Rembrandt and The Leiden Collection
How to cite
Chapman, H. Perry. “Rembrandt and The Leiden Collection” (2017). In The Leiden Collection Catalogue, 2nd
ed. Edited by Arthur K. Wheelock Jr. New York, 2017–20. https://theleidencollection.com/essays/rembrandtand-the-leiden-collection/ (archived May 2020).
A PDF of every version of this essay 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
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© 2020 The Leiden Collection

Rembrandt and The Leiden Collection
Page 2 of 22

Rembrandt’s artistic origins in Leiden and early
successes in Amsterdam, seen through the lensof The Leiden Collection.
The range of impressive paintings from the 1620s and 1630s in The Leiden
Collection shows how Rembrandt van Rijn (1606–69) became sotremendously successful in his day, and why he ranks among the greatest,
most admired artists of all time. Born in Leiden in 1606, Rembrandt moved to
Amsterdam in the early 1630s, where he soon became the most famous and

Fig 1. 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.

innovative, most in-demand painter in that great urban center. Throughout
his career he demonstrated an unprecedented level of artistic selfawareness, as well as virtually unparalleled drive and ambition; his
exceptional knowledge of artistic traditions contributed to his creative
efforts.[1]Rembrandt had an enormous impact on his contemporaries. The traditionalview that Rembrandt was an independent, singular genius who set himself
apart from his society is, to a certain extent, true at later stages of his career.
However, during his early years he was very much part of his artistic
community, as both an esteemed colleague and a dedicated, inspiring
teacher. Rembrandt worked in an artistic milieu that thrived on productive
exchange and friendly rivalry. Much as for athletes, competition was thought
to inspire artists to do their best; and virtuous rivalry—as opposed to

Fig 2. 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.

destructive envy, the great metaphorical enemy of painting—was regarded as
essential to the advancement of art. The most promising young artists wereencouraged to surpass their masters. Colleagues were encouraged to vie
with each other, whether informally or in sanctioned competitions.
Rembrandt and his contemporaries would have known of the ancient Greek
painters Apelles and Protogenes, who competed over who could draw thefiner line.[2] Closer to home, they had the model of Lucas van Leyden(1494–1533) and Albrecht Dürer (1471–1528), who “tried to compete against
and outdo one another, and … on occasion Lucas immediately engraved thesame histories or other subjects that Dürer had made,” and who “regarded
each other’s works with great admiration,” according to the biographer Karelvan Mander (1548–1606).[3] The concept of emulation, meaning imitation
with the aim of transforming and improving upon an admired model, would

Fig 3. 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.

have been deeply ingrained in the minds of ambitious artists.[4] Rembrandt’s
many and varied responses to the art of his predecessors—his teacher© 2020 The Leiden Collection

Rembrandt and The Leiden Collection
Page 3 of 22

Pieter Lastman (1583–1633), his fellow townsman Lucas van Leyden, thegreat Peter Paul Rubens (1577–1640), the famed Italian Renaissancemasters, and the renowned ancients—can be broadly characterized asemulative, as can the responses of his successors to his art. The depth andbreadth of Rembrandt’s creative exchanges with his colleagues, students
and followers during the 1620s and 1630s are amply on display in paintingsin The Leiden Collection.

Talent and Education
In his autobiography, written in about 1630, Constantijn Huygens(1596–1687) pondered the extent to which his upbringing and experiences
had formed his character, and the extent to which he was a product of his
inborn nature.[5] A gifted writer and musician who aspired to nobility and had

Fig 4. 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.

attained an important position at court, Huygens was the secretary to thestadholder Frederick Hendrick (1584–1647), the nominal ruler of the Dutch
Republic. As secretary, from the word “secret,” Huygens was thestadholder’s close advisor, as well as his art agent.[6] Huygens was also
Rembrandt’s first champion. In his autobiography, he described visiting two
young and extraordinarily promising painters in Leiden, Rembrandt and Jan
Lievens (1607–74). One wonders whether Huygens posed his question ofnature vs. nurture to Rembrandt, or, with his precocious self-confidence andsense of his potential for greatness, was Rembrandt, himself, already curious
about this issue? The artist Rembrandt became was partly due to his innate
and—in seventeenth-century terms—God-given talent and drive, but it wasalso a function of his circumstances.
Rembrandt’s father owned a mill and some property in Leiden.[7] As was

Fig 5. Rembrandt van Rijn,
Spectacles Seller (Allegory ofSight), ca. 1624, oil on panel, 21 x
17.8 cm, Museum de Lakenhal,
Leiden, inv. no. S 5697.

typical of artists, Rembrandt’s family was of the solid, or broad, middle class.
Painters worked with their hands and so were among those who practiced
trades or professions, and were members of guilds. Yet they ranked above
other craftsmen such as tailors and goldsmiths. As producers of luxury goods
with intellectual cachet and moral import, painters catered to and hobnobbed
with the educated elite, and they themselves were often well educated.
Indeed, by this time, painting had achieved a special status as not only amanual craft but also as one of the liberal arts. Painters, broadly speaking,liked to think of themselves as creating with their minds, not just their hands.
Rembrandt quickly became one of the most highly self-conscious of these
artists, in part because he grew up in the intellectual milieu of a university
town—Leiden University had been founded by William the Silent (1533–84) in

Fig 6. Adriaen Brouwer, The Bitter
Potion, mid-1630s, oil on panel,
47.4 x 35.5 cm, Städel Museum,© 2020 The Leiden Collection

Rembrandt and The Leiden Collection
Page 4 of 221575. Compared to many painters, Rembrandt was well educated. His family
had enough ambition for him, and sufficient funds, to send him to the local

Frankfurt am Main, inv. no. 1076,© Städel Museum, photo: U.
Edelmann.

elite Latin School, which prepared students—exclusively boys—to go touniversity. At the Latin School he would have read the classics and musthave learned Latin and perhaps some Greek, which would have been good
preparation for becoming a history painter, to which Rembrandt would soon
aspire. Although, at age fourteen, in 1620, Rembrandt was registered at the
University, he apparently did not attend. By then, according to his firstbiographer, Jan Orlers (1570–1646) of Leiden, he had discovered his
passion for painting and drawing.[8]Fig 7. Jan Lievens, Allegory of theFive Senses, ca. 1622, oil on
panel, 78.2 x 124.4 cm, Private
Collection.

His parents, recognizing his talent, set him on the costly course of becoming
a painter. Compared with training in other crafts and trades, apprenticing witha master painter was an expensive undertaking.[9] First, starting in 1620,
Rembrandt apprenticed for about three years in the studio of the Leiden
painter Jacob van Swanenburgh (1571–1638); there he would have learned
the basics of painting and acquired an appreciation of Italian art, as Van
Swanenburgh had spent about fifteen years in Italy, including a stint in
Naples that coincided with Caravaggio’s brief but productive stay there in
1606. Although Van Swanenburgh’s few known paintings are not what
would be called Caravaggesque, they do rely on strong contrast of light andFig 8. Jan Lievens, Card Players,ca. 1625, oil on canvas, 97.5 x
105.4 cm, The Leiden Collection,
New York, inv. no. JL-102.

dark; it may have been in Van Swanenburgh’s studio that Rembrandt firstdeveloped an appreciation for dramatic lighting effects.
Exactly what happened immediately after his apprenticeship with Van
Swanenburgh remains open to speculation, because the young Rembrandt
was faced with a unique situation: the presence, in Leiden, of the talented
and precocious Jan Lievens, who was at once younger than Rembrandt andconsiderably more advanced in his career. Lievens, born in 1607, the year
after Rembrandt, had started painting at age eight. He had apprenticed firstwith Joris Verschoten (ca. 1587–1652) in Leiden, and then for about two
years with his “second master” Pieter Lastman, the most important history
painter in Amsterdam at that time. In 1619, at age twelve, he had set up as
an independent master in his own studio, which was probably in his parents’house. In 1623/24, Rembrandt may have wanted to catch up with the moreskilled and accomplished Lievens. Attending Latin School had meant thatFig 9. Attributed to Gerrit Dou, SelfPortrait (?) at an Easel , ca.
1628–29, oil on panel, 66.6 x 50.9
cm, The Leiden Collection, New
York, inv. no. GD-112.

Rembrandt got a late start as a painter, although, in the long run, having an
education in the classics would benefit him enormously. But at the moment
he needed additional training. Perhaps inspired by Lievens, Rembrandt, in
1624/25 at age eighteen or nineteen, went to Amsterdam for a six-monthfinishing-up apprenticeship with the famous Lastman who, like Van© 2020 The Leiden Collection

Rembrandt and The Leiden Collection
Page 5 of 22

Swanenburgh, had spent time in Italy from 1604 to 1607.
From Pieter Lastman, Rembrandt learned a great deal about staging an
historical narrative. Lastman’s David Gives Uriah a Letter for Joab, 1619 (fig1), in The Leiden Collection, exemplifies the kind of work that Rembrandt
would have seen and learned from in the master’s studio. To judge by
several early works in which Rembrandt reprised themes and compositions
by Lastman—for example, Rembrandt’s Balaam and the Ass of 1626
reworks Lastman’s painting of the same subject of 1622—his teacher
encouraged not just imitation but emulation, which entailed a desire to outdo

Fig 10. Rembrandt van Rijn, Artist
in His Studio, ca. 1628–29, 24.8 x
31.7 cm, Museum of Fine Arts,
Boston, inv. no. 38.1838, ©2017
Museum of Fine Arts, Boston.

the model on which the work was based.[10] The competitive spirit that
Lastman taught his pupil, evident in Rembrandt’s responses to his master’s
compositions, came to characterize Rembrandt’s relations with his students
and later colleagues.[11] Lastman may also have encouraged Rembrandt todevelop his own style. At least that appears to have been something that
Rembrandt inspired in his own students, and which, in turn, wasrecommended by his pupil Samuel van Hoogstraten (1627–78).[12]When Rembrandt returned to Leiden in 1625, he set up as an independent
master and soon began to attract a local clientele. He also established, or
resumed, his remarkable working relationship with Jan Lievens, which lasted
until about February 1632, when Lievens left for England.[13] Within thosesame few years his fame spread, and Rembrandt was making paintings forclients in Amsterdam and The Hague. By 1633 he had decided to move to
Amsterdam, where he would spend the rest of his life. Key works in The

Fig 11. 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.

Leiden Collection from the 1620s and early 1630s shed light on fascinating
aspects of Rembrandt’s early career and his relations with, and impact on,
his colleagues.

Rembrandt’s earliest known paintings
The Leiden Collection owns three of Rembrandt’s earliest known paintings,
which appear to date from 1624/25, just before Rembrandt went to study with
Pieter Lastman: the wonderfully youthful Stone Operation (Allegory of Touch)(fig 2), Three Musicians (Allegory of Hearing) (fig 3), and recently
rediscovered Unconscious Patient (Allegory of Smell) (fig 4), which ismonogrammed with Rembrandt’s first known signature “RHF.” These threeworks, along with a fourth, Spectacles Seller (Allegory of Sight) in the

Fig 12. Rembrandt van Rijn, SelfPortrait, ca. 1628, oil on panel,
22.6 x 18.7 cm, Rijksmuseum,
Amsterdam, inv. no. SK-A-4691.

Museum de Lakenhal, Leiden (fig 5), once belonged to a series of the fivesenses.[14] The five senses were a popular subject, but Rembrandt’s
innovative approach of depicting it as medicinal, or quasi-medicinal, cures© 2020 The Leiden Collection

Rembrandt and The Leiden Collection
Page 6 of 22

was unlike any other. In his series, sight was represented by spectacles, ameans to improve impaired eyesight; touch by the stone operation—a
trepanation procedure in which a surgeon bores a hole into a patient’s
skull—a remedy for madness;[15] smell by smelling salts, used to revive apatient who had fainted; and hearing by music, considered to be a balm forthe soul and an antidote for melancholy.[16]These remedies were all real, though often suspect, cures in Rembrandt’s
day, at a time when medicine was viewed both with respect and with ridiculeand skepticism, and the line between a doctor and a quack was not always
clear. The colorful, antiquated costumes, exaggerated facial expressions,and gently mocking tone of several of the panels suggest that Rembrandt
was well aware of both the risks of dealing with medical practitioners, and theFig 13. Jan Lievens, Self-Portrait,ca. 1629–30, oil on panel, 42 x 37
cm, The Leiden Collection, New
York, inv. no. JL-105.

pictorial traditions that cast doctors as quacks and patients as dupes. We
might imagine that a still missing fifth sense, Allegory of Taste, would haveshown a patient responding violently to a foul tasting curative elixir of the sortthat doctors dispensed and quacks hawked at fairs, as in Adriaen
Brouwer’s The Bitter Potion of the mid-1630s (fig 6).[17]Such an inventive take on the popular subject of the five senses would havebeen an excellent choice for a young, emerging painter to show off the rangeof his skills and his originality. Rembrandt’s Stone Operation, Unconscious
Patient, and Three Musicians might be taken as youthful works of a fledgling
painter who has not yet mastered anatomy or facial structure and who, for
figures and faces, relies more on stylized types and formulae than on nature.
Yet, despite their amateurishness, the raw talent of the series of the Senses
prefigures what would become the distinguishing marks of Rembrandt’s

Fig 14. Rembrandt van Rijn, SelfPortrait Aged 23, 1629, oil on
panel, 89.7 x 73.5 cm, Isabella
Steward Gardner Museum,
Boston, inv. no. P21n6.

distinctively original and unruly style: rough handling and visible brushwork,
compelling expression of emotion through faces and gestures, attention to
the dramatic effects of artificial lighting, and delight in the colors, textures andoverall historicizing effects of old-fashioned and exotic costumes. Indeed, we
can imagine that, when Rembrandt went to study with Lastman, theAmsterdam master would have recognized in them Rembrandt’s exceptional
talent, albeit one that needed to be trained.
In 1718, Rembrandt’s first biographer, Arnold Houbraken (1660–1719),
regarded the young Rembrandt as a notably unbridled talent, as is evident bya somewhat puzzling anecdote in his text. According to Houbraken,
Rembrandt, having delivered a picture to “a lord in The Hague” (presumably
Constantijn Huygens), wanted to get home quickly with his payment and sotook the Leiden coach. When the driver and other passengers got out for a

Fig 15. Rembrandt van Rijn, The
Artist in Oriental Costume, with aPoodle at His Feet, 1631, oil on
panel, 66.5 x 52 cm, Musée duPetit Palais, Paris, inv. no. 925.
© 2020 The Leiden Collection

Rembrandt and The Leiden Collection
Page 7 of 22

stop at an inn, “the horses bolted and the coach abruptly set off” carrying
Rembrandt “for nothing and free of charge” back to Leiden.[18] This
unconventional trip home might be (and has been) taken as a comment on
Rembrandt’s pride after making a profitable sale; however, horses runningwild was also a metaphor for untrained talent. This association is madeexplicit in Houbraken’s text when he quotes the poet Joost van den Vondel(1587–1679), , who writes that “without art and study to rein it in…. a genius,
however gifted, will run wild like an unbroken horse. Meanwhile another,tamed by art and learning, succeeds like the stallion controlled and trainedwith the crop and spur of a good groom… and everywhere gains praise fromconnoisseurs.”[19]Houbraken then insinuates that Rembrandt was never really “tamed by art
and learning.” He writes that Rembrandt “would confine himself to no one
else’s rules and even less follow the example of the most celebrated artists

Fig 16. Isaac de Jouderville,
Portrait of Rembrandt in Oriental
Dress, ca. 1631, oil on panel, 70.8
x 50.5 cm, The Leiden Collection,
inv. no. IJ-100.

who had earned for themselves eternal fame by selecting the beautiful.”[20]Houbraken’s early eighteenth-century bias toward classicism blinded him toRembrandt’s learning and knowledge of the art of the past. However, what
Houbraken criticized as independence and favoring of the natural over theideal were evident in Rembrandt’s art from the outset.

Friendship and Rivalry
The series of Senses sheds light on Rembrandt’s relationship with Jan
Lievens. Although he would have known of other pictorial precedents,
especially in prints, Rembrandt may have been inspired to paint his inventive
variation on the senses by Lievens, who, about two years earlier, at age
fifteen, had painted an equally unconventional Allegory of the Five Senses (fig 7): in a single composition, Lievens cast the theme as a bawdy tavern
scene. Whatever their working relationship at this early date, it seems that
we might regard Rembrandt’s choice to paint the same genre subject as

Fig 17. Rembrandt van Rijn, SelfPortrait as a Burger, 1632, oil on
panel, 64.4 x 47.6 cm, The BurrellCollection, Glasgow, inv.nr.
35/600, © CSG CIC Glasgow
Museums and Libraries
Collections.

Lievens, in a similar Utrecht Caravaggesque format, as motivated by thedesire both to learn from and to compete with Lievens.
For a period from the mid-1620s until about 1632, Rembrandt and Lievens
worked unusually closely, as if in self-imposed direct competition, often
painting or drawing the same subject. The flurry of works that they produced
during this period suggests that they thrived on emulating and learning fromeach other.[21] What Ernst van de Wetering has called their “symbiotic”
working relationship has led to the assumption—undocumented but
plausible—that Rembrandt and Lievens shared a studio.[22] More likely, their© 2020 The Leiden Collection

Rembrandt and The Leiden Collection
Page 8 of 22

learning side-by-side, and painting neck-and-neck such subjects as Samson
and Delilah and the Raising of Lazarus, was the outcome of a self-consciousand deliberate shared studio ethos of friendly competition.[23] To say thatfrom the outset Rembrandt and Lievens were close colleagues does not fully
capture the nature of their friendship, which they must have regarded inseventeenth-century terms. Friendship was a humanist concept that carriedconnotations of virtue. Early modern ideas of friendship stemmed from
Cicero and Aristotle and were expressed in Erasmus’s adages “Friendshipis equality” and “A friend is a second self.”[24] Friendship between artists
could spur virtuous rivalry and foster creativity, as it inspired artists toencourage each other to do their best.
So, too, would their frequent painting of each other’s portraits have been in
the spirit of friendship, perhaps in imitation of Lucas van Leiden and Albrecht

Fig 18. Gerrit Dou, Self-Portrait,ca. 1645–46, oil on panel, 12.4 x
8.3 cm, Kremer Collection.

Dürer, who had portrayed each other a century before.[25] Rembrandt
appears to have painted Lievens in Three Musicians from the Senses (fig 3),
as well as in the Musical Allegory of 1626 in the Rijksmuseum.[26] Lievens
first known likeness of Rembrandt is in Card Players, of about 1623/24, in
The Leiden Collection (fig 8); he also included Rembrandt in Pilate WashingHis Hands of 1625/26, and he painted a Portrait of Rembrandt in about
1629.[27]Constantijn Huygens may have encouraged this remarkable artistic
symbiosis. Scouting for talent sometime in the late 1620s, Huygens visited
the Leiden studios, or shared studio, of the young Rembrandt and his
younger colleague Lievens. Shortly thereafter, in about 1630, he wrote about
them as if they were a “young and noble” pair and predicted they would
surpass even the greatest masters, including Rubens and the masters of

Fig 19. Rembrandt van Rijn, SelfPortrait at Age 34, 1640, oil oncanvas, 102 x 80 cm, National
Gallery, London, inv. no. NG672,© National Gallery, London / Art
Resource, NY.

Italy and antiquity. Although Huygens’s visit came well after they had started
working together, their painting of the same subjects ramped up after thisinitial contact with Huygens. Huygens was so impressed with what he saw inLeiden that he must have had Rembrandt and Lievens compete for acommission for the stadholder; the competition pieces are Christ on the
Cross by Rembrandt and Lievens’s painting of the same subject, both dated
1631 and both of which are based on a prototype by Peter Paul Rubens, who
was favored at court.[28] Rembrandt received the commission. In his
autobiography, Huygens compares the two and judges Rembrandt to be thebetter history painter, based on his ability to represent a biblical figure withdramatic and convincing emotions. The deeply expressive, moving Raisingand Descent from the Cross are the first two panels of the series ofChrist’s Passion that Rembrandt painted over the course of the 1630s.[29]Fig 20. Govert Flinck, Self-Portrait,
1634, oil on panel, 73.1 x 53.5 cm,
The Leiden Collection, New York,© 2020 The Leiden Collection

Rembrandt and The Leiden Collection
Page 9 of 22

Huygens judged Lievens to be the better portraitist, and in about 1628 orinv. no. GF-103.

1629 commissioned from him the Portrait of Constantijn Huygens now in the
Rijksmuseum.[30] However, Huygens was likely also responsible forRembrandt’s receiving the commission to paint, in 1632, a portrait of Amalia
van Solms (1602–75), wife of Frederick Hendrik, as well as intimate
friendship portraits of Maurits Huygens (1595–1642), Constantijn’s brother,and the engraver Jacques de Gheyn III (1596–1641).[31] Since Lievens had
departed for England in early 1632, we cannot know whether, had he been
available, he might have received some of these commissions. Early on,
Rembrandt may have taken cues from the more established, more
accomplished Lievens, yet he also went his own way from the outset: inresponse to Lievens’s more controlled handling, large-scale figure andtheatrical expressive mode, Rembrandt was distinguishing himself through arough painterly style and a naturalness in representing the passion. Creative

Fig 21. Ferdinand Bol, SelfPortrait, Behind a Parapet, 1648,
oil on canvas, 85.5 x 71 cm, The
Leiden Collection, New York, inv.
no. FB-107.

competition, in other words, provided a way for each artist to pursue andpush his own style. In 1632, however, the two young Leideners went theirseparate ways, Lievens to England and Rembrandt soon to Amsterdam andultimately to greater success. Their continued friendship is suggested by theeight paintings by Lievens that Rembrandt owned at the time of hisbankruptcy in 1656; according to the inventory made at the time, paintings of
The Raising of Lazarus by Rembrandt and Lievens, presumably the
paintings of circa 1630 and 1631, were hanging close together in
Rembrandt’s house, perhaps as souvenirs of their time of intense mutual
productivity.[32]Rembrandt and Gerrit Dou
Friendly and productive influence and exchange of ideas also colored theFig 22. Rembrandt van Rijn,
Young Girl in a Gold-trimmed
Cloak, 1632, oil on oval panel, 59
x 44 cm, The Leiden Collection,
New York, inv. no. RR-104.

relationship between Rembrandt and his first pupil Gerrit Dou (1613–75).
Dou would turn out to rank among the most successful of Rembrandt’s
pupils. The founder of what would come to be called the Leiden school offijnschilders (“fine painters”), he was famed for an unusually fine, detailed,meticulous manner of painting that was almost diametrically opposed toRembrandt’s loose rough handling. One wonders whether Rembrandt
recognized Dou’s extraordinary talent early on and encouraged him todevelop it.
Dou, a native of Leiden and the son of a glass painter, became Rembrandt’s
pupil in February 1628 at the age of fourteen, after initially training with anengraver and a glass painter in his father’s workshop.[33] The Leiden
Collection’s Self-Portrait (?) at the Easel (fig 9) is one of several works either

Fig 23. Rembrandt van Rijn,
Portrait of a Man in a Red Coat,© 2020 The Leiden Collection

Rembrandt and The Leiden Collection
Page 10 of 22

by or attributed to Dou, painted in response to Rembrandt’s Artist in His
Studio of circa 1628 (fig 10).[34] Rembrandt’s small studio scene completely

1633, oil on oval panel, 63.7 x 50.8
cm, The Leiden Collection, New
York, inv. no. RR-108.

transformed the pictorial tradition of the artist’s studio. Whereas, since thefifteenth century studio scenes had for the most part featured Saint Luke
painting or drawing the Virgin Mary, Rembrandt rendered the studio as an
ordinary place, a spare room with a plain plank floor and cracked plasterwalls. The closed door, in the shadows at right, suggests that this was also asolitary place. Working alone, without interruption, was already associatedwith artistic invention and the creative temperament. Indeed, that this is also
the site of something extraordinary—of divine artistic inspiration—is suggestedby the bright light that hits the front of the painter’s panel, which we see only
from the back. Most likely, this painter stands back from his panel because
he is inventing his composition in his mind before he begins to paint.[35]Dou, or possibly another artist who painted much like Dou, was quite takenwith Rembrandt’s innovative little painting—as the perfect opportunity forcreative artistic dialogue. Self-Portrait (?) at the Easel (fig 9) pointedly

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

replicates the back view of the painting on the easel, yet switches out what isa panel in Rembrandt’s painting for a large canvas on a stretcher.
Rembrandt’s painter stands far back from, and is dwarfed by, his panel, as if
to suggest that he is either inventing or contemplating his composition. In
contrast, Dou’s painter sits close enough to the canvas to be wielding hisbrush, making the point that he is engaged in a different kind of creativity. In
response to the plainness of Rembrandt’s studio, this one displays a wealthof fine objects—a plumed helmet, armor, a book, a trumpet, a scarf of manycolors—that, as elements of history paintings, evoke the intellectual
underpinnings of the artist’s work and that, because of their many finetextures and reflective materials, are especially suited to showcasing a finepainting style.[36] The differences between these two studio scenes point tothe close working relationship between Rembrandt and Dou, but also to theFig 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.

different directions that the two painters would take in their professional lives.
Dou would cultivate refinement as his signature style and fashionable
persona, whereas Rembrandt would become increasingly independent.

Self-Portraits
While Rembrandt pictured the studio only in the Boston painting and in alater etching, The Artist Drawing from a Model, he painted, etched and drew
more self-portraits than anyone up until the twentieth century. The
proliferation of studio scenes and self-portraits in the seventeenth-century
Fig 26. Rembrandt van Rijn,© 2020 The Leiden Collection

Rembrandt and The Leiden Collection
Page 11 of 22

Netherlands was symptomatic of the heightened self-awareness of Dutch
painters and of the demand for such pictures from a clientele that had
developed a taste for collecting paintings and a fascination withpainters.[37] At just this time, Huygens was writing his autobiography, so
perhaps he had an impact on Rembrandt’s interest in self-portrayal.[38]Minerva in Her Study, ca. 1631, oil
on panel, 60.5 x 49 cm, Staatliche
Museen zu Berlin,
Gemäldegalerie, Berlin, inv. no.
828c, © Gemäldegalerie derStaatlichen Museen zu Berlin Preußischer Kulturbesitz, photo:Anders, Jörg P.

Self-Portrait with Shaded Eyes (fig 11), in The Leiden Collection, dates tothe period of Rembrandt’s most prolific and most varied production of selfportraits, which spanned from the late 1620s through the 1630s. His
preoccupation with self-portrayal began in his early days in Leiden and wasan interest he shared with both his precocious colleague Jan Lievens and his
first pupil Gerrit Dou. In some of his earliest painted self-portraits, such asthat in the Rijksmuseum of circa 1628 (fig 12), Rembrandt experimented withsuggesting his psychological and emotional presence, and probably hismelancholic
[39]

eyes.

artistic

temperament,byevocatively

shadinghisRembrandt’s trademark loose handling is evident in his visible

brushstrokes and use of a sharp implement to incise his unruly hair (atechnique he appears to have learned from Lievens). The Rijksmuseum Self-

Fig 27. Rembrandt van Rijn, Juno,
ca. 1662–65, oil on canvas, 127 x
123.8 cm, Hammer Museum, Los
Angeles.

Portrait is so casual, and so unlike formal portraits, that some scholars havequestioned whether it was even meant as a portrait.[40] However, Jan
Lievens’s equally informal Self-Portrait of 1628/29 in The Leiden Collection (fig 13), along with Rembrandt’s many other self-images of these years,
suggest that the young Leideners shared an interest in expressive selfportrayal.[41] Through these innovative and strikingly informal self-portraits,
they were asserting their capacity for invention.
At the same time, Rembrandt was painting more formal, yet equally
imaginative, self-portraits, as for example the fanciful Self-Portrait, Age 23 of
1629, in the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, Boston (fig 14).[42]Remarkably, by 1633 a similar self-portrait by Rembrandt was in thecollection of Charles I of England (1600–49) at Whitehall Palace, where it
hung alongside several self-portraits by other artists.[43] That Rembrandt’s
fame had spread so early to England must have been due, at least in part, toConstantijn Huygens or the stadholder. In these and other early self-portraits,
Rembrandt wears not contemporary attire, but quasi-historical clothing—aberet and a gold chain through which he fashions himself as a “noble” artist.
“Noble” is in quotations because his elaborate chains evoke only the gold
chains of honor that court artists received from their ruler patrons.
Rembrandt would never get such a chain; instead, through fanciful chains headvanced a new kind of nobility attained neither by birth nor at court, butsolely through his brush. Indeed, Constantijn Huygens considered© 2020 The Leiden Collection

Rembrandt and The Leiden Collection
Page 12 of 22

Rembrandt’s and Lievens’s middle-class, common origins to be “theweightiest argument I know against the so-called nobility of blood.”[44]Rembrandt’s most elaborate painted self-portrait of this period is the fulllength Self-Portrait in Oriental Dress of 1631, in which Rembrandt dons quasihistorical attire to cast himself as an Oriental ruler (fig 15).[45] The Leiden
Collection’s copy of this painting, Isaac de Jouderville’s Rembrandt inOriental Dress (fig 16), provides insight into the master’s teachingpractice. Isaac de Jouderville (ca. 1612–48), who was Rembrandt’s second
apprentice in Leiden, probably painted it alongside the master, as isindicated by the fact that he did not depict the large dog, which Rembrandt
added somewhat later. De Jouderville’s painting is one of a number ofcopies of Rembrandt’s self-portraits, which indicates that copying themaster’s self-portraits was a workshop assignment.
In contrast to these fanciful self-portraits, Self-Portrait of 1632 in Glasgow (fig 17) comes as a surprise, for it is one of the few self-portraits in which
Rembrandt painted himself in fashionable contemporary attire.[46] Like
Constantijn Huygens in the portrait by Jan Lievens, Rembrandt wears a fine
hat of imported beaver felt and a soft ruff collar of the sort then in style. With
this assertive image, Rembrandt marked his new-found financial and artistic
success, for he portrays himself as he would one of his well-to-do sitters. He
may look like his clients here, but he was not of their class and never would
be. Further, through this self-portrait Rembrandt conveyed his lofty
ambitions. Specifically, he claimed his affinity with, and aimed to emulate,Peter Paul Rubens, for Rembrandt modeled his painting (and related
etching) after Rubens’s Self-Portrait of 1623 (Royal Collection) that was in
the collection of Charles I, which Rembrandt would have known through an
engraving by Paulus Pontius (1603–58).[47] Some years later, in about 1645,
Gerrit Dou would base his exceptionally small and finely painted—and socharacteristically his—Self-Portrait on Rembrandt’s painting or etching (fig18).[48]
In his other self-portraits of the mid-1630s, such as those of 1634 and 1635
in the Louvre, and Self-Portrait with Shaded Eyes from 1634 in The Leiden
Collection (fig 11), Rembrandt reverted to the imaginary historicizedmode.[49] Self-Portrait with Shaded Eyes shows Rembrandt wearing a furlined cloak over an old-fashioned chemise, as well as the black beret that hewould repeatedly use to identify himself as an artist. By shading his eyes,
Rembrandt evoked his inner self, perhaps to suggest his melancholic
temperament.[50]© 2020 The Leiden Collection

Rembrandt and The Leiden Collection
Page 13 of 22

These self-portraits from the mid-1630s prefigure the culmination of
Rembrandt’s fanciful self-portrait mode in the etched Self-Portrait Leaning ona Stone Sill of 1639 and Self-Portrait at Age 34 of 1640, in the National
Gallery, London (fig 19).[51] The London self-portrait, possibly the painting
described as “Rembrandts contrefeijtsel antijcks” in the 1657 inventory of
the Amsterdam merchant and art dealer Johannes de Renialme (1600–57),
is arguably the master’s most remarkable and most influential self-portrait.[52]It assimilated and made pointed reference to two famous Italian portraits that
Rembrandt had seen in Amsterdam in 1639, Raphael’s Portrait ofBaldassare Castiglione and Titian’s Portrait of a Man, which was thenthought to represent the Italian poet Ariosto.[53] Through this act of emulation,
Rembrandt inserted himself into and claimed to be worthy of a place in thislineage of great masters.
Rembrandt’s London self-portrait is especially relevant here because it wasso tremendously influential, and The Leiden Collection holds two outstanding
examples of its impact. For his Self-Portrait of 1643, Govaert Flinck(1615–60) (fig 20), who had been Rembrandt’s student in 1634–35, drew
both on Rembrandt’s painting and his etched Self-Portrait Leaning on a
Stone Sill of 1639. Likewise, in his Self-Portrait, Behind a Parapet of 1648 (fig 21), Ferdinand Bol (1616–80), who had studied with Rembrandt in the1630s, made reference to and pointedly transformed Rembrandt’s painting.
Flinck and Bol were among several of Rembrandt’s students andassistants—others included Dou, Samuel van Hoogstraten and Arent deGelder (1645–1727)—who, years after they had studied with Rembrandt, paid
homage to their master by emulating Self-Portrait at Age 34.

Portraits
Whereas Rembrandt portrayed himself primarily in historicized costume andimaginary guises, and only on a few occasions in contemporary dress, hepainted the vast majority of his commissioned portraits in a formal andfashionable mode. These would have been called counterfeytsels, a termthat derives from “counterfeit” meaning, in the context of portraiture, anexact or naturalistic likeness. But Rembrandt also painted likenesses of real,
though probably not paying, people in imaginary historicized (quasi-) portraits
called tronies, a term that derives from the Dutch word for head, meaning atype of character study. Several impressive paintings in The Leiden
Collection speak to Rembrandt’s portrait production, its range, and thecomplexity of the issues surrounding it.
© 2020 The Leiden Collection

Rembrandt and The Leiden Collection
Page 14 of 22

Young Girl in a Gold Trimmed Cloak (fig 22) is typical of Rembrandt’s
imaginary, evocative tronies in that it occupies an ambiguous space between
portrait and historicized character study. On the one hand, the young girlwears fanciful old-fashioned clothing and is not painted the way Rembrandt
would portray a paying client. On the other hand, she must have been aknown model, for Rembrandt painted her more than once, and his pupil
Isaac de Jouderville also portrayed her. Rembrandt has portrayed her inmuch the same “antiek” historical, possibly pastoral, costume in which hewould soon portray his wife Saskia.[54]Rembrandt painted his first formal portrait of an Amsterdam sitter, Portrait ofNicolas Ruts, in 1631.[55] In 1632, he was commissioned (presumably via
Constantijn Huygens) to portray several sitters from The Hague, including
Amalia van Solms, wife of stadholder Frederick Hendrik, and, in a pair offriendship portraits, Maurits Huygens, Constantijn’s brother and thesecretary of the Council of State, and artist Jacob de Gheyn III. However,Rembrandt must have recognized that wealthy, bustling Amsterdam offered
him greater potential and, eventually, greater independence, for by 1633 hehad moved there permanently. At first, because he was not a citizen, he
could not open his own studio in Amsterdam. Instead, he went to work for thepainter-dealer Hendrick van Uylenburgh (1587–1661), with whom he hadalready been in business since 1631. Initially, he lodged in Uylenburgh’s
house and headed up Uylenburgh’s growing workshop, or “academy” as it
was called, where he made his success portraying a range of sitters in anarray of portrait modes. With these, Rembrandt dominated portrait productionin Amsterdam for the decade of the 1630s, painting some of Amsterdam’s
wealthiest and most important citizens. For example, the innovative,
extraordinarily large and presumably quite expensive Shipbuilder and His
Wife, 1633, the double portrait of Jan Pietersz Bruyningh and his wife
Hillegont Pietersdr Moutmaker, and the extraordinarily elegant and costly fulllength pendants of Marten Soolmans and Oopjen Coppit, date from thisfollowing year.[56]Two portraits in The Leiden Collection exemplify Rembrandt’s portrait
production in Uylenburgh’s studio and some of the issues surrounding it.
Although we do not know the identity of its marvelously lively sitter, Portrait ofa Man in a Red Coat of 1633 (fig 23) must be a commissioned portrait. The
man wears fashionable but unusual clothing, in that Dutch men of the period
were typically portrayed in black. His red coat, with its braided fasteners,
suggests he might be either a military man or, perhaps, a foreigner. That heturns to the right makes it likely that this portrait once had a pendant.
© 2020 The Leiden Collection

Rembrandt and The Leiden Collection
Page 15 of 22

Rembrandt has here captured the individual’s character and liveliness, andseemingly exercised a certain liberty in rendering him with such a warm andimmediate personality—as a man bold enough to wear red.
The elegant, animated Portrait of Antonie Coopal (fig 24) is a second formal
portrait associated with Rembrandt’s time as head of Uylenburgh’s“academy.” Whereas Portrait of a Man in a Red Coat appears to be entirely
by Rembrandt’s hand, Portrait of Antonie Coopal of 1635 was probably a
collaborative work, painted together with a member of his workshop. Recent
technical and stylistic analysis indicates that, while Rembrandt conceived ofand blocked out the composition for the portrait, the execution of the
fashionable broad lace collar was carried out with studio assistance.

Monumental Histories
Painted in 1635, the same year as Portrait of Antonie Coopal, the Leiden’sCollection’s magnificent Minerva in Her Study (fig 25) is one of Rembrandt’s
great history paintings of the 1630s. In its grandeur and monumentality, thelarge Minerva is emblematic of the new, more ambitious direction that
opened up to Rembrandt after he left Uylenburgh’s “academy” in 1635 to
set up his own studio as a citizen of Amsterdam. From the very beginning of
his career in Leiden, Rembrandt had aspired to be a history painter. Although
he was occupied largely with fulfilling commissions for portraits while with
Uylenburgh, Rembrandt also found time to develop another type of paintingthat blurred the boundaries between portrait and history painting: the largescale historical “portrait,” of which the Minerva is the most accomplished.
This painting was the culmination of what must have been for Rembrandt aninnovative type: the heroic woman from antiquity. These include Bellona of1633, Artemisia of 1634, and the two Floras of 1634 and 1635, both of which
are thought to represent Saskia.[57] An etching of 1635, The Great Jewish
Bride, which presumably also represents a woman from antiquity, comesclosest to the monumentality of Minerva.
When the painting is compared with Rembrandt’s much smaller, far lessmonumental Minerva of circa 1631 (fig 26), and with the large but somewhat
awkward Bellona, the magnificence of The Leiden Collection’s Minerva in
Her Study becomes apparent. By placing Minerva at her desk, with its
impressive tomes and globe, Rembrandt brings the goddess down to earth ina way that only a Dutch artist could do. At the same time, he brilliantly
amplifies her presence by enhancing her with a range of beautifully painted
sumptuous, shining fabrics. The extraordinary effort that Rembrandt devoted© 2020 The Leiden Collection

Rembrandt and The Leiden Collection
Page 16 of 22

to conceptualizing and painting this Minerva suggests that he accorded thesubject special significance. Minerva (the Greek Pallas Athena) was thegoddess of war, but here, with her helmet and gorgon-headed shield behind
her, she represents peace and wisdom, and specifically the wisdom underwhich the arts flourish in times of peace. In that capacity, Minerva waspainting’s protector, a role that Hendrick Goltzius (1558–1617) had accorded
her in 1611.[58] Although Goltzius painted her undraped, Rembrandt musthave known that Minerva was the protector of crafts more broadly, and of
weaving and embroidery specifically. In the Iliad, Homer describes her as
wearing a dress that she embroidered herself, along with a “splendid
cloak.”[59]That Rembrandt, quite fittingly, treated Minerva in Her Study as ademonstration of his skill with the brush is suggested by the sheer quality ofhandling, especially of drapery. Rembrandt showcases his ability to paintmany different kinds and textures of fabric, from Minerva’s gold embroidered
brocade cloak, purple-ish embroidered satin dress, and blue sash with gold
tassels (all of which correspond to classical descriptions of her), to the lush
carpet on the table before her. In the art theory of the time, drapery was
regarded as notoriously difficult to master, which explains the ubiquity ofmulticolored scarves in self-portraits and pictures of artists’ studios byRembrandt and Gerrit Dou, especially. Karel van Mander, in Het
Schilderboeck of 1604, wrote that painting drapery, clouds and hair required
geest (“spirit or imagination”).[60] With Minerva’s golden locks, Rembrandt
meets the challenge of painting hair.
Given Minerva’s significance to the Art of Painting, we might imagine that
Rembrandt made the painting for an erudite collector. Whatever prompted it,
Minerva appears to have been part of Rembrandt’s larger project, startingwhen he set out on his own in 1635, to establish himself as a painter of large,monumental histories, such as Belshazzar’s Feast of circa 1636 and The
Blinding of Samson of 1636.[61] But these are dramatic narratives. In many
ways, Minerva—with her imposing strength, alert intelligence, and steadfast
self-possession—looks forward to the paintings of powerful historical womenfrom Rembrandt’s late career, above all Juno of 1662–65 (fig 27).[62]As the marvelous paintings in The Leiden Collection illustrate, the crucial
distinguishing features of Rembrandt’s art—emotional expression and theability to give compelling human presence and character to sitters for
portraits and historical figures alike—were evident in his paintings early on.
These were the qualities he cultivated and advanced in the very best of his© 2020 The Leiden Collection

Rembrandt and The Leiden Collection
Page 17 of 22

works. Rembrandt was also an extraordinary colleague and teacher who
helped to foster the art and advance the careers of the artists around him. As
demonstrated by Lievens, Dou, and many others in The Leiden Collection,
Rembrandt stood at the very center of a remarkable artistic moment thatthrived on, and drew its distinctive nature from, a culture of virtuous rivalryand emulation.

- H. Perry Chapman, 2017

© 2020 The Leiden Collection

Rembrandt and The Leiden Collection
Page 18 of 22

Endnotes

1. Since the publication of this essay in 2017, the number of paintings by Rembrandt in The
Leiden Collection has grown. A future contribution will address these recent acquisitions.
2. Pliny, Natural History. Book XXXV. 88, 81.
3. Karel van Mander, Het Schilder-boeck (Haarlem, 1604), fol. 212v.
4. Eric Jan Sluijter, Rembrandt’s Rivals: History Painting in Amsterdam 1630–1650, OCULI:
Studies in the Arts of the Low Countries 14 (Amsterdam, 2015), 19–22; James Clifton,“Vasari on Competition,” The Sixteenth Century Journal 27, no. 1 (Spring 1996), 23–41.
5. Albert H. Kan, De jeugd van Constantijn Huygens door hemzelf beschreven (Rotterdam,
1971), 17, cited in H. Perry Chapman, Rembrandt’s Self-Portraits (Princeton, 1990), 12.
6. Michael McKeon, The Secret History of Domesticity: Public, Private, and the Division of
Knowledge (Baltimore, 2009), 228–32.
7. For the full details of Rembrandt’s life, see his biography in this catalogue.
8. Jan Jansz. Orlers, Beschrijvinge der Stadt Leyden (Leiden, 1641), 375.
9. John Michael Montias, Artists and Artisans in Delft: A Socio-Economic Study of theSeventeenth Century (Princeton, 1982).
10. Rembrandt van Rijn, Balaam and the Ass, 1626 (Musée Cognacq-Jay, Paris); Pieter
Lastman, Balaam and the Ass, 1622, The Israel Museum, Jerusalem. Rembrandt’s Baptismof the Eunuch, 1626 (Museum Catherijneconvent, Utrecht), similarly reworks Lastman’s
painting of the same subject of 1623 in the Staatliche Kunsthalle, Karlsruhe.
11. This attitude is evident more broadly among Dutch seventeenth-century painters.
12. Samuel van Hoogstraten, Inleyding tot de hooge schoole der schilderkonst: anders dezichtbaere werelt (Rotterdam, 1678), 11–2, 175; Eric Jan Sluijter, Rembrandt’s Rivals:
History Painting in Amsterdam 1630–1650, OCULI: Studies in the Arts of the Low Countries
14 (Amsterdam, 2015), 106.
13. Christiaan Vogelaar, “Een jong en edel Leids schildersduo,” in Rembrandt en Lievens inLeiden: Een jong en edel schildersduo, ed. Christiaan Vogelaar (Exh. cat. Leiden, Museum
de Lakenhal) (Zwolle, 1991), 12–23.
14. Ilona van Tuinen, “A Newly Discovered Painting by Rembrandt van Rijn: The Unconscious
Patient (Smell),” in Jordaens Rembrandt: Two New Early Works (Paris, 2016), 20–37.
15. Trepanation, or trepanning, in which a surgeon bores, or scrapes, a hole into a patient’s skull
in order to relieve pressure, is one of the oldest medical procedures on record. In
Rembrandt’s time it was thought to relieve various mental disorders; it was also practiced by© 2020 The Leiden Collection

Rembrandt and The Leiden Collection
Page 19 of 22

frauds who would pretend to remove stones from patients’ heads.
16. The notion that music has curative powers is expressed in the inscription on the lid of thevirginal in Vermeer’s Lady at the Virginals with a Gentleman (Royal Collection): MUSICA
LETITIAE CO[ME]S / MEDICINA DOLOR[IS] (“music is a companion in pleasure and a balm
in sorrow”). For the history of music as a remedy for melancholy, see Doris Silbert,“Melancholy and Music in the Renaissance,” Notes (Second Series) 4, no. 4 (1947): 413–24;
Penelope Gouk, “Music, Melancholy, and Medical Spirits in Early Modern Thought,” in Musicas Medicine: The History of Music Therapy Since Antiquity, ed. Peregrine Horden (Aldershot,2000), 173–94.
17. Adriaen Brouwer, The Bitter Potion, ca. 1636–38 (Städel Museum, Frankfurt am Main).
18. Arnold

Houbraken,

DegrooteschouburghderNederlantsche

konstschilders

enschilderessen, 3 vols. (Amsterdam, 1718–21; revised edition, The Hague 1753; reprinted in1976), 1: 255.
19. In this text, Vondel is referring to the Allegory of the Chariot from Plato’s Phaedrus. Joost van
den Vondel, Aanleidinge ter Niederduitsche Dichtkunste, cited in Arnold Houbraken, De
groote schouburgh der Nederlantsche konstschilders en schilderessen (Amsterdam,
1718–21; revised edition, The Hague 1753; reprinted in 1976), 1: 267.
20. Arnold

Houbraken,

DegrooteschouburghderNederlantsche

konstschilders

enschilderessen, 3 vols. (Amsterdam, 1718–21; revised edition, The Hague 1753; reprinted in1976), 1: 267.
21. Christiaan Vogelaar, ed. Rembrandt en Lievens in Leiden: Een jong en edelschildersduo (Exh. cat. Leiden, Museum de Lakenhal) (Zwolle, 1991).
22. Ernst van de Wetering, “De symbiose van Lievens en Rembrandt,” in Rembrandt en Lievens
in Leiden: Een jong en edel schildersduo, ed. Christiaan Vogelaar (Exh. cat. Leiden, Museum
de Lakenhal) (Zwolle, 1991), 39–47.
23. Rembrandt, Samson and Delilah, 1628 (Staatliche Museen, Gemäldegalerie, Berlin); Jan
Lievens, Samson and Delilah, ca. 1626–30, Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam; Rembrandt van Rijn,
The Raising of Lazarus, ca. 1630 (Los Angeles County Museum of Art); Jan Lievens, The
Raising of Lazarus, 1631 (Art Gallery and Museum, Brighton).
24. David Bomford, “Peter Paul Rubens and the Value of Friendship,” in Virtue: Virtuoso,
Virtuosity in Netherlandish Art 1500–1700.Nederlands Kunsthistorisch Jaarboek 54, ed. Jan
de Jong, et al. (Zwolle, 2004), 229–57.
25. Karel van Mander, Het Schilder-boeck (Haarlem, 1604), fol. 212v.
26. Rembrandt van Rijn, Musical Allegory, 1626, Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam.
27. Jan Lievens, Pilate Washing His Hands, ca. 1625/26, Museum de Lakenhal, Leiden; Jan
Lievens, Portrait of Rembrandt, ca. 1629 (Private Collection, on loan to the Rijksmuseum,© 2020 The Leiden Collection

Rembrandt and The Leiden Collection
Page 20 of 22

Amsterdam).
28. Rembrandt van Rijn, Christ on the Cross, 1631 (Saint-Vincent Church, Le Mas d’Agenais);and Jan Lievens, Christ on the Cross, 1631 (Musée des Beaux Arts, Nancy).
29. Rembrandt van Rijn, Raising of the Cross and Descent from the Cross, both 1633 (Alte
Pinakothek, Munich).
30. Jan Lievens, Portrait of Constantijn Huygens, ca. 1628/29 (Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam).
31. Rembrandt van Rijn, Amalia van Solms, 1632 (Musée Jacquemart-André, Paris); Maurits
Huygens, 1632 (Kunsthalle, Hamburg); Jacques de Gheyn III, 1632 (Dulwich Picture Gallery,
London).
32. Rembrandt van Rijn, The Raising of Lazarus, ca. 1630 (Los Angeles County Museum of Art);Jan Lievens, The Raising of Lazarus, 1631 (Art Gallery and Museum, Brighton). A
transcription of the inventory made at the time of Rembrandt’s bankruptcy in 1656 is in
Walter L. Strauss and Marjon van der Meulen, The Rembrandt Documents (New York, 1979),
349–88, Doc. 1656/12. See also Bob van den Boogert, ed., Rembrandt’s Treasures (Exh. cat.
Amsterdam, Museum Het Rembrandthuis) (Zwolle, 1999).
33. See the biography of Gerrit Dou in this catalogue.
34. Rembrandt van Rijn, Artist in His Studio, ca. 1628 (Museum of Fine Arts, Boston).
35. Ernst van de Wetering, Gheschildert tot Leyden Anno 1626 (Exh. cat. Leiden, Museum de
Lakenhal) (Leiden, 1976), 20; and Ernst van de Wetering, “De symbiose van Lievens en
Rembrandt,” in Rembrandt en Lievens in Leiden: Een jong en edel schildersduo, ed.
Christiaan Vogelaar (Exh. cat. Leiden, Museum de Lakenhal) (Leiden, 1991), 44.
36. Although the attribution of the Leiden Collection studio scene is not yet secure, otherpaintings by Dou, both scenes of artists in their studios, as well as self-portraits such as thatin Dresden of 1647, show that Dou continued to respond to Rembrandt long after Rembrandt
left Leiden.
37. H. Perry Chapman, Rembrandt’s Self-Portraits (Princeton, 1990); H. Perry Chapman, “TheImagined Studios of Rembrandt and Vermeer,” in Inventions of the Studio, Renaissance to
Romanticism, ed. Michael Cole and Mary Pardo (Chapel Hill, 2005), 108–46; Katja Kleinert,
Atelierdarstellungen

in

der

niederländischen

Genremalerei

des

17.

Jahrhunderts.

Realistisches Abbild oder glaubwürdiger Schein? (Petersberg, 2006).
38. See H. Perry Chapman, Rembrandt’s Self-Portraits (Princeton, 1990), 32 and fig. 35, for aself-portrait drawing of 1622 in which Constantijn Huygens has portrayed himself with shadedeyes as Rembrandt would later do in The Leiden Collection’s Self-Portrait with Shaded Eyes
(see entry in this catalogue).
39. H. Perry Chapman, Rembrandt’s Self-Portraits (Princeton, 1990), 24–33.
40. Ernst van de Wetering, et al. A Corpus of Rembrandt Paintings, Vol. 4: Self© 2020 The Leiden Collection

Rembrandt and The Leiden Collection
Page 21 of 22

Portraits, Stichting Foundation Rembrandt Research Project (Dordrecht, 2005), 111.
41. See also Gerrit Dou’s somewhat fanciful Self-Portrait of circa 1631 in the Brooklyn Museum.
42. Rembrandt van Rijn, Self-Portrait, Age 23, 1629 (Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, Boston).
43. The self-portrait in the collection of Charles I was either Rembrandt, Self-Portrait as a Young
Man, ca. 1630 (Walker Art Gallery, Liverpool), or a version of this same painting. Ernst van deWetering, et al. A Corpus of Rembrandt Paintings. Vol. 4: Self-Portraits, Stichting Foundation
Rembrandt Research Project (Dordrecht, 2005), 92, attributes the Liverpool Self-Portrait to
Isaac de Jouderville. For the argument that the Liverpool Self-Portrait as a Young Man is by
Rembrandt,

see

XantheBrooke,

Face

to

Face:

Three

CenturiesofArtists’ Self-portraiture (Exh. cat. Liverpool, Walker Art Gallery) (Liverpool, 1994).
44. Albert H. Kan, De jeugd van Constantijn Huygens door hemzelf beschreven (Rotterdam,
1971), 78–81, translated in Gary Schwartz, Rembrandt: His Life, His Paintings: A New
Biography with All Accessible Paintings Illustrated in Colour. (London, 1985), 73.
45. Rembrandt van Rijn, Self-Portrait in Oriental Dress, 1631 Musée du Petit Palais, Paris).
46. Rembrandt van Rijn, Self-Portrait, 1632 (Glasgow Museums, The Burrell Collection).
47. Peter Paul Rubens, Self-Portrait, 1623 (Royal Collection Trust, Buckingham Palace, London);Paulus Pontius, after Peter Paul Rubens, Self-Portrait, engraving, 1630.
48. Gerrit Dou, Self-Portrait, ca. 1645–46 (Kremer Collection).
49. Rembrandt, Self-Portrait, 1634 (Musée du Louvre, Paris); Rembrandt van Rijn, Self-Portrait,
1635, (Musée du Louvre, Paris).
50. H. Perry Chapman, Rembrandt’s Self-Portraits (Princeton, 1990), 24–33.
51. Rembrandt van Rijn, Self-Portrait Leaning on a Stone Sill, 1639, etching; and Self-Portrait atAge 34, 1640 (National Gallery, London).
52. For the Renialme inventory, see Walter L. Strauss and Marjon van der Meulen, The
Rembrandt Documents (New York, 1979), Doc. 1657/2.
53. Raphael, Portrait of Baldassare Castiglione (Musée du Louvre, Paris); Titian, Portrait of a
Man (National Gallery, London).
54. Rembrandt van Rijn, Saskia van Uylenburgh, the Wife of the Artist, 1634/35 and
1638/40, National Gallery of Art, Washington.
55. Rembrandt van Rijn, Portrait of Nicolas Ruts, 1631 (Frick Collection, New York).
56. Rembrandt van Rijn, Shipbuilder and His Wife, 1633 (Royal Collection Trust, Buckingham
Palace, London); Jan Pietersz Bruyningh and his Wife Hillegont Pietersdr Moutmaker, 1634
(Museum of Fine Arts, Boston); Marten Soolmans and Oopjen Coppit, 1634 (Rijksmuseum,
Amsterdam and Musée du Louvre, Paris).
57. Rembrandt van Rijn, Bellona, 1633, Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York; Artemisia, 1634
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Rembrandt and The Leiden Collection
Page 22 of 22(Prado Museum, Madrid), and the two Floras of 1634 ( State Hermitage Museum, St.
Petersburg) and 1635 (National Gallery, London). The Floras appear to be historicized
portraits of Saskia, which would make sense given that the guise of the goddess of love andfertility would be appropriate for Rembrandt’s new wife (and he would later represent her andHendrickje as Flora).
58. In 1611 Goltzius painted Minerva together with Mercury as life-size protectors of painting. In
1613, he added Hercules and Caucus, to make a kind of triptych (Frans Hals Museum,
Haarlem). For Minerva as protector of painting in prints of the period, see the entry on
Minerva in Her Study in this catalogue.
59. Volker Manuth and Marieke de Winkel, Rembrandt’s “Minerva in Her Study” of 1635: The
Splendor and Wisdom of a Goddess (Sales cat. New York, Otto Naumann, Ltd.) (New York,
2002).
60. Karel van Mander, Het Schilder-boeck: Waer in Voor eerst leerlustighe leught den grondt derEdel Vry Schilderconst in Verscheyden deelen Wort Voorghedragen (Haarlem, 1604), VIII.37,
f. 37; and marginal notation X.8, f. 43.
61. Rembrandt van Rijn, Belshazzar’s Feast, ca. 1636 (National Gallery, London); and The
Blinding of Samson, 1636 (Städel Museum, Frankfurt am Main).
62. Rembrandt van Rijn, Juno, ca. 1662–65 (Hammer Museum, Los Angeles).

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