Rembrandt and The Leiden Collection

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Chapman, Perry H. "Rembrandt and The Leiden Collection." In The Leiden Collection Catalogue. Edited by
Arthur K. Wheelock Jr. New York, 2017.
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© 2017 The Leiden Collection

Rembrandt and The Leiden Collection
Page 2 of 24

Rembrandt’s artistic origins in Leiden andearly successes in Amsterdam, seen throughthe lens of The Leiden Collection.

Comparative Figures

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

Fig 1. Pieter Lastman, David
Gives Uriah a Letter for Joab,
PL-100to Amsterdam in the early 1630s, where he soon became the most famousand innovative, most in-demand painter in that great urban center.
Throughout his career he demonstrated an unprecedented level of artistic
self-awareness, 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
traditional view that Rembrandt was an independent, singular genius who
set himself apart from his society is, to a certain extent, true at later stagesof his career. However, during his early years he was very much part of his
artistic community, as both an esteemed colleague and a dedicated,

Fig 2. Rembrandt van Rijn, Stone
Operation (Allegory of Touch),
RR-102

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—asopposed to destructive envy, the great metaphorical enemy ofpainting—was regarded as essential to the advancement of art. The mostpromising young artists were encouraged to surpass their masters.
Colleagues were encouraged to vie with each other, whether informally orin sanctioned competitions. Rembrandt and his contemporaries would
have known of the ancient Greek painters Apelles and Protogenes, whocompeted over who could draw the finer 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, andFig 3. Rembrandt van Rijn, ThreeMusicians (Allegory of Hearing),
RR-105…on occasion Lucas immediately engraved the same histories or othersubjects that Dürer had made,” and who “regarded each other’s works
with great admiration,” according to the biographer Karel van Mander(1548–1606).[3] The concept of emulation, meaning imitation with the aimof transforming and improving upon an admired model, would have been
deeply ingrained in the minds of ambitious artists.[4] Rembrandt’s manyand varied responses to the art of his predecessors—his teacher Pieter© 2017 The Leiden Collection

Rembrandt and The Leiden Collection
Page 3 of 24

Lastman (1583–1633), his fellow townsman Lucas van Leyden, the greatPeter Paul Rubens (1577–1640), the famed Italian Renaissance masters,
and the renowned ancients—can be broadly characterized as emulative,
as can the responses of his successors to his art. The depth and breadthof Rembrandt’s creative exchanges with his colleagues, students andfollowers during the 1620s and 1630s are amply on display in paintings in
The Leiden Collection.

Talent and Education
In his autobiography, written in about 1630, Constantijn Huygens

Fig 4. Rembrandt van Rijn,
Unconscious Patient (Allegory of
Smell), RR-111(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 andhad attained an important position at court, Huygens was the secretary to
the stadholder 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 hisquestion of nature vs. nurture to Rembrandt, or, with his precocious selfconfidence and sense of his potential for greatness, was Rembrandt,
himself, already curious about this issue? The artist Rembrandt became

Fig 5. Rembrandt van Rijn,
Spectacles Seller (Allegory ofSight), ca. 1624, oil on panel, 21 x
17.8 cm, Stedelijk Museum de
Lakenhal, Leiden, S 5697

was partly due to his innate and—in seventeenth-century terms—Godgiven talent and drive, but it was also a function of his circumstances.
Rembrandt’s father owned a mill and some property in Leiden.[7] As was
typical of artists, Rembrandt’s family was of the solid, or broad, middle
class. Painters worked with their hands and so were among those whopracticed trades or professions, and were members of guilds. Yet theyranked 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 a manual craft but also as one of theliberal arts. Painters, broadly speaking, liked to think of themselves ascreating with their minds, not just their hands.

Fig 6. Adriaen Brouwer, The
Bitter Draught, mid-1630s, oil on
panel, 47.5 x 35.5 cm,
Städelsches Kunstinstitut,Frankfurt am Main, © Städel
Museum – U. Edelmann –ARTOTHEK© 2017 The Leiden Collection

Rembrandt and The Leiden Collection
Page 4 of 24

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 1575. Compared to many painters, Rembrandt was welleducated. His family had enough ambition for him, and sufficient funds, to
send

him

to

the

local

elite

Latin

School,which

prepared

students—exclusively boys—to go to university. At the Latin School hewould have read the classics and must have learned Latin and perhaps

Fig 7. Jan Lievens, Allegory of
the Five Senses, ca. 1622, oil on
panel, 78.2 x 124.4 cm, private
collectionsome Greek, which would have been good preparation for becoming ahistory painter, to which Rembrandt would soon aspire. Although, at age
fourteen, in 1620, Rembrandt was registered at the University, heapparently did not attend. By then, according to his first biographer, Jan
Orlers of Leiden, he had discovered his passion for painting anddrawing.[8]His parents, recognizing his talent, set him on the costly course of
becoming a painter. Compared with training in other crafts and trades,
apprenticing with a master painter was an expensive undertaking.[9] First,

Fig 8. Jan Lievens, Card Players,
JL-102starting in 1620, Rembrandt apprenticed for about three years in the studioof the Leiden painter Jacob van Swanenburgh (1571–1638); there hewould 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 onstrong contrast of light and dark; it may have been in Van Swanenburgh’s
studio that Rembrandt first developed an appreciation for dramatic lighting
effects.
Exactly what happened immediately after his apprenticeship with Van

Fig 9. Attributed to Gerrit Dou,
Self-Portrait (?) at an Easel,
GD-112

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 thanRembrandt and considerably more advanced in his career. Lievens, bornin 1607, the year after Rembrandt, had started painting at age eight. He
had apprenticed first with Joris Verschoten (ca. 1587–1652) in Leiden,
and then for about two years with his “second master” Pieter Lastman, themost 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

Fig 10. Rembrandt van Rijn,
Artist in His Studio, ca. 1628–9,
24.8 x 31.7 cm, Museum of Fine
© 2017 The Leiden Collection

Rembrandt and The Leiden Collection
Page 5 of 24

was probably in his parents’ house. In 1623/24, Rembrandt may haveArts, Boston, 38.1838

wanted to catch up with the more skilled and accomplished Lievens.
Attending Latin School had meant that Rembrandt got a late start as apainter, 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-month finishing-up
apprenticeship with the famous Lastman who, like Van Swanenburgh, hadspent 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
(fig 1), in The Leiden Collection, exemplifies the kind of work that
Rembrandt would have seen and learned from in the master’s studio. To

Fig 11. Rembrandt van Rijn, SelfPortrait with Shaded Eyes,
RR-110judge by several early works in which Rembrandt reprised themes andcompositions by Lastman—for example, Rembrandt’s Balaam and the
Ass of 1626 reworks Lastman’s painting of the same subject of 1622—histeacher encouraged not just imitation but emulation, which entailed adesire to outdo the model on which the work was based.[10] The
competitive spirit that Lastman taught his pupil, evident in Rembrandt’s
responses

tohismaster’s

compositions,

came

to

characterize

Rembrandt’s relations with his students and later colleagues.[11] Lastman
may also have encouraged Rembrandt to develop his own style. At leastthat appears to have been something that Rembrandt inspired in his own
students, and which, in turn, was recommended by his pupil Samuel van
Hoogstraten (1627–78).[12]Fig 12. Rembrandt van Rijn, SelfPortrait, ca. 1628, oil on panel,
22.6 x 18.7 cm, Rijksmuseum,
Amsterdam, SK-A-4691

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, whichlasted until about February 1632, when Lievens left for England.[13] Withinthose same few years his fame spread, and Rembrandt was making
paintings for clients 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 Leiden Collection from the 1620s and early 1630s shedlight on fascinating aspects of Rembrandt’s early career and his relations
with, and impact on, his colleagues.

Fig 13. Jan Lievens, Self-Portrait,
JL-105

Rembrandt’s earliest known paintings© 2017 The Leiden Collection

Rembrandt and The Leiden Collection
Page 6 of 24

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) (fig3), and recently rediscovered Unconscious Patient (Allegory of Smell) (fig4), which is monogrammed with Rembrandt’s first known signature “RHF.”
These three works, along with a fourth, Spectacles Seller (Allegory ofSight) in the Museum de Lakenhal, Leiden (fig 5), once belonged to aseries of the five senses.[14] The five senses were a popular subject, but
Rembrandt’s innovative approach of depicting it as medicinal, or quasimedicinal, cures was unlike any other. In his series, sight was represented
by spectacles, a means to improve impaired eyesight; touch by the stone
operation—a trepanation procedure in which a surgeon bores a hole into a

Fig 14. Rembrandt van Rijn, SelfPortrait Aged 23, 1629, oil onwood, 89.7 x 73.5 cm, Isabella
Steward Gardner Museum,
Boston, P21n6

patient’s skull—a remedy for madness;[15] smell by smelling salts, used torevive a patient who had fainted; and hearing by music, considered to be abalm for the 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 withridicule and 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 the pictorial traditions that cast doctors as quacks andpatients as dupes. We might imagine that a still missing fifth sense,
Allegory of Taste, would have shown a patient responding violently to 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, no. 925

foul tasting curative elixir of the sort that doctors dispensed and quacks
hawked at fairs, as in Adriaen Brouwer’s The Bitter Draught of themid-1630s (fig 6).[17]Such an inventive take on the popular subject of the five senses would
have been an excellent choice for a young, emerging painter to show off
the range of his skills and his originality. Rembrandt’s Stone Operation,
Unconscious Patient, and Three Musicians might be taken as youthfulworks of a fledgling painter who has not yet mastered anatomy or facial
structure and who, for figures and faces, relies more on stylized types andformulae than on nature. Yet, despite their amateurishness, the raw talentof the series of the Senses prefigures what would become thedistinguishing marks of Rembrandt’s distinctively original and unruly style:Fig 16. Isaac Jouderville, Portraitof Rembrandt in Oriental Dress,
IJ-100© 2017 The Leiden Collection

Rembrandt and The Leiden Collection
Page 7 of 24

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 and overall historicizing effectsof old-fashioned and exotic costumes. Indeed, we can imagine that, when
Rembrandt went to study with Lastman, the Amsterdam master would
have recognized in them Rembrandt’s exceptional talent, albeit one thatneeded to be trained.
In 1718, Rembrandt’s first biographer, Arnold Houbraken, regarded the
young Rembrandt as a notably unbridled talent, as is evident by asomewhat 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 so took the Leiden coach. When the driver and otherpassengers got out for a stop at an inn, “the horses bolted and the coachFig 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

abruptly set off” carrying Rembrandt “for nothing and free of charge” backto 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 running wild was also a metaphor for untrained talent.
This association is made explicit in Houbraken’s text when he quotes thepoet Joost van den Vondel, 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 trained with the crop and spur of a good groom… andeverywhere gains praise from connoisseurs.”[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 18. Gerrit Dou, Self-Portrait,ca. 1645–46, oil on panel, 12.4 x
8.3 cm, Aetas Aurea Holding SA

who had earned for themselves eternal fame by selecting the beautiful.”[20]Houbraken’s early eighteenth-century bias toward classicism blinded him
to Rembrandt’s learning and knowledge of the art of the past. However,what Houbraken criticized as independence and favoring of the natural
over the ideal 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,© 2017 The Leiden Collection

Rembrandt and The Leiden Collection
Page 8 of 24

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

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

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 Lievens, in a similar Utrecht Caravaggesque format, as
motivated by the desire 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 andlearning from each 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

Fig 20. Govert Flinck, SelfPortrait, GF-103

shared a studio.[22] More likely, their 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-conscious and deliberate sharedstudio ethos of friendly competition.[23] To say that from the outset
Rembrandt and Lievens were close colleagues does not fully capture thenature of their friendship, which they must have regarded in seventeenthcentury 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.

Fig 21. Ferdinand Bol, SelfPortrait, Behind a Parapet,
FB-107

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

Dürer,

who

had

portrayed

each

other

a

century

before.[25] Rembrandt appears to have painted Lievens in Three Musiciansfrom the Senses, 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 (fig 8), in The Leiden Collection; he also
included Rembrandt in Pilate Washing His Hands of 1625/26, and hepainted a Portrait of Rembrandt in about 1629.[27]© 2017 The Leiden Collection

Rembrandt and The Leiden Collection
Page 9 of 24

Constantijn Huygens may have encouraged this remarkable artistic
symbiosis. Scouting for talent sometime in the late 1620s, Huygens visitedFig 22. Rembrandt van Rijn,
Young Girl in a Gold-trimmed
Cloak, RR-104

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 theywould surpass even the greatest masters, including Rubens and themasters of Italy and antiquity. Although Huygens’s visit came well after
they had started working together, their painting of the same subjects
ramped up after this initial contact with Huygens. Huygens was so
impressed with what he saw in Leiden that he must have had Rembrandt
and Lievens compete for a commission 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

Fig 23. Rembrandt van Rijn,
Portrait of a Man in a Red Coat,
RR-108

received the commission. In his autobiography, Huygens compares thetwo and judges Rembrandt to be the better history painter, based on his
ability to represent a biblical figure with dramatic and convincing emotions.
The deeply expressive, moving Raising and Descent from the Cross are
the first two panels of the series of Christ’s Passion that Rembrandt
painted over the course of the 1630s.[29]Huygens judged Lievens to be the better portraitist, and in about 1628 or
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 ofAmalia van Solms, wife of Frederick Hendrik, as well as intimate friendship
portraits of Maurits Huygens, Constantijn’s brother, and the engraverFig 24. Rembrandt van Rijn andStudio, Portrait of Anthonie
Coopal, RR-103

Jacques de Gheyn III.[31] Since Lievens had departed for England in early
1632, we cannot know whether, had he been available, he might havereceived some of these commissions. Early on, Rembrandt may havetaken cues from the more established, more accomplished Lievens, yet healso went his own way from the outset: in response to Lievens’s more
controlled handling, large-scale figure and theatrical expressive mode,
Rembrandt was distinguishing himself through a rough painterly style anda naturalness in representing the passion. Creative competition, in otherwords, provided a way for each artist to pursue and push his own style. In
1632, however, the two young Leideners went their separate ways,
Lievens to England and Rembrandt soon to Amsterdam and ultimately to

Fig 25. Rembrandt van Rijn,
Minerva in Her Study, RR-107

greater success. Their continued friendship is suggested by the eight© 2017 The Leiden Collection

Rembrandt and The Leiden Collection
Page 10 of 24

paintings by Lievens that Rembrandt owned at the time of his bankruptcy
in 1656; according to the inventory made at the time, paintings of The
Raising of Lazarus by Rembrandt and Lievens, presumably the paintingsof 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 therelationship between Rembrandt and his first pupil Gerrit Dou. 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

Fig 26. Rembrandt van Rijn,
Minerva in Her Study, ca. 1631,
oil on panel, 60.5 x 49 cm,
Gemäldegalerie, Berlin, Staatliche
Museen zu Berlin, inv. 828c, ©
Foto: Gemäldegalerie derStaatlichen Museen zu Berlin –Preußischer Kulturbesitz,
Fotograf/in: Anders, Jörg P.

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 initiallytraining with an engraver 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 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 transformed the pictorial tradition of theartist’s studio. Whereas, since the fifteenth century studio scenes had forthe most part featured Saint Luke painting or drawing the Virgin Mary,
Rembrandt rendered the studio as an ordinary place, a spare room with aplain plank floor and cracked plaster walls. The closed door, in the

Fig 27. Rembrandt van Rijn,
Juno, ca. 1662–65, oil on canvas,
50 x 48 3/4 in. (127 x 123.8 cm),
The Armand Hammer Collection,
Gift of the Armand Hammer
Foundation, Hammer Museum,
Los Angeles

shadows at right, suggests that this was also a solitary place. Working
alone, without interruption, was already associated with artistic invention
and the creative temperament. Indeed, that this is also the site ofsomething extraordinary—of divine artistic inspiration—is suggested by
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 for© 2017 The Leiden Collection

Rembrandt and The Leiden Collection
Page 11 of 24

creative artistic dialogue. Self-Portrait (?) at the Easel pointedly replicatesthe back view of the painting on the easel, yet switches out what is a 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 suggestthat he is either inventing or contemplating his composition. In contrast,
Dou’s painter sits close enough to the canvas to be wielding his brush,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 awealth of fine objects—a plumed helmet, armor, a book, a trumpet, a scarf
of many colors—that, as elements of history paintings, evoke theintellectual underpinnings of the artist’s work and that, because of their
many fine textures and reflective materials, are especially suited toshowcasing a fine painting style.[36] The differences between these twostudio scenes point to the close working relationship between Rembrandt
and Dou, but also to the 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 anddrew more self-portraits than anyone up until the twentieth century. The
proliferation of studio scenes and self-portraits in the seventeenth-century
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]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
was an 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 as that in the Rijksmuseum of circa 1628 (fig 12), Rembrandt
experimented with suggesting his psychological and emotional presence,© 2017 The Leiden Collection

Rembrandt and The Leiden Collection
Page 12 of 24

and probably his melancholic artistic temperament, by evocatively shading
his eyes.[39] Rembrandt’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-Portrait is so casual, and so unlike formal portraits, that somescholars

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 manyother self-images of these years, suggest that the young Leideners sharedan interest in expressive self-portrayal.[41] Through these innovative andstrikingly 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 Gardner Museum, Boston (fig 14).[42] Remarkably, by 1633
a similar self-portrait by Rembrandt was in the collection of Charles I ofEngland at Whitehall Palace, where it hung alongside several self-portraits
by other artists.[43] That Rembrandt’s fame had spread so early to Englandmust have been due, at least in part, to Constantijn Huygens or thestadholder. In these and other early self-portraits, Rembrandt wears notcontemporary attire, but quasi-historical clothing—a beret and a gold chain
through which he fashions himself as a “noble” artist. “Noble” is inquotations because his elaborate chains evoke only the gold chains ofhonor that court artists received from their ruler patrons. Rembrandt would
never get such a chain; instead, through fanciful chains he advanced a
new kind of nobility attained neither by birth nor at court, but solely throughhis brush. Indeed, Constantijn Huygens considered Rembrandt’s andLievens’s middle-class, common origins to be “the weightiest 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 donsquasi-historical attire to cast himself as an Oriental ruler (fig 15).[45] The
Leiden Collection’s copy of this painting, Isaac de Jouderville’sRembrandt
in Oriental Dress (fig 16), provides insight into the master’s teachingpractice. 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© 2017 The Leiden Collection

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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 afine 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 andartistic 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 andnever would be. Further, through this self-portrait Rembrandt conveyed his
lofty ambitions. Specifically, he claimed his affinity with, and aimed toemulate, Peter Paul Rubens, for Rembrandt modeled his painting (andrelated etching) after Rubens’s Self-Portrait of 1623 (Royal Collection) thatwas in the collection of Charles I, which Rembrandt would have known
through an engraving by Paulus Pontius.[47] Some years later, in about
1645, Gerrit Dou would base his exceptionally small and finely
painted—and so characteristically his—Self-Portrait on Rembrandt’s
painting or etching (fig 18).[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, 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
he would repeatedly use to identify himself as an artist. By shading hiseyes, Rembrandt evoked his inner self, perhaps to suggest his
melancholic temperament.[50]These self-portraits from the mid-1630s prefigure the culmination of
Rembrandt’s fanciful self-portrait mode in the etched Self-Portrait Leaning
on a 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, isarguablytheself-portrait.

[52]

master’s

most

remarkable

and

most

influential

It assimilated and made pointed reference to two famous© 2017 The Leiden Collection

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Italian portraits that Rembrandt had seen in Amsterdam in 1639,
Raphael’s Portrait of Baldassare Castiglione (Louvre) and Titian’s Portraitof a Man (National Gallery, London), which was then thought 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 this lineage ofgreat masters.
Rembrandt’s London self-portrait is especially relevant here because it
was so tremendously influential, and The Leiden Collection holds twooutstanding examples of its impact. For his Self-Portrait of 1643, Govaert
Flinck (fig 20), who had been Rembrandt’s student in 1634–35, drew bothon 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 (fig21), Ferdinand Bol, who had studied with Rembrandt in the 1630s, madereference to and pointedly transformed Rembrandt’s painting. Flinck and
Bol were among several of Rembrandt’s students and assistants—others
included Dou, Samuel van Hoogstraten and Arent de Gelder—who, years
after they had studied with Rembrandt, paid homage to their master byemulating Self-Portrait at Age 34.

Portraits
Whereas Rembrandt portrayed himself primarily in historicized costumeand imaginary guises, and only on a few occasions in contemporary dress,
he painted 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 ofreal, though probably not paying, people in imaginary historicized (quasi-)
portraits called tronies, a term that derives from the Dutch word for head,
meaning a type of character study. Several impressive paintings in The
Leiden Collection speak to Rembrandt’s portrait production, its range, andthe complexity of the issues surrounding it.
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, theyoung girl wears fanciful old-fashioned clothing and is not painted the way
Rembrandt would portray a paying client. On the other hand, she must
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have been a known model, for Rembrandt painted her more than once,and his pupil Isaac de Jouderville also portrayed her. Rembrandt has
portrayed her in much the same “antiek” historical, possibly pastoral,
costume in which he would soon portray his wife Saskia.[54]Rembrandt painted his first formal portrait of an Amsterdam sitter,Portraitof Nicolas 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, ina pair of friendship portraits, Maurits Huygens, Constantijn’s brother andthe secretary of the Council of State, and artist Jacob de Gheyn. However,Rembrandt must have recognized that wealthy, bustling Amsterdam
offered him greater potential and, eventually, greater independence, for by
1633 he had 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 the painter-dealer Hendrick van Uylenburgh, with whom he hadalready been in business since 1631. Initially, he lodged in Van
Uylenburgh’s house and headed up Van Uylenburgh’s growing workshop,or “academy” as it was called, where he made his success portraying a
range of sitters in an array of portrait modes. With these, Rembrandt
dominated portrait production in 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 (Royal Collection), 1633, the double
portrait of Jan Pietersz Bruyningh and his wife Hillegont Pietersdr
Moutmaker, and the extraordinarily elegant and costly full-length pendantsof Marten Soolmans and Oopjen Coppit, date from this following year.[56]Two portraits in The Leiden Collection exemplify Rembrandt’s portrait
production in Van Uylenburgh’s studio and some of the issues surrounding
it. Although we do not know the identity of its marvelously lively sitter,
Portrait of a 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 he turns to the right makes it likely that this portrait once
had a pendant. Rembrandt has here captured the individual’s characterand liveliness, and seemingly exercised a certain liberty in rendering him
with such a warm and immediate personality—as a man bold enough to© 2017 The Leiden Collection

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wear red.
The elegant, animated Portrait of Antonie Coopal (fig 24) is a second
formal portrait associated with Rembrandt’s time as head of Van
Uylenburgh’s “academy.” Whereas Portrait of a Man in a Red Coatappears to be entirely by Rembrandt’s hand, Portrait of Antonie Coopal of
1635 was probably a collaborative work, painted together with a memberof his workshop. Recent technical and stylistic analysis indicates that,while Rembrandt conceived of and 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 (RR-107) (fig 25) is one ofRembrandt’s great history paintings of the 1630s. In its grandeur andmonumentality, the large Minerva is emblematic of the new, more
ambitious direction that opened up to Rembrandt after he left Van
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 withfulfilling commissions for portraits while with Van Uylenburgh, Rembrandt
also found time to develop another type of painting that blurred theboundaries between portrait and history painting: the large-scale historical“portrait,” of which the Minerva is the most accomplished.
This painting was the culmination of what must have been for Rembrandt
an innovative type: the heroic woman from antiquity. These include
Bellona of 1633, 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, comes closest 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’sMinerva in Her Study becomes apparent. By placing Minerva at her desk,with its impressive tomes and globe, Rembrandt brings the goddess down
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to earth in a way that only a Dutch artist could do. At the same time, hebrilliantly amplifies her presence by enhancing her with a range ofbeautifully painted sumptuous, shining fabrics. The extraordinary effort
that Rembrandt devoted to conceptualizing and painting this Minerva
suggests that he accorded the subject special significance. Minerva (theGreek Pallas Athena) was the goddess of war, but here, with her helmet
and gorgon-headed shield behind her, she represents peace and wisdom,and specifically the wisdom under which the arts flourish in times of peace.
In that capacity, Minerva was painting’s protector, a role that Hendrick
Goltzius had accorded her in 1611.[58] Although Goltzius painted her
undraped, Rembrandt must have known that Minerva was the protector ofcrafts more broadly, and of weaving and embroidery specifically. In the
Iliad, Homer describes her as wearing a dress that she embroideredherself, 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 qualityof handling, especially of drapery. Rembrandt showcases his ability topaint many 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 ofher), 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 theubiquity of multicolored scarves in self-portraits and pictures of artists’studios by Rembrandt and Gerrit Dou, especially. Karel van Mander, in
Het Schilderboeck of 1604, wrote that painting drapery, clouds and hairrequired 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,
starting when he set out on his own in 1635, to establish himself as apainter 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 paintingsof powerful historical women from Rembrandt’s late career, above all Junoof 1662–65 (fig 27).[62]© 2017 The Leiden Collection

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

- H. Perry Chapman© 2017 The Leiden Collection

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Endnotes
1. 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).
2. Pliny, Natural History, XXXV. 88, 81.
3. Karel van Mander, Het Schilderboeck (Haarlem, 1604), fol. 212v, in the life of Lucas van Leyden.
4. Eric Jan Sluijter, Rembrandt’s Rivals: History Painting in Amsterdam 1630–1650 (Amsterdam, 2015),
19–22; James Clifton, “Vasari on Competition,” The Sixteenth Century Journal, Vol. 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: A Study in Seventeenth-Century Identity(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 the 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 the SeventeenthCentury (Princeton, 1982).
10. Rembrandt, Balaam and the Ass, 1626, Musée Cognacq-Jay, Paris; Pieter Lastman, Balaam and theAss, 1622, The Israel Museum, Jerusalem. Rembrandt’s Baptism of the Eunuch , 1626, Rijksmuseum het
Catherijneconvent, Utrecht, similarly reworks Lastman’s painting of the same subject of 1623, Staatliche
Kunsthalle, Karlsruhe.
11. This attitude is evident more broadly among Dutch seventeenth-century painters.

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12. Samuel van Hoogstraten, Inleyding tot de hooge schoole der schilderkonst: anders de zichtbaere
werelt (Rotterdam, 1678), 11–2, 175; E. J. Sluijter, Rembrandt’s Rivals: History Painting in Amsterdam
1630–1650 (Amsterdam, 2015), 106.
13. Christiaan Vogelaar, “Een jong en edel Leids schildersduo,” in Christiaan Vogelaar et al.,Rembrandt &Lievens in Leiden (Exh. cat. Leiden, Stedelijk Museum de Lakenhal) (Leiden, 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, Talabardon & Gautier, 2016), 20–37.
15. Trepanation, or trepanning, in which a surgeon bores, or scrapes, a hole into a patient’s skull in order torelieve pressure, is one of the oldest medical procedures on record. In Rembrandt’s time it was thought torelieve various mental disorders; it was also practiced by frauds who would pretend to remove stones frompatients’ heads.
16. The notion that music has curative powers is expressed in the inscription on the lid of the virginal 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 musicas a remedy for melancholy, see D. Silbert, “Melancholy and Music in the Renaissance,” Notes (Second
Series) Vol. 4, No. 4 (1947), 413–24; Penelope Gouk, “Music, Melancholy, and Medical Spirits in Early
Modern Thought,” in Peregrine Horden (ed.), Music as Medicine: The History of Music Therapy Since
Antiquity (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2000), 173–94.
17. Adriaen Brouwer, The Bitter Draught, mid-1630s, Städelsches Kunstinstitut, Frankfurt.
18. Arnold Houbraken, De groote schouburgh der Nederlantsche konstschilders en schilderessen , 3 vols.
(Amsterdam, 1718–21; rev. ed., The Hague 1753; reprint, 1976), 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, 3 vols. (Amsterdam, 1718–21; rev. ed., The Hague 1753;
reprint, 1976), 1: 267.
20. Arnold Houbraken (1976), 267.
21. Christiaan Vogelaar et al., Rembrandt & Lievens in Leiden (Exh. cat. Leiden, Stedelijk Museum de
Lakenhal) (Leiden, 1991).

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22. Ernst van de Wetering, “De symbiose van Lievens en Rembrandt,” in Christiaan Vogelaar et al.,Rembrandt & Lievens in Leiden (Exh. cat. Leiden, Stedelijk Museum de Lakenhal) (Leiden, 1991), 39–47.
23. Rembrandt, Samson and Delilah, 1628, Berlin, Gemäldegalerie (Staatliche Museen zu Berlin); Jan
Lievens, Samson and Delilah, ca. 1626–30, Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam; Rembrandt, The Raising of
Lazarus, ca. 1630 (Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Los Angeles); Jan Lievens, The Raising of
Lazarus, 1631 (Art Gallery and Museum, Brighton).
24. David K. Bomford, “Peter Paul Rubens and the Value of Friendship,” in Jan de Jong et al., eds.,Virtue:
Virtuoso, Virtuosity in Netherlandish Art 1500–1700 (Nederlands Kunsthistorisch Jaarboek 54, 2003)(Zwolle, 2004), 229–57.
25. Karel van Mander, Het Schilderboeck (Haarlem, 1604), fol. 212v.
26. Rembrandt, Musical Allegory, 1626, Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam.
27. Lievens, Pilate Washing His Hands, ca. 1625/26, Stedelijk Museum de Lakenhal, Leiden; Jan Lievens,
Portrait of Rembrandt, ca. 1629, private collection on loan to the Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam.
28. Rembrandt, Christ on the Cross, 1631, Parish Church, Le Mas d’Agenais, and Jan Lievens,Christ on
the Cross, 1631, Musée des Beaux Arts, Nancy.
29. Rembrandt, Raising of the Cross and Descent from the Cross, Alte Pinakothek, Munich.
30. Jan Lievens, Portrait of Constantijn Huygens, ca. 1628/29, Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam.
31. Rembrandt, Amalia van Solms, Musée Jacquemart-André, Paris; Maurits Huygens, Kunsthalle,
Hamburg, and Jacques de Gheyn III, Dulwich Picture Gallery, London.
32. Rembrandt, The Raising of Lazarus, ca. 1630, Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Los Angeles; Jan
Lievens, The Raising of Lazarus, 1631, Art Gallery and Museum, Brighton.
33. See the biography of Gerrit Dou in this catalogue.
34. Rembrandt, Artist in His Studio, ca. 1628, Museum of Fine Arts, Boston.

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35. Ernst van de Wetering, in Gheschildert tot Leyden Anno 1626 (Exh. cat. Leiden, Stedelijk Museum de
Lakenhal) (Leiden, 1976), 20; and Ernst van de Wetering, “De symbiose van Lievens en Rembrandt,” inChristiaan Vogelaar et al., Rembrandt & Lievens in Leiden (Exh. cat. Leiden, Stedelijk Museum de
Lakenhal) (Leiden, 1991), 44.
36. Although the attribution of the Leiden Collection studio scene is not yet secure, other paintings by Dou,
both scenes of artists in their studios, as well as self-portraits such as that in Dresden of 1647, show thatDou continued to respond to Rembrandt long after Rembrandt left Leiden.
37. H. Perry Chapman, Rembrandt’s Self-Portraits: A Study in Seventeenth-Century Identity (Princeton,
1990); H. P. Chapman, “The Imagined Studios of Rembrandt and Vermeer,” in Michael Cole and Mary
Pardo, eds., Inventions of the Studio, Renaissance to Romanticism (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: A Study in Seventeenth-Century Identity(Princeton, 1990), 32 and fig. 35, for a self-portrait drawing of 1622 in which Constantijn Huygens has
similarly portrayed himself with shaded eyes.
39. H. Perry Chapman, Rembrandt’s Self-Portraits: A Study in Seventeenth-Century Identity (Princeton,
1990), 24–33.
40. Ernst van de Wetering, Corpus of Rembrandt Paintings IV: Self-Portraits, 111.
41. See also Gerrit Dou’s somewhat fanciful Self-Portrait of circa 1631 in the Brooklyn Museum.
42. Rembrandt, Self-Portrait, Age 23, 1629, 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 de Wetering,A Corpus of
Rembrandt Paintings IV: Self-Portraits, 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 Xanthe Brooke,Face to
Face: Three Centuries of Artists’ 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 (London, 1985), 73.
45. Rembrandt, Self-Portrait in Oriental Dress, 1631, Petit Palais, Paris.
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46. Rembrandt, Self-Portrait, 1632, Glasgow Museums, The Burrell Collection, Glasgow.
47. Peter Paul Rubens, Self-Portrait, 1623, British Royal Collection; Paulus Pontius, after Peter Paul
Rubens, Self-Portrait, engraving, 1630.
48. Gerrit Dou, Self-Portrait, Aetas Aurea Holding SA.
49. Rembrandt, Self-Portrait, 1634, Louvre, Paris; Rembrandt, Self-Portrait, 1635, Louvre, Paris.
50. H. Perry Chapman, Rembrandt’s Self-Portraits: A Study in Seventeenth-Century Identity (Princeton,
1990), 24–33.
51. Rembrandt, Self-Portrait Leaning on a Stone Sill , 1639, etching; and Self-Portrait at Age 34, 1640,
National Gallery, London.
52. For the Renialme inventory, see W. L. Strauss and M. van der Meulen, The Rembrandt Documents(New York, 1979), Doc. 1657/2.
53. Raphael, Portrait of Baldassare Castiglione, Louvre, Paris; Titian, Portrait of a Man, National Gallery,
London.
54. Saskia van Uylenburgh, the Wife of the Artist , 1634/35 and 1638/40, National Gallery of Art,
Washington.
55. Rembrandt, Portrait of Nicolas Ruts, 1631, Frick Collection, New York.
56. Rembrandt, Shipbuilder and His Wife, 1633, Royal Collection; Jan Pietersz Bruyningh and his Wife
Hillegont Pietersdr Moutmaker, 1634, Museum of Fine Arts, Boston; Marten Soolmans and Oopjen Coppit,
1634, Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam and Louvre, Paris.
57. Rembrandt, Bellona, 1633, Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York; Artemisia, 1634, Prado, Madrid,and the two Floras of 1634 and 1635, Hermitage, St. Petersburg, and National Gallery, London. The Floras
appear to be historicized portraits of Saskia, which would make sense given that the guise of the goddessof love and fertility would be appropriate for Rembrandt’s new wife (and he would later represent her andHendrickje as Flora).

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58. In 1611 Goltzius painted Minerva together with Mercury as life-size protectors of painting. In 1613, headded Hercules and Caucus, to make a kind of triptych (Frans Hals Museum, Haarlem). For Minerva asprotector of painting in prints of the period, see the entry on Minerva in Her Study.
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, Grondt, VIII.37, f. 37; and marginal notation X.8, f. 43.
61. Rembrandt, Belshazzar’s Feast, c. 1636, National Gallery, London; and The Blinding of Samson, 1636,
Städel Museum, Frankfurt.
62. Rembrandt, Juno, ca. 1662–65, Hammer Museum, Los Angeles.

© 2017 The Leiden Collection