many of Rembrandt’s tronies from the 1640s portray individuals whose character hefound intriguing, whether it be an elderly Ashkenazi Jew wearing a wide, flat beret (fig9) or a formidable yet humble woman who conveys a strong inner core of beliefs, as inStudy of a Woman in a White Cap (fig 29). Rembrandt depicted such figures indifferent ways, perhaps to reflect their distinctive personalities, but also to indulge hisinterest in exploring various ways to model their faces. For example, he painted the
Ashkenazi Jew with quick brushstrokes, contrasting dense impastos on the face withthinly brushed areas in his clothing, while he captured the working woman’s distinctive
personality by modeling her features with subtly nuanced areas of light and dark.
The 1640s were a difficult period in Rembrandt’s life for many reasons. He became
involved with Geertje Dirckx, who had entered the household as a nurse for Titus, but
their relationship ended acrimoniously a few years later.[25] In 1647, Rembrandt met
Hendrickje Stoffels (fig 7), who would become his companion and would care for him
and Titus until her death from the plague in 1663. However, Rembrandt andHendrickje never married because of a stipulation in Saskia’s will that he would haveto transfer half of their joint assets to Titus should he remarry—money the artist did
not have.[26] Partly as a result of public outrage over his domestic situation and partly
because Rembrandt’s dark, roughly brushed portraits and religious, historical, andmythological paintings had largely lost favor among both younger patrons andAmsterdam’s city fathers, he was beset with financial difficulties.[27] In 1658,
Rembrandt suffered the humiliation of seeing his possessions, including his large artcollection, auctioned because of insolvency. He then moved to the artist’s quarter in the
Jordaan district of Amsterdam, eventually renting a relatively small house on the
Rozengracht where he lived for the rest of his life.[28]© 2024 The Leiden Collection

Rembrandt as Universal Artist
Page 14 of 20

Although Rembrandt still received some important portrait commissions during thelate 1650s and early 1660s, stylistic trends had veered away from his deeply personalmanner of painting. Many of his contemporaries preferred the more elegant styles offormer students, like Flinck and Bol, and Rembrandt became more and more isolated
from the mainstream of Dutch art. No students are documented as having worked withhim during the latter half of the 1650s, and only one, Arent de Gelder (1645–1727), is
known to have studied with him in the 1660s.
Those who did welcome Rembrandt’s broad manner of painting were rewarded withsuch powerful images as Portrait of a Seated Woman with Her Hands Clasped (fig 8),
which the master executed in 1660. The name of this woman is not known, but
Rembrandt’s portrayal of her forceful visage, with its rough skin and pronounced
features, is unforgettable. Aged she may be, but the years have not taken away theintensity of her gaze or the alertness of her mind, qualities that Rembrandt captures in
the woman’s upright pose and tightly clasped hands. The master’s vigorous, unblended
brushstrokes left, without hesitation, for all to see, convey both her rugged outward
appearance and her inner strength. Neither the setting, a dark room with plaster walls,
nor the woman’s fur-trimmed jacket and red-velvet sleeves provide much information
about her identity or social class, although her black headdress may indicate that she
was a widow. Given the forcefulness of this image, which seems to exist in a realm
between portraiture and character study, one wonders if Rembrandt associated thiswoman with some biblical or mythological figure, as he occasionally did at this latestage of his career.

Rembrandt’s Late Self-Portraits as Expressions of a
Universal Artist
Rembrandt’s conviction that he was an artist who reached beyond his own time andplace is particularly evident in his late self-portraits, among them the 1658 Self-Portrait
at the Frick Collection in New York (fig 4), the 1659 Self-Portrait at the National
Gallery of Art in Washington (fig 30), and the ca. 1665 Self-Portrait with Two Circles
at Kenwood House in London (fig 31). One would never guess from these works thatthe master’s fortunes and prospects were at such a low ebb. In each of them,Rembrandt exudes confidence and inner strength. He looks out at the viewer with acalm, resigned equanimity that is both sympathetic and stately. In these works,
Rembrandt fuses the abstract and the real so that they become one and the same.
In the Frick’s Self-Portrait, Rembrandt sits in a Savonarola chair and holds a silverknobbed wooden staff lightly between his fingers, both symbols of authority. His
striking garments—a golden tunic with brocade lapels and red sash, and a fur-trimmed
robe—are not the clothes of a practicing artist or a Dutch burgher. They are fanciful© 2024 The Leiden Collection

Rembrandt as Universal Artist
Page 15 of 20

evocations of ancient dress, similar to what Jupiter wears in Rembrandt’s Jupiter andMercury Visiting Philemon and Baucis, which the master also executed in 1658.[29]Rembrandt does not specifically assume the awe-inspiring persona of Jupiter in thisSelf-Portrait, for his seated pose is inviting rather than intimidating, and his deep
humanity is evident in his firm yet caring expression. For the National Gallery of Art’s
Self-Portrait, Rembrandt chose to emulate Raphael’s famed portrait of the author andcourtier Baldassare Castiglione, which he had seen at an auction in Amsterdam on
April 19, 1639. He not only made a copy of Raphael’s painting but also adapted
Castiglione’s pose in an etching in that year, and again in a painted Self-Portrait in
1640.[30] The memory of Castiglione’s direct gaze and clasped hands must haveremained deeply ingrained in Rembrandt’s mind for the next two decades. He returnedto Raphael’s prototype because he found in it a vehicle for expressing his perception ofhimself as a learned painter, equal to the great masters of the past.
The Kenwood painting is particularly evocative for understanding Rembrandt’s
perception of himself as a universal artist. Rembrandt stands proudly as a painter,brush and palette in hand, before a wall on which portions of two circles flank him.
These abstract shapes resemble the paired circles on double-hemisphere wall maps thatwere being produced in the Dutch Republic.[31] It seems probable that in depicting
these circles, Rembrandt was inspired by the symbolism of such maps, which wereviewed as images of the entirety of the visible world.[32] These double circles, however,also evoke terrestrial and celestial globes, such as those seen in portraits ofscholars—among them Thomas de Keyser’s image of Constantijn Huygens—that
symbolized knowledge of both the physical and metaphysical worlds.[33]Throughout his life, Rembrandt aspired to be a universal artist, a concept that was
instilled in him from an early age through the writings of Van Mander and personalcommunications with Huygens. He sought to achieve that status in many ways, not only
by working in diverse media including painting, etching, and drawing, but also by
becoming a history painter. With his powers of observation and fertile imagination,
Rembrandt explored new ways of rendering both the spiritual realm and the physicalworld around him, including landscapes and domestic interiors. His genius resides in
his ability to convey the depth of human emotion—whether in family members andfriends or people he met on the street, sometimes in quick sketches and sometimes in
carefully finished commissioned portraits—in ways that speak to all of us. His
essential humanism provided him with insights that allowed him to capture the“movements of the soul” to a degree that no other artist has ever equaled, in images
that resonate profoundly amid the fraught circumstances that confront us today.

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Rembrandt as Universal Artist
Page 16 of 20- Arthur K. Wheelock Jr., 2020

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Rembrandt as Universal Artist
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Endnotes
1. I would like to thank Lara Yeager-Crasselt for her thoughtful comments on this text, as well as Kristin
Swan and Antoine Artiganave for their editorial guidance. Caroline Van Cauwenberge provided helpful
administrative assistance.
2. In writing this essay, I have greatly benefited from Boudewijn Bakker, “Rembrandt and the Humanist
Ideal of the Universal Painter,” in Rembrandt and His Circle: Insights and Discoveries, ed. Stephanie
Dickey (Amsterdam, 2017), 67–98. Bakker notes that Karel van Mander, in Het Schilder-boeck(Haarlem, 1604), was the first northern theorist to celebrate artists as being “universal,” a category hederived from Giorgio Vasari’s Le Vite de’ più eccellenti pittori, scultori, e architettori (The Lives of the
Most Excellent Painters, Sculptors, and Architects) (Florence, 1568). Among the artists Van Mander
designated as “universal” were Raphael (folio 121r) and Lucas van Leyden (folio 211v).
3. Huygens wrote his autobiography, which he called “De Vita Propria” (“My Own Life”), in 1629–30. For
a translation of his text on Jan Lievens and Rembrandt, see Arthur K. Wheelock Jr., ed., Jan Lievens: A
Dutch Master Rediscovered (Exh. cat. Washington, National Gallery of Art; Milwaukee Art Museum;
Amsterdam, Museum Het Rembrandthuis) (New Haven, 2008), 286–87.
4. Wilhelm von Bode and Cornelis Hofstede de Groot, The Complete Work of Rembrandt, trans. Florence
Simonds (Paris, 1897–1906), 8: 19.
5. They also suffered from social ostracization because, among other reasons, they had a child born out of
wedlock.
6. In writing this text I have benefited from two important essays in this catalogue: Piet Bakker’s biographyof Rembrandt van Rijn and Perry Chapman’s essay “Rembrandt and The Leiden Collection” about
paintings by Rembrandt and his contemporaries in The Leiden Collection.
7. “Zijne natuyrlicke beweginghen alleen streckten tot de Schilder ende Teycken Conste.” Jan Jansz.
Orlers, Beschrijvinge der Stadt Leyden (Leiden, 1641), 375.
8. Although it had long been thought that Rembrandt was only briefly enrolled at the University of Leiden
in 1620, the recent discovery of a document in the university archives has revealed that he was also
enrolled there in 1622. I am grateful to Lara Yeager-Crasselt for informing me about this discovery. See
http://www.universiteitleiden.nl/en/news/2019/06/document-discovered-about-rembrandts-student-yearsin-leiden. This discovery has been published in J. Schaeps and M. van Duijn, Rembrandt en de
Universiteit Leiden (Leiden, 2019), 28–31.
9. Shelley Perlove, Pursuit of Faith: Etchings by Rembrandt from the Thrivent Financial Collection of
Religious Art (Dearborn, 2010), 20–21.
10. Walter L. Strauss and Marjon van der Meulen, The Rembrandt Documents (New York, 1979), doc.
1656/12, 379. See also Amy Golahny, Rembrandt’s Reading: The Artist’s Bookshelf of Ancient Poetry andHistory (Amsterdam, 2003), 77–133.
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Rembrandt as Universal Artist
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11. See Bob van den Boogert et al., eds., Rembrandt’s Treasures (Amsterdam, 1999).
12. Karel van Mander, Het Schilder-boeck (Haarlem, 1604). For an English translation, see Karel van
Mander, The Lives of the Illustrious Netherlandish and German Painters, from the First Edition of the“Schilder-Boeck” (1603–1604), 6 vols., ed. Hessel Miedema (Doornspijk, 1994–99). Van Mander drewheavily from Giorgio Vasari’s Le Vite de’ più eccellenti pittori, scultori, e architettori (The Lives of the
Most Excellent Painters, Sculptors, and Architects) (Florence, 1568).
13. Karel van Mander, Het Schilder-boeck (Haarlem, 1604), provides his guidelines for becoming an artist in
the first section of his book: “Den Grondt der Edel vry Schilder-const” (“The Foundations of the Nobleand Free Art of Painting”). For a general discussion of history painting, with specific reference to Van
Mander, see Albert Blankert, “General Introduction,” in Albert Blankert et al., Gods, Saints and Heroes:
Dutch Painting in the Age of Rembrandt (Exh. cat. Washington, National Gallery of Art; Detroit Instituteof Arts; Amsterdam, Rijksmuseum) (Washington, 1980), 15–33.
14. Van Mander included in Het Schilder-boeck (Haarlem, 1604) a Dutch translation of Ovid’s
Metamorphosis (Wtlegghingh op den Metamorphosis Pub. Ouidij Nasonis), an important literary source
for Dutch history painters, including Rembrandt.
15. For Van Mander’s discussion of Lucas van Leyden’s universality as an artist, see Boudewijn Bakker,“Rembrandt and the Humanist Ideal of the Universal Painter,” in Rembrandt and His Circle: Insights andDiscoveries, ed. Stephanie Dickey (Amsterdam, 2017), 71–72. The specific text concerning Lucas van
Leyden in Karel van Mander, Het Schilder-boeck (Haarlem, 1604), folio 211v, is: “Hy is oockgemeensaem oft universael gheweest, te weten, in alles wat de Schilder-const omhelsen mach, bequaem
en gheschickt, schilderende van Oly-verwe en water-verwe Historien, Conterfeytsels, Landtschappen, en
Beelden, Glas-schrijven, Plaet-snijden van jongs aen oeffenende.” For an English translation, see Karelvan Mander, The Lives of the Illustrious Netherlandish and German Painters, from the First Edition of the“Schilder-boeck” (1603–1604), ed. Hessel Miedema. Vol. 1: The Text (Doornspijk, 1994), 105.
16. See Arthur K. Wheelock Jr., “Rembrandt Inventing Himself,” in Rembrandt Creates Rembrandt: Art andAmbition in Leiden 1629–1631, ed. Alan Chong (Exh. cat. Boston, Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum)(Zwolle, 2000), 16–17.
17. For excellent discussions of Rembrandt’s Leiden during the 1620s and 1630s, see Alan Chong, ed.,Rembrandt Creates Rembrandt: Art and Ambition in Leiden 1629–1631 (Exh. cat. Boston, Isabella
Stewart Gardner Museum) (Zwolle, 2000); and Jacquelyn Coutré, ed., Young Rembrandt and Leiden
circa 1630: Rembrandt Emerges (Exh. cat. Kingston, Agnes Etherington Art Centre; Edmonton, Alberta,
Art Gallery of Alberta; Regina, Saskatoon, MacKenzie Art Gallery; Hamilton, Ontario, Art Gallery of
Ontario) (Kingston, 2019).
18. See Arthur K. Wheelock Jr., ed., Jan Lievens: A Dutch Master Rediscovered (Exh. cat. Washington,
National Gallery of Art; Milwaukee Art Museum; Amsterdam, Museum Het Rembrandthuis) (NewHaven, 2008), 112–13, no. 16.
19. For a translation of Huygens’s text on Lievens and Rembrandt, see Christiaan Vogelaar, ed., Rembrandt© 2024 The Leiden Collection

Rembrandt as Universal Artist
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en Lievens in Leiden: “een jong en edel schildersduo” (Exh. cat. Leiden, Museum de Lakenhal) (Zwolle,1991), 128–34.
20. Rembrandt’s painting is now in the J. Paul Getty Museum, where it is identified as: Workshop of
Rembrandt van Rijn, A Young Scholar and His Tutor, ca. 1629–30, oil on canvas, 104.6 x 88.9 cm, J.
Paul Getty Museum, inv. no. 84.PA.570. The attribution of this painting has been debated over theyears, and it may be a collaboration between two members of Rembrandt’s workshop; the young scholar(presumably Prince Rupert) is painted in a very refined manner similar to that of Gerrit Dou, while histutor is broadly rendered.
21. See Arthur K. Wheelock Jr., “Making Faces: The Development of the Tronie in Seventeenth-Century
Leiden,” in Anonymous Portraits: Dutch Seventeenth-Century Tronies (Sales cat. Nicholas Hall) (NewYork, 2019), 9–28.
22. For an assessment of Lievens’s career, see Arthur K. Wheelock Jr., ed., Jan Lievens: A Dutch Master
Rediscovered (Exh. cat. Washington, National Gallery of Art; Milwaukee Art Museum; Amsterdam,
Museum Het Rembrandthuis) (New Haven, 2008).
23. See Friso Lammertse and Jaap van der Veen, Uylenburgh and Son: Art and Commerce from Rembrandt
to De Lairesse, 1625–1675 (Exh. cat. London, Dulwich Picture Gallery; Amsterdam, Museum Het
Rembrandthuis) (Zwolle, 2006). See also S.A.C. Dudok van Heel, “Rembrandt als portretschilder bij
Hendrick Uylenburgh, 1631–1635, met opdrachten in Den Haag, Leiden en Rotterdam,” no.
Amstelodamum 107, no. 2 (2020): 56–91.
24. Boudewijn Bakker, “Rembrandt and the Humanist Ideal of the Universal Painter,” in Rembrandt and His
Circle: Insights and Discoveries, ed. Stephanie Dickey (Amsterdam, 2017), 73.
25. Rembrandt and Geertje Dirckx became embroiled in several contentious lawsuits that suggest he treated
his former companion quite badly.
26. After Saskia’s death, the net value of their assets was determined to be more than forty thousand
guilders. Presumably, in the early 1650s, Rembrandt did not have twenty thousand guilders to give toTitus. Being unmarried caused Hendrickje public humiliation when she became pregnant in 1654. She
was called before a council of the Dutch Reformed Church and censured for having “lived with
Rembrandt like a whore.” The couple’s daughter, Cornelia, was baptized on October 30, 1654.
27. Although Rembrandt still received important portrait commissions during the late 1650s and early1660s, his painting style had fallen out of favor. Rembrandt hoped to repay debts he had incurred withmoney he would receive from his large painting for one of the lunettes in the Amsterdam Town Hall,The Conspiracy of Claudius Civilis (Nationalmuseum, Stockholm). Rembrandt’s composition, however,
was rejected by city authorities in 1662.
28. For Rembrandt’s bankruptcy, see Paul Crenshaw, Rembrandt’s Bankruptcy: The Artist, His Patrons, and
the Art Market in Seventeenth-Century Netherlands (New York, 2006). Hendrickje died in 1663 from theplague, and Titus died four years later, the victim of another epidemic. Rembrandt died on October 4,1669, at age 63. He was buried in a rented grave in the Westerkerk, Amsterdam.
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Rembrandt as Universal Artist
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29. Rembrandt van Rijn, Jupiter and Mercury Visiting Philemon and Baucis, 1658, oil on panel, 54.5 x 68.5
cm, National Gallery of Art, Washington, Widener Collection, inv. no. 1942.9.65.
30. Raphael, Portrait of Baldassare Castiglione, ca. 1514–15, oil on canvas, 82 x 67 cm, Musée du Louvre,
Paris, inv. no. 611. Rembrandt saw Raphael’s painting at the Amsterdam sale of the collection of Lucasvan Uffelen on April 9, 1639. For Rembrandt’s adaptations of Raphael’s work in his drawn copy, selfportrait etching of 1639, and self-portrait painting of 1640 (National Gallery, London), see Christopher
White and Quentin Buvelot, eds. Rembrandt by Himself (Exh. cat. London, National Gallery;
Mauritshuis, The Hague) (Zwolle, 1999), 170–75.
31. For the depiction of a similar wall map produced in the early seventeenth century, see Jan Miense
Molenaer, Studio of the Painter, 1631, oil on canvas, 86 x 127 cm, Staatliche Museen, Gemäldegalerie,
Berlin, inv. 873.
32. See H. Perry Chapman, Rembrandt’s Self-Portraits (Princeton, 1990), 97–101. Chapman makes aparticularly good case that these circles relate to wall maps; however, the circles have been subject tomany interpretations over the years, which she enumerates in her text.
33. See, for example, Thomas de Keyser, Portrait of Constantijn Huygens and His (?) Clerk, 1627, oil on
panel, 92.4 x 69.3 cm, National Gallery, London, inv. no. NG212. As noted by Boudewijn Bakker in“Rembrandt and the Humanist Ideal of the Universal Painter,” in Rembrandt and His Circle: Insights andDiscoveries, ed. Stephanie Dickey (Amsterdam, 2017), 86, circles that symbolized the entirety of theuniverse were important for garden architectural design, as at the Dutch court in The Hague.

© 2024 The Leiden Collection