Portrait of a Man in a Red Coat
Rembrandt van Rijn
(Leiden 1606 – 1669 Amsterdam)1633
oil on oval panel
63.7 x 50.8 cm
signed and dated in light brown paint, lower
right: “Rembrandt. fec. / 1633.”
RR-108© 2020 The Leiden Collection

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How to cite
Manuth, Volker. “Portrait of a Man in a Red Coat” (2017). In The Leiden Collection Catalogue, 2nd ed. Edited
by Arthur K. Wheelock Jr. New York, 2017–20. https://theleidencollection.com/artwork/portrait-of-a-man-in-ared-coat/ (archived May 2020).
A PDF of every version of this entry is available in this Online Catalogue's Archive, and the Archive ismanaged by a permanent URL. New versions are added only when a substantive change to the narrative
occurs.

Judging from the formal portraits produced by seventeenth-century artists,

Comparative Figures

one would have to conclude that the Dutch were a pretty dour people,
particularly the men. Invariably dressed in black with stiff starched collars,
the sitters in these portraits rarely invoke inner warmth or a sense of joy. This
broad overgeneralization, which to a certain extent excludes Frans Hals
(1582/83–1666), seems rather apt for the greatest portraitist of the era,
Rembrandt van Rijn. Rembrandt had a remarkable ability to capture a lifelike
presence in his commissioned portraits, but, for the most part, one comesaway admiring the sincerity and inner strength of his sitters, not their ease oflifting one’s spirits through the glints in their eyes.
Set against this backdrop, Rembrandt’s Portrait of a Man in a Red Coat is
like a breath of fresh air. Here is a man not averse to twirling his moustache
upward to cast a friendly demeanor as he looks directly out at the viewer, thecrinkles around his eyes and his arched eyebrows indicating that smiles
easily cross his face. Even the tips of his white starched collar rise up

Fig 1. Salomon Saverij (after
Rembrandt), Portrait of Philips vanDorp, n.d., etching, 144 x 108 mm,
The British Museum, London, inv.
1874,0808.2364, © Trustees of the
British Museum

positively to greet the world. His robust features and ample body further
suggest a person who enjoys the fullness of life, both spiritually andphysically. Adding to this sense is the bold red doublet he wears, one that
Rembrandt brushes with an appropriate freedom of touch, particularly inarticulating the horizontal braided clasps along the garments central divide.
Like Rembrandt’s Minerva in Her Study (RR-107), Portrait of a Man in a Red
Coat was for a long time largely unknown. It surfaced in an English collection

Fig 2. Abraham Bosse, The Ball,ca. 1634, gouache on parchment
on oak panel, 10.4 x 15 cm,© 2020 The Leiden Collection

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only at the beginning of the twentieth century (see Provenance). After
Wilhelm Valentiner first published the portrait in 1930 as one of his

Kupferstichkabinett, Staatliche
Museen zu Berlin, photo: Jörg P.
Anders“rediscovered Rembrandt paintings,” it circulated on the art market and was
almost inaccessible to Rembrandt researchers.[1] Largely on the basis ofphotographs, some authors doubted the work’s authenticity.[2] The painting
remained in relative obscurity until 1992, when its owner at the time drew it to
the attention of the Rembrandt Research Project (RRP). After thoroughexamination of the original in 1994 and 1997, the RRP judged the portrait, onboth technical and stylistic grounds, to be an authentic work by Rembrandt.[3]Stylistically as well as technically, Portrait of a Man in a Red Coat is in
keeping with Rembrandt’s portraits of the early 1630s, at which time hesought to achieve great spatial depth and plasticity in his figures. Here, he

Fig 3. Abraham Bosse, The Noble
Painter, ca. 1642, etching, 25 x 32
cm, The Metropolitan Museum,
New York, Bequest of Phyllis
Massar, 2011, 2012.136.16

achieved this effect by rendering physiognomic details, such as the hair andfacial wrinkles, with utmost meticulousness, while executing the braided
fastenings on the red jacket in a much sketchier manner. Another typicalfeature is the way he set off the contour of the most brightly lit form (in thiscase the collar) from the dark background.[4] On the other hand, hejuxtaposed the shaded portion of the collar with the bright part of the
background. Another means of heightening the illusion of depth was to leave
the sitter’s foremost arm partly in shadow. The strongly illuminated shoulder
forms a repoussoir, at the same time amplifying the effect of the light hitting
the collar and the face. Finally, the form of the signature and the way it isrendered with a mixture of dark paint and lead white are typical of Rembrandt

Fig 4. Click on image to
see proposed pendant at right:

in this period.[5]The oak of the panel comes from the Baltic-Polish region and corresponds toa type of wood frequently used in Rembrandt’s studio. Dendrochronologicalresearch has shown that the tree could not have been felled before 1629,
which means that in theory the panel—after a period of at least two years foraging or drying—could have been ready for use after 1631.[6] The panel
consists of two parts: a wider plank (37.8 cm) and a narrower one (13 cm).
For his portraits and tronies Rembrandt often used panels composed ofplanks of different widths so that the seam would not run through the face.
Although the oval format was popular for portraits around 1633,[7] Portrait ofa Man in a Red Coat seems originally to have had an upright rectangularshape, which was later changed into an oval. The back of the panel is planedand cradled, whereas a panel that was originally oval would show bevelingthat followed its oval shape. It is probable that the portrait was originallysurrounded by an oval “window,” such as Rembrandt often painted onrectangular supports (see Self-Portrait with Shaded Eyes, RR-110), and that© 2020 The Leiden Collection

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the panel was later cut into an oval shape along the inner edge of thispainted “window.”[8]Rembrandt generally designed his compositions with a free sketch rather
than with an elaborate underdrawing. A close comparison of the paintsurface and the X-radiograph in this portrait makes it is clear that Rembrandt
painted the background first, leaving a reserve for the figure. The contours of
the figure, especially in the area of the hair and the collar, often deviate fromthe reserve. Rembrandt has here made a number of painted corrections, or
pentimenti, as in, for example, the shape of the right shoulder, which was
originally higher.
An unusual aspect of this painting is the sitter’s conspicuous red coat, very
different from the black attire generally seen in portraiture of the 1630s. A red
coat with red braided fastenings on the front and the sleeves was at that timeassociated with the military, and for this reason Valentiner assumed that thesitter was a member of the military.[9] In support of this theory, he referred tosimilar braided clasps in the portrait of Philips van Dorp (1587–1652), an
officer in the service of the States General, known from a print by Salomon
Saverij (1594–ca. 1678) (fig 1). Saverij’s etching bears an inscription
claiming that it was made after a (lost) portrait by Rembrandt of 1634. Red
coats (including one with braided fastenings) are listed in a 1638 inventory of
Floris II, Count of Culemborg, one of the highest ranking officers in the
Northern Netherlands.[10] A Portrait of an Unknown Officer by Isaack Jacobsz
van Hooren (1620–52) of 1646 depicts the sitter in a red coat with braided
clasps along with other military accessories, including a plumed hat, gorget,
and rapier attached to the bandolier [11].
Significantly, these last pictorial elements are lacking in Rembrandt’s Portraitof a Man in a Red Coat, and without them it is impossible to say withcertainty that the sitter was actually a member of the military. The coat’s redcolor and braiding and the wide, starched linen collar also occur incontemporary fashions, not only in the Netherlands, but also in France,
England and Germany.[12] For example, a gouache dated around 1634 by the
French engraver Abraham Bosse shows a dancing man wearing a similar
costume (fig 2),[13] as does the elegant painter in his studio in a print datingfrom 1642 (fig 3). The painter wears a collar identical to the one worn by theman in Rembrandt’s Portrait of a Man in a Red Coat.[14] The hairstyle—withpipe curls over the ears and a lock of hair on the forehead—and the
moustache with its twisted ends reflect Spanish fashions, but, as with theman’s wardrobe, these styles were to be found all over Europe. The© 2020 The Leiden Collection

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international character of the man’s appearance has led to speculations thatthe sitter was either a foreigner or a Dutchman who moved in international
circles.[15]The manner in which the man turns to the right suggests that the portrait
originally had a female pendant, which Valentiner assumed to be the Portraitof a Young Woman, likewise dated 1633.[16] This hypothesis was rightly
questioned in the Corpus. Its authors point out that although the dimensionsof the two works are nearly the same, the woman’s portrait is painted on adifferent kind of wood, the panel consists of three planks, and it was
originally oval in shape.[17] Furthermore, the authors argued that the
woman’s portrait is unlikely to have been the painting’s pendant because it
was executed by a studio assistant and not by the master.[18] Other reasons
exist for rejecting the woman’s portrait as this painting’s companion piece:
her dark clothes, with the white cap and the large pleated ruff, are typical of
the conservative Dutch middle class and contrast with the stylish and colorful
costume of her supposed mate.
A much more suitable candidate for the pendant to Portrait of a Man in a Red
Coat is a female portrait, also dated 1633, in the Museum of Fine Arts in
Houston (fig 4).[19] The sitter’s black gown with slashed sleeves is set off by
a colorful ribbon around her waist. The gown, the collar, and the hairstyle
likewise conform to the fashions then prevailing in France.[20] Moreover, theoval support of the female portrait in Houston is nearly identical in size toPortrait of a Man in a Red Coat. Originally it, too, was probably rectangular inshape and only later made into an oval.[21] Although the woman is more
subtle and more delicately modeled than the man in Portrait of a Man in a
Red Coat, pendants portraying young women are often more delicately
executed than those of their male counterparts.[22] Not only do their facial
features and skin require different handling of the paint, but also the lightcoming from the left falls frontally on the woman’s face. The man’s face,which is turned to the right, is partly in shadow, and, as a result, his
physicality is emphasized. With or without this purported pendant, however,this distinctive gentleman has a compelling presence that fully engages theviewer. Perhaps someday we will learn more about him and his life’s story.

- Volker Manuth, 2017

© 2020 The Leiden Collection

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Endnotes

1. Wilhelm R. Valentiner, “Rediscovered Rembrandt Paintings,” Burlington Magazine 57 (1930):
260, 265. Neither Horst Gerson (Rembrandt: Paintings [Amsterdam, 1968], 280–81, 494, no.
151) nor Kurt Bauch (Rembrandt: Gemälde [Berlin, 1966], 19, no. 364) had seen the original
painting when they published their respective catalogues.
2. Neither Schwartz in 1984 nor Slatkes in 1992 included the painting in their catalogues ofRembrandt’s paintings. Gary Schwartz, Rembrandt, His Life, His Paintings: A New Biography
with All Accessible Paintings Illustrated in Colour (New York, 1985). Leonard Slatkes,
Rembrandt: Catalogo completo dei dipinti (Florence, 1992). Tümpel in 1986 (as well as in the
English edition of 1993) rejects the painting as an autograph Rembrandt and attributes it
instead to a pupil. See Christian Tümpel, Rembrandt: All Paintings in Colour (Antwerp, 1993),
431–32, no. A83.
3. Ersnt van de Wetering et al., A Corpus of Rembrandt Paintings, vol. 4: Self-Portraits, ed.
Ernst van de Wetering (Dordrecht, 2005), 4: Addendum 4, 638–46.
4. Cf. Josua Bruyn et al., A Corpus of Rembrandt Paintings, vol. 2: 1631–1634, Stichting
Foundation Rembrandt Research Project (The Hague, 1986), 2: A 45, A 48, A 58, A 59, A 78.
5. This mixture of paints was probably used to tone down what would otherwise be too harsh acontrast with the background, which is bright in this place. For other examples, see Ernst van
de Wetering et al., A Corpus of Rembrandt Paintings, vol. 4: Self-Portraits, Stichting
Foundation Rembrandt Research Project (Dordrecht, 2005), 4: Addendum 4, 640–41, andJosua Bruyn et al., A Corpus of Rembrandt Paintings, vol. 2: 1631–1634, Stichting
Foundation Rembrandt Research Project (The Hague, 1986), 2: chapter 5, 99–106.
6. Only the broader panel was able to be examined by Peter Klein. For this and the following
information on the panel, see Ernst van de Wetering et al., A Corpus of Rembrandt Paintings,
vol. 4: Self-Portraits, ed. Stichting Foundation Rembrandt Research Project (Dordrecht,2005), 4: Addendum 4, 640–42.
7. Rembrandt painted his first portrait on an oval support in 1632: Portrait of Harder Rijcksen,
1632, oil on panel, 64 x 47 cm, Suermondt-Ludwig-Museum, Aachen, on loan from the Peterand Irene Ludwig Stiftung. Josua Bruyn et al., A Corpus of Rembrandt Paintings, vol. 2:
1631–1634, Stichting Foundation Rembrandt Research Project (The Hague, 1986), 2: no. A
60 (as unknown sitter). On the popularity of the oval format for portraits in the 1630s, see
Pieter J. J. van Thiel, Prijst de lijst: De Hollandse schilderijlijst in de zeventiende eeuw (Exh.
cat. Amsterdam, Rijksmuseum) (The Hague, 1984), 118.
8. Painted framings of this kind, which occur quite often in Rembrandt’s work, possibly served
as a guide for the frame maker. Comparable framing (painted or even scratched in the wet© 2020 The Leiden Collection

Portrait of a Man in a Red Coat
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paint) occurs in other Rembrandt paintings. See, for example, Christ and the Woman Taken
in Adultery of 1644 in London (Ernst van de Wetering et al., A Corpus of Rembrandt
Paintings, vol. 5: Small-Scale History Paintings, ed. Ernst van de Wetering [Dordrecht, 2011],
5: no. 3); The Holy Family of 1645 in St. Petersburg (Ernst van de Wetering et al., A Corpus
of Rembrandt Paintings, vol. 5: Small-Scale History Paintings, Stichting Foundation
Rembrandt Research Project [Dordrecht, 2011], 5: no. 4); the Self-Portrait of 1669 in The
Hague (Ernst van de Wetering et al., A Corpus of Rembrandt Paintings, vol. 4: Self-Portraits,
Stichting Foundation Rembrandt Research Project [Dordrecht, 2005], 4: no. 29); and the SelfPortrait as St. Paul of 1661 in Amsterdam (Ernst van de Wetering et al., A Corpus of
Rembrandt Paintings, vol. 4: Self-Portraits, Stichting Foundation Rembrandt Research Project[Dordrecht, 2005], 4: no. 24).
9. Wilhelm R. Valentiner, “Rediscovered Rembrandt Paintings,” Burlington Magazine 57 (1930):
260, 265.
10. Gelders Archief, Arnhem, no. 0370, Archief van de heren en graven van Culemborg, no. 393:
Inventaris van sijne Genadens cleederen die bevonden zijn in sijner Genadens
cleederencamer tot Culemborch op de IIde September 1638: “Een root sattijnen wambaes
geborduert met goude banden van goudt en silver; Ein Hongerlein van rott laken vol gebort
met gouden galunn en lyßen, met pels gevoert; Een roode kasaque met goude knoppen” (Ared satin doublet embroidered with gold and silver laces; A fur-lined coat in the Hungarianstyle of red cloth embroidered with gold galloon and frogging; A red cassock with gold
buttons).
11. Isaack Jacobsz van Hooren, Portrait of an Unknown Officer, 1646, oil on panel, 16.6 x 12.7
cm, sale, Christie’s Amsterdam, 29 November 1988, lot 164.
12. A surviving example made of red velvet, which dates from ca. 1632 and was allegedly wornby Count Tilly (1559–1632) in the Thirty Years’ War, is preserved in the Bayerisches National
Museum in Munich. See Max von Boehn, Mode and Manners, trans. Joan Joshua, 2 vols.
(New York, 1971), 2: 73 ill. On the influence of military dress on fashion, see Ruth Bleckwenn,“Beziehungen zwischen Soldatentracht und ziviler modischer Kleidung zwischen 1500 und
1650,” Zeitschrift für historische Waffen- und Kostümkunde 16 (1974): 107–18.
13. As mentioned in Ernst van de Wetering et al., A Corpus of Rembrandt Paintings, vol. 4: SelfPortraits, Stichting Foundation Rembrandt Research Project (Dordrecht, 2005), 4: Addendum
4, 646 n. 10.
14. In France, such collars were usually trimmed with a wide edge of bobbin lace.
15. In 1966 Bauch (Kurt Bauch, Rembrandt: Gemälde [Berlin, 1966], 19, no. 364) hypothesizedthat this picture was a portrait of the painter Jacob Adriaensz Backer (1608–51). Thissuggestion was rightly rejected, as Backer was only 25 years old in 1633 and therefore
younger than the man depicted. Furthermore, Backer, with his Mennonite background, would
never have donned such a colorful coat. The Mennonites, who were antimilitary and© 2020 The Leiden Collection

Portrait of a Man in a Red Coat
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particularly conservative with regard to their outward appearance, dressed mostly in simple,
dark clothing.
16. Wilhelm R. Valentiner, “Rediscovered Rembrandt Paintings,” Burlington Magazine 57 (1930):
265
17. Josua Bruyn et al., A Corpus of Rembrandt Paintings, vol. 2: 1631–1634, Stichting
Foundation Rembrandt Research Project (The Hague, 1986), 2: C 81. Relying on thesapwood statistics for Eastern Europe, Peter Klein established an earliest felling date of 1628
for this panel. Adding to that a minimum seasoning time of two years, this portrait could nothave been painted before 1630.
18. Jaap van der Veen, however, has correctly observed that this argument is not conclusive
because sometimes the master would paint a portrait and a pupil its pendant. See Jaap van
der Veen, “Hendrick Uylenburgh’s Art Business, Production, and Trade Between 1625 and
1655,” in Uylenburgh & Son: Art and Commerce from Rembrandt to De Lairesse, ed. Friso
Lammertse and Jaap van der Veen (Exh. cat. London, Dulwich Picture Gallery; Amsterdam,
Museum Het Rembrandthuis) (Zwolle, 2006), 145. See, for example, the pendants of aseated man and woman of ca. 1632 in the Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna, both painted
on identical walnut panels. The portrait of the man, attributed to Rembrandt, is unlike that of
the woman. See Josua Bruyn et al., A Corpus of Rembrandt Paintings, vol. 2: 1631–1634,
Stichting Foundation Rembrandt Research Project (The Hague, 1986), 2: A 45 and C 80.
19. Josua Bruyn et al., A Corpus of Rembrandt Paintings, vol. 2, 1631–1634, Stichting
Foundation Rembrandt Research Project (The Hague, 1986), A 84. The opinion that thisportrait of a woman could be the companion piece to the Portrait of a Man in a Red Coat wasalso noted by George Keyes in Rembrandt in America: Collecting and Connoisseurship, ed.
George Keyes, Tom Rassieur, and Dennis P. Weller (Exh. cat. Raleigh, North Carolina
Museum of Art; Cleveland, Cleveland Museum of Art; Minneapolis, Minneapolis Institute ofArts) (New York, 2011), 117, 138, n. 7.
20. Compare the dress of the dancing lady in Abraham Bosse’s gouache (see fig. 3).
21. The most important reason for this assumption is the oddly slanting position of the female
figure in the oval picture field, as a result of which the earrings do not hang vertically, whichindicates that the panel was cut down to its oval shape only after it was painted. This support
is not beveled all around either. See Josua Bruyn et al., A Corpus of Rembrandt Paintings,
vol. 2: 1631–1634, Stichting Foundation Rembrandt Research Project (The Hague, 1986), 2:
A 84. Unfortunately, this is one of the very few paintings by Rembrandt that has not yet
undergone dendrochronological examination. It is therefore impossible to ascertain whether
the panels came from the same tree.
22. Even in pendants in which the woman is older than the man, as seen in the portraits of Dirck
Jansz Pesser (Josua Bruyn et al., A Corpus of Rembrandt Paintings, vol. 2: 1631–1634,
Stichting Foundation Rembrandt Research Project [The Hague, 1986], 2: A102, Los Angeles© 2020 The Leiden Collection

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County Museum of Art) and Haesje van Cleyburg (ibid., A103, Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam),
both of 1634, Rembrandt typically painted the male portrait in a much broader style than thatof the woman.

Provenance
Sir Philip John William Miles, 2nd Baronet (1825–88), Leigh Court, Somerset; by descent tohis eldest daughter, Alice Catherine Miles, wife of Lt. Colonel Gerard Vivian Ames, of theHyde, Herfordshire; by descent to their son, Captain Lionel Gerard Ames (born 1889) [Vicars
Brothers, London, 1929; The Howard Young Galleries, New York, 1930].
David Loew, Beverly Hills [Findlay Gallery, New York, 1954].
Amon G. Carter Sr., Fort Worth, Texas, from 1954, and by descent to his third wife, Minnie
Meacham Smith (sale Sotheby’s, New York, 30 January 1998, no. 18).
Dr. Alfred Bader, on behalf of Otto Naumann Ltd., New York, 1999.
The Bellagio Gallery of Fine Arts, Las Vegas, 1999 (sale, Christie’s, New York, 26 January
2001, no. 81 [Noortman Master Paintings, Maastricht, until 2008]).
From whom acquired by the present owner in 2008.

Exhibition History
Detroit, Detroit Institute of Arts, “The Thirteenth Loan Exhibition of Old Master Paintings by
Rembrandt,” 2–31 May 1930, no. 23 [lent by Howard Young Galleries, New York].
New York, Otto Naumann Ltd., “Old Master Paintings,” 1999–2000, no. 25.
Newark, Newark Museum, “Art and Home: Dutch Interiors in the Age of Rembrandt,” 30
September 2001–20 January 2002; Denver, Denver Art Museum, 2 March–26 May 2002, no.
17a [lent by Noortman Master Paintings, Maastricht].
Kyoto, National Museum, “Rembrandt Rembrandt,” 3 November 2002–8 January 2003;
Frankfurt-am-Main, Städelsches Kunstinstitut, 1 February–11 May 2003, no. 19 and 21 [lentby Noortman Master Paintings, Maastricht].
Vienna, Albertina, “Rembrandt,” 24 March–27 June 2004, no. 82 [lent by Noortman Master
Paintings, Maastricht].
London, Dulwich Picture Gallery “Rembrandt & Co.: Dealing in Masterpieces,” 27 June–3
September 2006; Amsterdam, Museum Het Rembrandthuis, “Rembrandt en Uylenburgh,© 2020 The Leiden Collection

Portrait of a Man in a Red Coat
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handel in meesterwerken,” 16 September–10 December 2006 [lent by Noortman Master
Paintings, Maastricht].
Houston, Museum of Fine Arts, on loan with the permanent collection, June 2008–July 2011
[lent by the present owner].
Greenwich,Conn.,

Bruce

Museum,

on

loan

with

the

permanentcollection,

September–October 2011 [lent by the present owner].
Raleigh, North Carolina Museum of Art “Rembrandt in America: Collecting andConnoisseurship,” 30 October 2011–22 January 2012; Cleveland, Cleveland Museum of Art,
19 February–28 May 2012; Minneapolis, Minneapolis Institute of Arts, 24 June–16 September
2012, no. 182 [lent by the present owner].
Houston, Museum of Fine Arts, on loan with the permanent collection, September 2012–2015[lent by the present owner].
Paris, Museé du Louvre, “Masterpieces of The Leiden Collection: The Age of Rembrandt,” 22
February–22 May 2017 [lent by the present owner].
Beijing, National Museum of China, “Rembrandt and His Time: Masterpieces from The
Leiden Collection,” 17 June–3 September 2017 [lent by the present owner].
Shanghai, Long Museum, West Bund, “Rembrandt, Vermeer and Hals in the Dutch Golden
Age: Masterpieces from The Leiden Collection,” 23 September 2017–25 February 2018 [lentby the present owner].
Moscow, The Pushkin State Museum of Fine Arts, “The Age of Rembrandt and Vermeer:
Masterpieces of The Leiden Collection,” 28 March 2018–22 July 2018 [lent by the present
owner].
St. Petersburg, The State Hermitage Museum, “The Age of Rembrandt and Vermeer:
Masterpieces of The Leiden Collection,” 5 September 2018–13 January 2019 [lent by thepresent owner].
Abu Dhabi, Louvre Abu Dhabi, “Rembrandt, Vermeer and the Dutch Golden Age.
Masterpieces from The Leiden Collection and the Musée du Louvre,” 14 February–18 May
2019 [lent by the present owner].

References
Valentiner, Wilhelm R. Thirteenth Loan Exhibition of Old Masters: Paintings by Rembrandt.
Exh. cat. Detroit, Detroit Institute of Arts. Detroit, 1930, no. 23.
Valentiner, Wilhelm R. “Rediscovered Rembrandt Paintings.” Burlington Magazine 57(December 1930): 260–65, no. 3A.
Valentiner, Wilhelm R. Rembrandt Paintings in America. New York, 1931, no. 37.
© 2020 The Leiden Collection

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Bredius, Abraham. Rembrandt. Gemälde. Vienna, 1935, no. 176.
Bredius, Abraham. The Paintings of Rembrandt. London, 1937, 10, no. 176.
Bauch, Kurt. Rembrandt: Gemälde. Berlin, 1966, 19, no. 364.
Gerson, Horst. Rembrandt: Paintings. Amsterdam, 1968, 280–81, 494, no. 151.
Bredius, Abraham, and Horst Gerson. Rembrandt: The Complete Edition of the Paintings.
London, 1969, 151, 562, no. 176.
Arpino, Giovanni, and Paolo Lecaldano. L’opera pittorica complete di Rembrandt. Milan,
1969, 100–1, no. 127.
Lecaldano, Paolo, and Gregory Martin. The Complete Paintings of Rembrandt. New York,
1969, 100–1, no. 127.
Dony, Frans L. M., and Karel Braun. Meesters der Schilderkunst: Alle tot nu toe bekende
schilderijen van Rembrandt, en een beknopt overzicht van zijn voornaamste werk als etser entekenaar. Rotterdam, 1969, 96–97, no. 127.
Bolten, Jaap, and Henriette Bolten-Rempt. The Hidden Rembrandt. Oxford, 1978, 181, no.
171.
Tümpel, Christian. Rembrandt: Mythos und Methode. Antwerp, 1986, 429, no. A83 (as by apupil of Rembrandt).
Tümpel, Christian. Rembrandt: All Paintings in Colour. Antwerp, 1993, 431–32, no. A83 (asby a pupil of Rembrandt).
Van de Wetering, Ernst, et al. A Corpus of Rembrandt Paintings. Vol. 4: SelfPortraits. Stichting Foundation Rembrandt Research Project. Dordrecht, 2005. Addendum IV
4, 638–46.
Sutton, Peter C. “Portrait of a Man in a Red Doublet.” In Otto Naumann: Old Master Paintings,
74–77, no. 25. Sales cat. Otto Naumann Ltd., New York. New York, 1999.
Haverkamp-Begemann, Egbert. “Portrait of a Man in a Red Doublet.” In The Bellagio Galleryof Fine Art: European and American Masters. Edited by Libby Lumpkin, 26–31. Las Vegas,
1999.
Westermann, Mariët, ed. Art and Home: Dutch Interiors in the Age of Rembrandt. Exh. cat.
Denver, Denver Art Museum; Newark, Newark Museum. Zwolle, 2001, 153, 163, no. 17a.
Giltaij, Jeroen, ed.

Rembrandt, Rembrandt. Exh. cat. Kyoto, Kyoto National Museum;Frankfurt am Main, Städelsches Kunstinstitut und Städelsche Galerie. Hakk?, 2002, 80–81,
no. 21.
Giltaij, Jeroen, ed.

Rembrandt, Rembrandt. Exh. cat. Kyoto, Kyoto National Museum;Frankfurt am Main, Städelsches Kunstinstitut un Städelsche Galerie. Wolfratshausen, 2003,
102–3, no. 19.
Bisanz-Prakken, Marian, and Klaus Albrecht Schröder, eds. Rembrandt. Exh. cat., Vienna,© 2020 The Leiden Collection

Portrait of a Man in a Red Coat
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Albertina. Wolfratshausen, 2004, 196–97, no. 82.
Schavemaker, Eddy. Noortman: One Hundred Master Paintings. Sales cat. Maastricht,
Noortman Master Paintings. Maastricht, 2003, 54–59, no. 18.
Van der Veen, Jaap. “Hendrick Uylenburgh’s Art Business, Production, and Trade Between
1625 and 1655. In Uylenburgh & Son: Art and Commerce from Rembrandt to De Lairesse.
Edited by Friso Lammertse and Jaap van der Veen, 145–46. Exh. cat. London, Dulwich
Picture Gallery; Amsterdam, Museum het Rembrandthuis. Zwolle, 2006.
Schwartz, Gary. The Rembrandt Book. New York, 2006, 274.
Keyes, George S. “The Elusive Nature of Portraiture: Rembrandt as a Portraitist in
Amsterdam.” In Rembrandt in America: Collecting and Connoisseurship. Edited by George S.
Keyes, Tom Rassieur, and Dennis P. Weller, 115, pl. 27. Exh. cat. Raleigh, North Carolina
Museum of Art; Cleveland, Cleveland Museum of Art; Minneapolis, Minneapolis Institute ofArts. New York, 2011.
Weller, Dennis P. “Portrait of a Man in a Red Doublet.” In Rembrandt in America: Collecting
and Connoisseurship. Edited by George S. Keyes, Tom Rassieur, and Dennis P. Weller, 182,
no. 16, 202. Exh. cat. Raleigh, North Carolina Museum of Art; Cleveland, Cleveland Museumof Art; Minneapolis, Minneapolis Institute of Arts. New York, 2011.
Van de Wetering, Ernst. Rembrandt: The Painter Thinking. Amsterdam, 2016, 6, 7, no. 6.
Surh, Dominique.

“Portrait of a Man in a Red Coat.” In Masterpieces of The Leiden

Collection: The Age of Rembrandt. Edited by Blaise Ducos and Dominique Surh, 78, no. 29.
Exh. cat. Paris, Musée du Louvre. Paris, 2017.
Yeager-Crasselt, Lara. “Rembrandt and His Time: China and the Dutch Republic in theGolden Age.” In Rembrandt and His Time: Masterpieces from The Leiden Collection. Editedby Lara Yeager-Crasselt, 9; 14, fig. 5. Translated by Li Ying. Exh. cat. Beijing, National
Museum of China. Beijing, 2017. A slightly revised version of this essay appears in
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Collection. Exh. cat. Shanghai, Long Museum, West Bund. Shanghai, 2017, 32, fig. 5.
Yeager-Crasselt, Lara. “Portrait of a Man in a Red Coat.” In Rembrandt and His Time:
Masterpieces from The Leiden Collection. Edited by Lara Yeager-Crasselt, 46–47; 175, no.
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Masterpieces from The Leiden Collection. Exh. cat. Shanghai, Long Museum, West Bund.
Shanghai, 2017, 64–65.
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Rembrandt and Vermeer: Masterpieces of The Leiden Collection. Edited by Polina
Lyubimova, 18, 21; 29, 32. Translated by Daria Babich and Daria Kuzina. Exh. cat. Moscow,
The Pushkin State Museum of Fine Arts; St. Petersburg, The State Hermitage Museum.
© 2020 The Leiden Collection

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Moscow, 2018.
Yeager-Crasselt, Lara “Portrait of a Man in a Red Coat.” In The Age of Rembrandt andVermeer: Masterpieces of The Leiden Collection. Edited by Polina Lyubimova, 168–69; 242,
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Dhabi, Louvre Abu Dhabi. London, 2019. [Exhibition catalogue also published in French andArabic.]Blanc, Jan. “Being Modern, Being Dutch: The Seventeenth-Century Invention of the GoldenAge.” In Rembrandt, Vermeer and the Dutch Golden Age. Masterpieces from The Leiden
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Technical Summary
The support, an oval composite panel, comprises two vertically grained oak planks of unequal
widths.[1] The vertical panel join runs through the background to the figure’s right.[2] The panel has
no bevels and has been cradled. Ernst van der Wetering speculates in the Rembrandt Research
Project Corpus entry for this painting that, although the portrait was painted as an oval, the panel
was originally rectangular, since the orientation of the oval panel and the oval composition areslightly askew.[3] The panel reverse has three numerical inscriptions but no wax seals, stencils,
import stamps, labels or panel maker’s marks.
Analyses of a paint cross-section from the lower edge revealed a double ground: a lower layer
containing chalk, yellowed by the binder, and an upper layer containing lumps of lead white and alittle ocher in an oleaginous binder followed by a thin transparent brown imprimatura.[4] The
imprimatura remains visible in areas along the outermost edge of the upper right corner and along© 2020 The Leiden CollectionPowered by TCPDF (www.tcpdf.org)

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the lower right corner where the background and red doublet meet. The paint has been smoothly
applied with short strokes of low brushmarking through the background, with two raised horizontal
strokes of white highlight, which accentuate the lower edge of the white collar, and thicker paintthrough the figure’s face, particularly his nose.
No underdrawing or compositional changes are readily apparent in infrared images captured at
780–1000 nanometers.
The painting is signed and dated in light brown paint along the lower right.
The painting has not undergone conservation treatment since its acquisition in 2008 and remains
in a good state of preservation.
Further technical information about this artwork is available in The Rembrandt Database.

Technical Summary Endnotes

1. The characterization of the wood is based on Peter Klein’s dendrochronology report. Only
the wider plank could be analyzed and dated.
2. The left plank is 37.8 cm wide and the right is 13 cm wide.
3. In Addendum 2 of Stichting Foundation Rembrandt Research Project, A Corpus of
Rembrandt Paintings, vol. 4, Self-Portraits, ed. Ernst van de Wetering (Dordrecht, 2005). In
comment 2 of the Corpus entry, Van de Wetering states, “The longitudinal axis of the panel issomewhat longer than that of the painted oval. Consequently the ground and traces of brown
underpainting along the upper and lower edges (gradually narrowing at the sides) were never
covered with the paint with which the background and the red costume were painted.”
4. See Stichting Foundation Rembrandt Research Project, A Corpus of Rembrandt Paintings,
vol. 1, 1625–1631, ed. Josua Bruyn et al. (The Hague, Boston, and London, 1982), 17–19.

© 2020 The Leiden Collection