Portrait of an Old Man (Possibly a
Rabbi)

ca. 1645

Rembrandt van Rijn
(Leiden 1606 – 1669 Amsterdam)

22.2 x 18.4 cm

oil on panel
RR-109Currently on view at: The National Museum ofChina, Beijing© 2017 The Leiden Collection

Portrait of an Old Man (Possibly a Rabbi)
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How To Cite
DeWitt, David. "Portrait of an Old Man (Possibly a Rabbi)." In The Leiden Collection Catalogue. Edited by
Arthur K. Wheelock Jr. New York, 2017.
https://www.theleidencollection.com/archive/.
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Portrait of an Old Man (Possibly a Rabbi)
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This expressively rendered half-length oil sketch of an elderly bearded

Comparative Figures

man depicts the sitter in profile with slightly downcast eyes as he gazes
toward the book he holds in his hands. His fur-lined cloak and fur hat are
rendered in ocher and brownish tones, with only the shirt, beard and facestanding out from their tonal surroundings. Although the man’s
physiognomy has been articulated clearly, the body is so sketchily handled
and thinly painted that the vertical grain of the panel is visible through thereddish-brown paint. His arms and hands are indicated with only a few
rough strokes, giving the work an unfinished appearance.
This freely executed painting, which is known in nine other versions, hasbeen attributed to various artists over the years.[1] Wilhelm von Bodepublished it in 1883 as an autograph work by Rembrandt van Rijn.[2] On
the basis of a drawing in the Teylers Museum, which very likely was madedirectly after the present painting (fig 1),[3] Horst Gerson attributed bothFig 1. Attributed to Gerbrand van
den Eeckhout, Profile of an Old
Man, black chalk heightened withwhite body color on paper, 206 x
157 mm, Teylers Museum,
Haarlem, inv. no. P64

the drawing and the painting (which he knew only from a photograph) to
Gerbrand van den Eeckhout (1621–74).[4] The painting’s location
remained unknown throughout the twentieth century, but when it
resurfaced for sale in 2004 it was attributed to Samuel van Hoogstraten(1627–78).[5] In 2006 the painting was included in an exhibition at the
Jewish Historical Museum in Amsterdam as attributed to Van den
Eeckhout.[6] Three years later Ernst van de Wetering argued that this small
oil sketch was by Rembrandt and was the primary version of thecomposition.[7]The fact that so many copies were made after this oil sketch reinforces theargument that it should be attributed to Rembrandt. The existence of thesecopies also strongly suggests that this work was viewed as having a
special significance in Rembrandt’s workshop, perhaps as a study of a

Fig 2. Rembrandt van Rijn or
School of Rembrandt, Woman
Weeping, ca. 1644, 21.3 x 16.8
cm, The Detroit Institute of Arts,
inv. 56.183, photo © 2014, Detroit
Institute of Arts

special character type (such as an old man), or as a lighting study, such as
Van de Wetering has established for other oil sketches by the master.[8]Dates of oil sketches are extremely difficult to determine. Aterminus post
quem has been established by the dendrochronological analysis of Peter
Klein, who determined that the wood support would have been ready foruse from 1631 onwards.[9] Van de Wetering has argued that the painting
can be dated loosely between 1645 and 1655.[10] One comparable oil
sketch by the master that narrows the chronological framework for thiswork is Woman Weeping (fig 2).[11] Not only do these two small panel© 2017 The Leiden Collection

Portrait of an Old Man (Possibly a Rabbi)
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paintings have similar dimensions (21.3 × 16.8 cm compared to 22.3 ×
18.6 cm), but also in each instance the face is described in more detailthan the body and background.[12] Woman Weeping presumably dates to

Fig 3. Rembrandt van Rijn,
Seated Old Man, pen and brown
ink, brown wash, 164 × 129 mm,
Fondation Custodia, Collection
Frits Lugt, Paris, inv. no. 4502

around 1644, since it almost certainly served as a preparatory study
for Woman Taken in Adultery in London.[13] The Leiden Collection sketchof this old man, thus, probably dates to this same period, although in thisinstance it does not seem to have served as a preliminary study for one ofRembrandt’s larger compositions.
Rembrandt had already had conceived a composition similar to this one
early in his career, in a drawing of a seated old man dated
1628.[14] Evidently this drawing remained in use in his studio (notuncommon for his drawings), because he revisited the subject matter andpose around 1639 in an elaborate study in pen and ink, now in Paris(fig3). This pen and ink drawing depicts what appears to be the same model
wearing the same costume, including the distinctive hat.
The identification of the old man as a rabbi, which Émile Michel had
already proposed in the nineteenth century, is not certain.[15] The basis of
this identification is the wide flat beret, which Ashkenazi Jews wore in theseventeenth century.[16] However, Rembrandt’s follower Salomon Koninck(1609–56) often incorporated exotic features, including Jewish attributes,
when depicting learned old men,[17] and it remains possible that
Rembrandt also intended this kind of open reading for his figure. Koninck,
who likely had some contact with the studio in the mid-1640s, also recast
Rembrandt’s

1628

drawing

intoapaintedcomposition,[18]andsubsequently made a specialty of single-figure depictions of old men in
fancy costume. He may well have known the present painted study as well.
-David DeWitt© 2017 The Leiden Collection

Portrait of an Old Man (Possibly a Rabbi)
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Endnotes
1. Follower of Rembrandt, Profile of an Old Man , oil on panel, 21 x 18 cm, Musée du Louvre,
Paris, inv. no. R.F. 2384; Follower of Rembrandt, Profile of an Old Man , oil on panel,
formerly (perhaps still) in the collection of Werner M. Wolf, Küsnacht, Switzerland; Workshop
of Rembrandt, Profile of an Old Man , oil on panel, 17 × 15 cm, private collection, Geneva;
Attributed to the School of Rembrandt, Profile of an Old Man , oil on panel, 21.3 × 17.7 cm,
The Wernher Collection, Ranger’s House, London; Follower of Rembrandt,Profile of an Old
Man, oil on panel [?], 21.5 × 16.5 cm, whereabouts unknown (sale, Huize Oolde, Laren,
Netherlands, on 25 September 1947); Attributed to Rembrandt van Rijn, Profile of an Old
Man, oil on panel, Van Tilburg Collection, University of Pretoria, South Africa; Follower ofRembrandt, Profile of an Old Man , oil on panel [?], dimensions and whereabouts unknown(with Schoneman Galleries, New York, 1954); Follower of Rembrandt, Profile of an Old
Man, oil on panel, 19.7 × 15.7 cm, formerly in the Mikhailov collection (sale, Drouot
Montaigne, Paris, 31 May 1988, no. 33, as by Circle of Gerbrand van den Eeckhout);
Attributed to Rembrandt van Rijn, Head of a Rabbi, oil on panel, 20.3 x 16.5 cm,
whereabouts unknown (sale, Christie, Manson & Woods, London, 4 March 1899, no. 44).
2. Wilhelm von Bode, Studien zur Geschichte der holländischen Malerei (Braunschweig,1883), 514.
3. See Michiel C. Plomp, The Dutch Drawings in the Teyler Museum (Haarlem, Ghent, andDoornspijk, 1997), 2:143–44, no. 129.
4. In Abraham Bredius, Rembrandt: The Complete Edition of the Paintings , revised by Horst
Gerson (London, 1969), no. 228.
5. Wendela Burgemeister, “A Portrait of a Rabbi,” in Salomon Lilian Old Masters (Sales cat.
Amsterdam, Salomon Lilian, B. V.) (Zwolle, 2004), 30–33, no. 10.
6. Mirjam Alexander-Knotter, Jasper Hillegers, and Edward van Voolen, The “Jewish”
Rembrandt: The Myth Unraveled (Exh. cat. Amsterdam, Joods Historisch Museum) (Zwolle,
2006), 78.
7. Van de Wetering provided an unpublished, informal essay on this work (on file at the Leiden
Collection) entitled “Remarks on Bredius 228,” in which he argued that RR-109 is an
autograph painting and is the primary version of the composition. He concluded that thescratches into wet paint in this work were imitated superficially in the other versions.
8. Ernst van de Wetering, “Rembrandt’s Oil Studies: New Light on an Old Problem,” inRembrandt: Quest of a Genius , ed. Ernst van de Wetering (Exh. cat. Amsterdam, Museum
Het Rembrandthuis; Berlin, Gemäldegalerie) (Zwolle and Amsterdam, 2006), 178–207.
9. Prof. Peter Klein, report on dendrochronological analysis, 16 September 2006.

© 2017 The Leiden Collection

Portrait of an Old Man (Possibly a Rabbi)
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10. See Ernst van de Wetering, “Remarks on Bredius 228,” unpublished, informal essay on
RR-109 (on file at the Leiden Collection), in which the later date is suggested by thecomparison to a drawing: Hendickje Stoffels Seated at a Window, Eyes Shut , around 1655,
pen and brush, 163 × 175 mm, Nationalmuseum, Stockholm, inv. NMH 2084/1863.
11. The reattribution to Rembrandt was proposed and argued by Ernst van de Wetering in“Rembrandt’s Oil Studies: New Light on an Old Problem,” in Rembrandt: Quest of a Genius ,ed. Ernst van de Wetering (Exh. cat. Amsterdam, Museum Het Rembrandthuis; Berlin,
Gemäldegalerie) (Zwolle and Amsterdam, 2006), 197–200, against the previous
assessment of Detroit Institute of Arts curator George Keyes, inMasters of Dutch Painting:
The Detroit Institute of Arts (London, 2004), 180–81, in which he assigned the painting to an
Anonymous Dutch artist of the seventeenth century.
12. A certain restraint, however, is maintained in the Leiden Collection painting, even in thesketchier, looser passages.
13. Rembrandt van Rijn, The Woman Taken in Adultery , signed and dated, 1644, panel, 88 ×
65.4 cm, The National Gallery, London, inv. no. NG 45.
14. Rembrandt van Rijn, Seated Old Man with a Stick, Turned to the Left , 1628, red chalk andbrown and gray wash with white heightening, 204 × 157 mm, Dreiflessen Collection(Libernia Collection), Mettingen; Peter Schatborn, Rembrandt or Not? Old Drawings, New
Names (Exh. cat. Amsterdam, Museum Het Rembrandthuis) (Amsterdam, 2014), 103.
15. Émile Michel, Rembrandt, sa vie, son oeuvre et son temps (Paris, 1893), 343. Jasper
Hilligers allows the possibility as well in his entry on the painting; Mirjam Alexander-Knotter,
Jasper Hillegers, and Edward van Voolen, The “Jewish” Rembrandt: The Myth Unravel ed(Exh. cat. Amsterdam, Joods Historisch Museum) (Zwolle, 2006), 78.
16. Michael Zell, Reframing Rembrandt: Jews and the Christian Image in Seventeenth-Century
Amsterdam (Berkeley, 2002), 48; with reference to Alfred Rubens, A History of Jewish
Costume (New York, 1967), 158.
17. For example, a scholar with a tall hat and a richly embroidered robe, in Salomon Koninck,
The Old Scholar, around 1648/1650, oil on canvas, 102 × 144 cm, The State Hermitage
Museum,St.

Petersburg,

inv.

no.

GE

768;

WernerSumowksi, GemäldederRembrandtschüler in vier Bänden, 6 vols. (Landau, 1983), 3:1647, no. 1119, 1693 ill.
18. Salomon Koninck, Seated Old Man with a Stick, Turned to the Left , around 1645/1650, oil
on panel, 60 × 48 cm, Galleria Sabauda, Turin, inv. no. 394; Werner Sumowksi,Gemälde
der Rembrandtschüler in vier Bänden , 6 vols. (Landau, 1983), 3:1648, no. 1124, 1698 ill.
Peter Schatborn reports that Bernhard Schnackenburg has attributed this painting to Jan
Lievens, which does not appear convincing: Peter Schatborn, Rembrandt or Not? Old
Drawings, New Names (Exh. cat. Amsterdam, Museum Het Rembrandthuis) (Amsterdam,2014), 103.
© 2017 The Leiden Collection

Portrait of an Old Man (Possibly a Rabbi)
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ProvenanceÉduard Warneck, Paris, by 1883 (his sale, Galerie Georges Petit, Paris, 27 May 1926, no.
70 [to Blummereich for 200,000 francs]).
Richard von Schnitzler, Cologne, by 1931.
Private collection, Baden-Württemberg, Germany, by 1958 [Kunsthandel Piet de Boer,1962].
[Guttmann Galleries, Los Angeles, 1985].
Private collection, possibly Switzerland.
Private collection, possibly Norway.
Private collection, Scotland, by 2004 [Salomon Lilian, B. V., Amsterdam, 2004, as by
Samuel van Hoogstraten].
From whom acquired by the present owner in 2005, as by Samuel van Hoogstraten.

Exhibition History
Paris, location unknown, “Exposition de tableaux de Maîtres anciens au profit du Inondes duMidi,” January 1887, no. 122 [lent by Éduard Warneck, Paris].
The Hague, Haagsche Kunstkring, “Tentoonstelling van Oude Portretten,” 1 July–1
September 1903, no. 115 [lent by Éduard Warneck, Paris].
Düsseldorf, Kunstverein für die Rhienland and Westfalen, “Ausstellung Alter Malerei aus
rheinisch-westfälischen Privatbesitz,” January–February 1928, no. 72 [lent by Éduard
Warneck, Paris].
Stuttgart, Staatsgalerie, “Meisterwerke aus baden-württembergischen Privatzbesitz,” 9October 1958–10 January 1959, no. 158 [lent by a private collector].
Amsterdam, Museum Het Rembrandthuis, on loan with the permanent collection, October
2005–June 2008, as by School of Rembrandt [lent by the present owner].
Amsterdam, Joods Historisch Museum, “The ‘Jewish’ Rembrandt: The Myth Unravelled,” 10
November 2006–4 February 2007, as by Gerbrand van den Eeckhout (?) [lent by thepresent owner].
Los Angeles, The J. Paul Getty Museum, on loan with the permanent collection, 7 May
2009–March 2011 [lent by the current owner].
© 2017 The Leiden Collection

Portrait of an Old Man (Possibly a Rabbi)
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Raleigh, North Carolina Museum of Art, “Small Treasures: Rembrandt, Vermeer, Hals, andTheir Contemporaries,” 11 October 2014–4 January 2015; Birmingham, Ala., Birmingham
Museum of Art, 31 January–26 April 2015, no. 35 [lent by the present owner].
Los Angeles, J. Paul Getty Museum, on loan with the permanent collection, 29 April
2015–14 November 2016 [lent by the present owner].
Paris, Museé du Louvre, “Masterpieces of The Leiden Collection: The Age of Rembrandt,”
22 February–22 May 2017 [lent by the present owner].
Beijing, National Museum of China, “Rembrandt and His Time: Masterpieces from The
Leiden Collection,” 17 June–3 September 2017 [lent by the present owner].

References
Von Bode, Wilhelm. Studien zur Geschichte der holländischen Malerei . Braunschweig,
1883, 514.
Dutuit, Eugène M. Tableaux et dessins de Rembrandt. Paris, 1885, 53.
Von Wurzbach, Alfred. Rembrandt-Galerie: Eine Auswahl von hundert Gemälden
Rembrandts. Stuttgart, 1886, 76, no. 330.
Michel, Émile. Rembrandt: Sa vie, son oeuvre et son temps. Paris, 1893, 564.
Von Bode, Wilhelm and Hofstede de Groot, Cornelis. Rembrandt: Beschreibendes
Verzeichnis seiner Gemälde mit den heliographischen Nachbildungen . 8 vols. Paris,
1897–1906, 4:208, no. 307.
Hofstede de Groot, Cornelis. Meisterwerke der Porträtmalerei auf der Ausstellung im Haag
1903. Munich, 1903, 39, no. 115.
Scholten, Hendrik Jacobus. Musée Teyler à Haarlem: Catalogue raisonné des dessins desécoles française et hollandaise. Haarlem, 1904, 179, as by Rembrandt.
Valentiner, Wilhelm R. Rembrandt: Des Meisters Gemälde. 2 vols. Stuttgart and Leipzig,
1909, 2:353.
Von Wurzbach, Alfred. Niederländisches Künstler-Lexikon. 3 vols. Leipzig, 1906–11, 2:408,
as an uncertain attribution.
Hofstede de Groot, Cornelis. A Catalogue Raisonné of the Works of the Most Eminent
Dutch Painters of the Seventeenth Century Based on the Work by John Smith.

8 vols.

London, 1907–27, 6:227–28, no. 433. Translated from Beschreibendes und kritisches
Verzeichnis der Werke der hervorragendsten holländischen Maler des XVII. Jahrhunderts.
10 vols. Esslingen and Paris, 1907–28.
Cohen, Walter. “Alte Malerei aus rheinisch-westfälischen Privatbesitz.” Der Cicerone 20© 2017 The Leiden Collection

Portrait of an Old Man (Possibly a Rabbi)
Page 9 of 11(January 1928): 60.
Förster, Otto H. Die Sammlung Dr. Richard von Schnitzler. Munich, 1931, 33–34, no. 42.
Bredius, Abraham. The Paintings of Rembrandt. Vienna, 1937, no. 228. Translated from
Rembrandt: Schilderijen. Utrecht, 1935.
Van Gelder, Hendrik Enno. “Rembrandt en zijn tijd.” In Rembrandt. Amsterdam, 1947, 36,
39.
Sumowski, Werner. “Gerbrand van den Eeckhout als Zeichner.” Oud-Holland 77 (1962): 18.
Bauch, Kurt. Rembrandt: Gemälde. Berlin, 1966, no. 179, as an uncertain attribution.
Bredius, Abraham. Rembrandt: The Complete Edition of the Paintings. Revised by Horst
Gerson. London, 1969, no. 228, as probably by Gerbrand van den Eeckhout.
Plomp, Michiel. The Dutch Drawings in the Teyler Museum . 2 vols. Haarlem, Ghent, andDoornspijk, 1997, 2:143–44, under no. 129, as an uncertain attribution.
Burgemeister, Wendela. “A Portrait of a Rabbi.” In Salomon Lilian Old Masters, 30–33, no.
10, as by Samuel van Hoogstraten. Sales cat. Amsterdam, Salomon Lilian, B. V. Zwolle,
2004.
Alexander-Knotter, Mirjam, Hillegers ,Jasper and Van Voolen, Edward. The “Jewish”
Rembrandt: The Myth Unraveled. Exh. cat. Amsterdam, Joods Historisch Museum. Zwolle,
2006, 78–79, as by Gerbrandt van den Eeckhout (?). Translated from De “joodse”
Rembrandt: De mythe ontrafeld. Zwolle, 2006.
Weller, Dennis P. “A Portrait of a Rabbi.” In Small Treasures: Rembrandt, Vermeer, Hals,
and Their Contemporaries. Exh. cat. Raleigh, North Carolina Museum of Art; Birmingham,
Birmingham Museum of Art. Raleigh, 2014, 184–87, no. 35.

Versions
Versions and Copies
1. Follower of Rembrandt, Profile of an Old Man , oil on panel, 21 x 18 cm, Musée du Louvre,
Paris, inv. no. R.F. 2384.

2. Follower of Rembrandt, Profile of an Old Man , oil on panel, formerly (perhaps still) in thecollection of Werner M. Wolf, Küsnacht, Switzerland.

3. Workshop of Rembrandt, Profile of an Old Man , oil on panel, 17 x 15 cm, private collection,
Geneva.

4. Attributed to the School of Rembrandt, Profile of an Old Man , oil on panel, 21.3 x 17.7 cm,
The Wernher Collection, Ranger’s House, London.
© 2017 The Leiden Collection

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5. Follower of Rembrandt, Profile of an Old Man , oil on panel [?], 21.5 x 16.5 cm, whereabouts
unknown (sale, Huize Oolde, Laren, Netherlands, on 25 September 1947).

6. Attributed to Rembrandt, Profile of an Old Man , oil on panel, Van Tilburg Collection,
University of Pretoria, South Africa.

7. Follower of Rembrandt, Profile of an Old Man , oil on panel [?], whereabouts unknown (withSchoneman Galleries, New York, 1954).

8. Follower of Rembrandt, Profile of an Old Man , oil on panel, 19.7 x 15.7 cm, formerly in the
Mikhailov collection (sale, Drouot Montaigne, Paris, 31 May 1988, no. 33, as by circle ofGerbrand van den Eeckhout).

9. Attributed to Rembrandt, Head of a Rabbi, oil on panel, 8 x 6 ½ in., whereabouts unknown(sale, Christie, Manson & Woods, London, 4 March 1899, no. 44).

Versions Notes

Technical Summary
The support, a single plank of vertically grained, rectangular oak from the Baltic-Polish region,
derives from a tree felled after 1623, with a plausible creation date from 1631 onward.[1] Narrowwood additions have been added to the left, right, and lower edges and the enlarged composition
has been cradled.
The panel reverse has import stamps, handwritten numerals, and machine tool marks, but nowax seals, labels, stencils or panel maker’s marks.
A light-colored ground has been thinly and evenly applied followed by a pale brown imprimatura,
which has been used as a middle tone. The paint is very thinly applied in some areas and thickly
applied in others, creating a rich and varied surface. Fingerprints made in wet paint, presumably
by the artist himself, are located along the center of the lower left edge and the lower rightcorner.
The painting is unsigned and undated.
No underdrawing or compositional changes are readily apparent in infrared images captured at
900–1700 nanometers.
The painting has not undergone conservation treatment since its acquisition and remains in agood state of preservation.[2]Technical Summary Endnotes© 2017 The Leiden CollectionPowered by TCPDF (www.tcpdf.org)

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1. The characterization of the wood is based on Peter Klein’s 2006 dendrochronology report.
2. Entry based on an examination report prepared by Yvonne Szafran, head of paintings
conservation, J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles, 2011.

© 2017 The Leiden Collection