Bearded Man in a Fur(Previously “Jew in a Fur Hat”)
School of Rembrandt van Rijn

Hatca. 1656
oil on panel
22.2 x 17.8 cm
RR-118© 2017 The Leiden Collection

Bearded Man in a Fur Hat (Previously “Jew in a Fur Hat”)
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How To Cite
DeWitt, David. "Bearded Man in a Fur Hat (Previously “Jew in a Fur Hat”)." InThe Leiden Collection
Catalogue. Edited by Arthur K. Wheelock Jr. New York, 2017.
https://www.theleidencollection.com/archive/.
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Bearded Man in a Fur Hat (Previously “Jew in a Fur Hat”)
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A man with a long thin face accentuated by prominent cheekbones and aComparative Figuresstrong nose confronts the viewer with an intense, yet slightly averted,gaze. His parted lips and furrowed brow suggest that he is deep inthought. Lending drama to his appearance is the way raking lightilluminates the left side of his face, while catching a few sharp features on
its shaded right. The expressive force of this head suggests that thepainting is not a portrait, but a character study, commonly referred to in
Dutch art as a tronie.[1]The restrained painterly effect and the contained emotion of the figure
place this work among those painted by Rembrandt van Rijn (1606–69)
and his followers in Amsterdam in the 1640s. Evidence for this context isprovided by an etching dated 1646 (fig 1) made by Samuel vanHoogstraten (1627–78), one of Rembrandt’s students, after the originalcomposition, or a version of it.[2] Equally significantly, this head study isknown in at least four extant versions, including ones in theFig 1. Samuel van Hoogstraten,
Bust of a Man with a Beard and a
Fur Hat (Portrait of Jan vanLeyden), 1646, etching, onlystate, 139 × 111 mm,
Rijksprentenkabinet,
Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam, inv.
RP-P-OB-12.791

Gemäldegalerie, Kassel;[3] the Musée du Louvre, Paris;[4] and a private
collection in Toronto.[5] This cluster of works conforms to a pattern found in
Rembrandt’s workshop where similar versions of a composition are known
to exist, likely the result of pedagogical exercises assigned by the master(fig 2).
The bold, open brushstrokes of the present head study relate to those in
Rembrandt’s more sketch-like works of the second half of the 1640s, eventhough the Leiden Collection panel lacks Rembrandt’s decisive touch inevoking mass and structure. For example, the sweeping dry strokes ofdead color in the costume and the thicker strokes articulating bonestructure around the man’s eye are similar to those in the master’sPortrait
Study of a Young Jew of around 1648 in Berlin (fig 3).[6] Despite theFig 2. After Rembrandt van Rijn,
Bust of a Man with a Fur Hat,
1640s–1650s, oil on panel, 21.3 x
18 cm, Gemäldegalerie Alte
Meister, Museumslandschaft
Hessen Kassel, no. 248

presence of Van Hoogstraten’s etched image of this sitter, the loose
brushwork of this head study differs from the smooth surfaces and soft
textures of his paintings during the 1640s. It should be noted, however,that the man’s almond-shaped eyes are similar to those in Van
Hoogstraten’s works, as in, for example, his 1647 Adoration of theShepherds.[7]The other extant versions of this composition demonstrate a range ofhandling and finish, suggesting that they were executed by different
hands, although none can be identified. Closest to the present painting is© 2017 The Leiden Collection

Bearded Man in a Fur Hat (Previously “Jew in a Fur Hat”)
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the one in Toronto, but its forms and surfaces are more even. The Kassel
version likewise interprets the composition with much greater evenness
and smoothness in the facial features, reflecting an inclination towardhigher finish, which may indicate a response to later developments inartistic taste. The version in the Louvre, by contrast, shows thick andopaque impasto and simplified forms that may even suggest eighteenth-Fig 3. Rembrandt van Rijn,Portrait Study of a Young Jew,
ca. 1648, oil on panel, 25.5 × 21.3
cm, Staatliche Museen zu Berlin,
Gemäldegalerie, Berlin, inv.
828M, © Foto: Gemäldegalerie
der Staatlichen Museen zu Berlin– PreußischerKulturbesitz, Fotograf/in: Jörg P.
Anderscentury origins.[8]The bold effect of open brushwork in the Leiden Collection panel speaks
strongly against the suggestion that this work was painted by Constantijn
Daniel van Renesse (1626–80), whose handling of paint never progressedbeyond the hesitant and finicky, and whose range of emotional expression
was limited.[9] Only the somber mood resonates with this pupil’s knownworks. Furthermore, Van Renesse’s unconventional and limited study with
Rembrandt took place later, between 1649 and 1652, and focused onmultifigure historical compositions.[10] His few single-figure paintings are
portraits of family and friends.[11] The closest candidate for authorshipwould be another of Rembrandt’s pupils from the early 1640s, Gerbrandvan den Eeckhout (1621–74), who experimented with loose paint handlingduring this period. Nevertheless, his lively handling of forms and features
does not accord with the heavy solidity conjured here by thick, straightstrokes of paint. At present this work can only be ascribed to an
anonymous pupil in Rembrandt’s workshop around 1645.
For Rembrandt’s pupils the evocation of emotion in the model’s features
would have been an important element to study and capture in paint. Onemay even suggest that this sitter projects a state of inner turmoil, a qualitythat seems to be suggested by the purported identification of the sitter in
Van Hoogstraten’s print. An inscription at the upper left identifies the man
as Jan van Leyden (1509?–36), the charismatic Dutch Anabaptist leader
who preached radical rejection of worldly authority and briefly seizedpower in the German city of Münster in 1533 before he was defeated andexecuted. Van Hoogstraten also produced a companion print after adifferent painting of an unnamed man, who was later identified as theQuaker martyr James Nailor in a copy of the print.[12] Both of theseidentificationsofacontroversial

historicalfigurewerearbitraryinterpretations; each was selected because the depiction fit a particularmental image of the man’s personality.

© 2017 The Leiden Collection

Bearded Man in a Fur Hat (Previously “Jew in a Fur Hat”)
Page 5 of 10Although Van Hoogstraten identified the model as a Dutchman, mostcommentators have seen him as Jewish. His tall fur hat appears torepresent the Polish type known as the kalpac, and more specifically thespodic, associated with Polish Jews.[13] Equally Polish in flavor is his plain,loosely-fitted garment, which looks like a caftan. While it is always
hazardous to base identity on features,[14] this man’s distinctive
appearance indicates that he was one of the many Ashkenazi Jews whoimmigrated to the Netherlands starting in the 1630s, and who would havestood out sharply on the streets of Amsterdam.[15] His untrimmed beard
likewise would have conformed to Ashkenazi Jewish observance, and lessto Dutch fashion.
This model, thus, apparently posed for one or more artists in Rembrandt’s
studio, and possibly for the master himself, as part of the studio’s practiceof studying live models both as exercises and in preparation for history
paintings. In their desire for more authentic models for the figures in their
Biblical scenes, these artists likely looked to the Jewish residents of
Amsterdam rather than to their fellow natives of Northern Europe. In muchthe same way, they found in Polish, Persian and Turkish costumes
indications of correct forms of attire in such scenes.

-David DeWitt© 2017 The Leiden Collection

Bearded Man in a Fur Hat (Previously “Jew in a Fur Hat”)
Page 6 of 10Endnotes
1. For a discussion of tronies, see Old Man with a White Beard, RR-120.
2. F. W. H. Hollstein, Dutch and Flemish Etchings, Engravings and Woodcuts 1450–1700(Amsterdam, 1949–), 11, 139, no. 14. This print must have been a pair to one showing adifferent model in profile, dated 1646 in the first state: etching, 14 × 11 cm, known only in an
impression in the Rijksprentenkabinet, Amsterdam, inv. RP-10168. See Gregor Weber in
Rembrandt-Bilder: Die historische Sammlung der Kasseler Gemäldegalerie (Exh. cat.
Kassel, Staatliche Museen Kassel, Gemäldegalerie Alte Meister) (Kassel 2006), 187 (fig.
24.2).
3. Bust of a Man with a Fur Cap , oil on panel, 21.3 x 18 cm, Gemäldegalerie Alte Meister,
Staatliche Museen Kassel, inv. GK 248. Bernhard Schnackenburg, Gemäldegalerie AlteMeister, Staatliche Museen Kassel: Gesamtkatalog, 2 vols. (Mainz, 1996), 1:247.
4. Portrait of a Man in a Fur Hat (“Jew with a Fur Hat” ), oil on panel, 26 × 19 cm, Musée duLouvre, Paris, inv. no. 1750.
5. Bust of a Man with a Fur Cap (“Jew in a Fur Cap” ), oil on panel, 21 x 16.5 cm, private
collection, Toronto, as of 1998.
6. Abraham Bredius, Rembrandt: The Complete Edition of the Paintings , rev. Horst Gerson(London, 1969), no. 250.
7. Oil on canvas, 57.5 × 71 cm, signed and dated, Dordrechts Museum, Dordrecht, inv.
DM/980/567; see Michiel Roscam Abbing, De schilder & schrijver Samuel van Hoogstraten
1627–1678: Eigentijdse bronnen & oeuvre van gesigneerde schilderijen(Leiden,1993),104, no. 5.
8. Portrait of a Man in a Fur Hat (“Jew with a Fur Hat” ), oil on panel, 26 × 19 cm, Musée duLouvre, Paris, inv. no. 1750.
9. The attribution was offered in a letter from Egbert Haverkamp-Begemann to Salomon Lilian,
dated 18 January 2000, with reference to the remains of a signature visible under infrared
light, starting with an R. Subsequent infrared photography, however, failed to reveal any
such traces. See the report by Annette Rupprecht of October 2012. The reference to viewing“under infrared light” is confusing, because a camera with an IR filter is required for all typesof infrared analysis, and none is mentioned; the reference to “visible” seems to imply direct
viewing under UV light, which can be done without a camera.
10. Karel Vermeeren, “Constantijn Daniël van Renesse, zijn leven en zijn werken (I),”Kroniek
van het Rembrandthuis 30, no. 1 (1978): 13.
11. See the author’s entries on two paintings by this artist in David de Witt, The BaderCollection: Dutch and Flemish Paintings (Kingston, 2008), 274–6, nos. 166, 167.
© 2017 The Leiden Collection

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12. Of the known versions of the present painting, only the one in Kassel is paired with apainting of the same subject as Samuel van Hoogstraten’s print of a man in profile, in asimilar format and with similar handling. The two works likely served as Van Hoogstraten’smodels and can be traced back together to the collection of Johann Hendrik van Wassenaer
Obdam in The Hague in 1750. See Michael J. Eissenhauer, ed., Rembrandt-Bilder: Die
historische Sammlung der Kasseler Gemäldegalerie (Exh. cat. Kassel, Staatliche MuseenKassel, Gemäldegalerie Alte Meister) (Kassel 2006), 185–93, nos. 24, 25.
13. See Michael Zell, Reframing Rembrandt: Jews and the Christian Image in SeventeenthCentury Amsterdam (Berkeley, 2002), 46–48, with reference to the Kassel version of thepresent composition; see also Alfred Rubens, A History of Jewish Costume , 2nd ed.
(London, 1973), 104–5.
14. For a contrary opinion on Rembrandt’s use of Jewish models, see Gary Schwartz, TheRembrandt Book (New York, 2006), 299–305.
15. Stephen Nadler, Rembrandt’s Jews (Chicago, 2003), 32.

ProvenanceDr. Fatou, Paris, by 1931.
[Galerie Neumann, Paris, by 1936].
Private collection, The Netherlands, from Galerie Neumann (sale, Christie’s, London, 4 July
1997, no. 256, as attributed to Gerbrand van den Eeckhout).
[Salomon Lilian B. V., Amsterdam, 2000, as by Constantijn Daniel van Renesse].
From whom acquired by the present owner in 2007.

Exhibition History
Amsterdam, Jewish Historical Museum, “The ‘Jewish’ Rembrandt: The Myth Unraveled,” 10
November 2006–4 February 2007, as by Constantijn Daniel van Renesse [lent by SalomonLilian B. V., Amsterdam].
Munich, Haus der Kunst, “Tronies: Marlene Dumas and the Old Masters,” 29 October2010–6 February 2011, as by School of Rembrandt, possibly Constantijn Daniel vanRenesse [lent by the present owner].

© 2017 The Leiden Collection

Bearded Man in a Fur Hat (Previously “Jew in a Fur Hat”)
Page 8 of 10References
Bredius, Abraham. “Over een Rembrandt.” Oud-Holland 48 (1931): 97–99, no. 3, as byRembrandt.
Valentiner, Wilhelm R. “Rembrandt’s Conception of Historical Portraiture.” Art Quarterly 11(1948): 118.
Schnackenburg, Bernhard. Gemäldegalerie Alte Meister, Staatliche Museen Kassel:
Gesamtkatalog. 2 vols. Mainz, 1996, 1:247, as by Workshop of Rembrandt.
Dunn, Nicola. “Portrait of a Young Jew.” In Salomon Lilian Old Masters Paintings , 36, no.
16, as by Constantijn Daniel van Renesse. Sales cat. Amsterdam, Saloman Lilian B. V.
Amsterdam, 2000.
Weber, Gregor J. M. “Bust of a Man with a Fur Cap, about 1645.” InRembrandt-Bilder: Die
historische Sammlung der Kasseler Gemäldegalerie. Edited by Michael J. Eissenhauer,
191, no. 25.2, as by Workshop of Rembrandt. Exh. cat. Kassel, Gemäldegalerie Alte
Meister, Staatliche Museen Kassel. Kassel, 2006.
Alexander-Knotter, Mirjam, Hillegers, Jasper and Van Voolen, Edward. “Portrait of a YoungJew.” In The “Jewish” Rembrandt: The Myth Unraveled , 74, as by Constantijn Daniel vanRenesse. Exh. cat. Amsterdam, Jewish Historical Museum. Zwolle, 2008. Translated fromDe “joodse” Rembrandt: De mythe ontrafeld. Zwolle, 2006.
Dumas, Marlene, Dercon, Chris, Krempel, Leon and Van Leeuwen, Jolie, eds. Tronies:
Marlene Dumas and the Old Masters . Exh. cat. Munich, Haus der Kunst. Munich, 2010, 46,
109, as by School of Rembrandt, possibly Constantijn Daniel van Renesse.

VersionsEngraved
1. Samuel van Hoogstraten, Bust of a Man with a Beard and a Fur Hat (Portrait of Jan vanLeyden), 1646, etching, 140 x 110 mm, Rijksprentenkabinet, Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam,inv. RP-10168.

Versions and Copies
1. Workshop of Rembrandt, Bust of a Man with a Fur Cap , oil on panel, 21.3 x 18 cm,Gemäldegalerie Alte Meister, Staatliche Museen Kassel, inv. GK 248.
© 2017 The Leiden Collection

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2. Follower of Rembrandt, Portrait of a Man in a Fur Hat (“Jew with a Fur Hat”) , oil on panel,
26 x 19 cm, Musée du Louvre, Paris, inv. no. 1750.

3. Workshop of Rembrandt, Bust of a Man with a Fur Cap (“Jew in a Fur Cap”) , 21 x 16.5 cm,private collection, Toronto, as of 1998.

4. Attributed to Rembrandt, A Jew in a Fur Hat , 21 x 17 cm, whereabouts unknown; formally
Adolphe Schloss, Paris, by 1916; Galerie Národní, Prague.

5. Attributed to Rembrandt, Head of an Elderly Jew , oil on panel, whereabouts unknown;
formerly Quincy Adams Shaw, Boston (1825–1908); Louis A. Shaw, Boston, 1917; Q. A.
Shaw McKean, Boston, 1924; [Paul Reinhardt Galleries, 1928]; [Newhouse Galleries, before
1939]; Gustav Oberlaender; (his sale, Parke-Bernet, New York, 25–26 May 1939, no. 222);
Charles J. Rosenbloom, Pittsburgh, by 1946.

6. Attributed to Rembrandt, Man in a Fur Cap (“A Jew with a Fur Cap”) , oil on panel, 21 x 16.8cm, whereabouts unknown; formally Edgar Speyer, New York, by 1925; by descent to Mrs.
Edgar Speyer in 1935; Jacques Stern, Princeton, New Jersey, by 1942.

7. Attributed to Rembrandt, Portrait of a Portuguese Jew , oil on panel, 18 x 17 cm,whereabouts unknown; formally Arnold van Buuren (his sale, Sotheby’s, Mak van Waay,Amsterdam, 26–27 May 1925, no. 103).

8. Attributed to Rembrandt, Portrait of a Bearded Man , oil on panel, 22.8 x 17.7 cm,whereabouts unknown; formally Michael van Gelder; by descent to William van Gelder;(sale, Christie’s, London, 14 May 1971, no. 51 [for 850 guineas to Alfred Brod, London], as
by Rembrandt).

9. Attributed to Rembrandt, untitled, whereabouts unknown (Johnson sale, Stockholm,Bukowski, 13–15 December 1933).

10. Attributed to Rembrandt, Head of a Jew in a Fur Cap , whereabouts unknown; possibly
formally Newhouse Galleries, New York, in 1991 (photomount preserved in the Frick Art
Reference Library, photoarchive files).

11. Manner of Rembrandt, A Peasant Man, Head and Shoulders, in a Fur Hat , oil on panel,
19.4 x 15.6 cm, whereabouts unknown (sale, Christie’s South Kensington, London, 18
February 1998, no. 172).

Versions Notes

Technical Summary
The support, a single plank of horizontally grained but vertically oriented rectangular Eastern© 2017 The Leiden CollectionPowered by TCPDF (www.tcpdf.org)

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Baltic oak from a tree felled after 1593, is unthinned and uncradled and has bevels along all foursides.[1] The bevels along the upper and left edges are narrower than the remaining two andsomewhat irregularly cut; they may have been trimmed before the painting was executed. The
panel reverse has five import stamps, handwritten numerals, and machine tool marks but no wax
seals, labels, stencils or panel maker’s marks.
A light-colored ground has been thinly and evenly applied, followed by paint applied extremely
thinly with smooth glazes that allow the ground and horizontal wood grain to show through theflesh tones. There is no use of impasto, although there are areas of low brushmarking along thestrokes of dark paint used to define the figure’s hat, beard and garment. Fingerprints made in
wet paint are located along the lower left edge and the left side of the lower edge.
The painting is unsigned and undated; however, a letter written by Egbert HaverkampBegemann to Salomon Lilian in Amsterdam, dated 18 January 2000, states: “Infrared lightshows that your painting is signed with a capital R, followed by space for more letters. It is very
well possible that this R was the beginning of Renesse. The clue may be given by the Warsaw
painting, which according to Sumowski, is signed and dated C…Ren…1693. In my opinion yourpainting Portrait of a Young Jew may be attributed to Daniel van Renesse. It fits well into his
work of the 1650s.” [2]No underdrawing, compositional changes, or the letter R mentioned in Haverkamp-Begemann’s
letter are readily apparent in infrared images captured at 780–1000 nanometers.
The painting underwent conservation treatment prior to its acquisition and is in good condition.

Technical Summary Endnotes

1. The characterization of the wood is based on Ian Tyers’s 2010 dendrochronology report.
According to Peter Klein’s earlier dendrochronology report, only the wider plank could beanalyzed and dated.
2. Provided by Sara Smith, collections manager, The Leiden Collection.

© 2017 The Leiden Collection