Bust of an Old Woman
Circle of Rembrandt van Rijn

ca. early 1630s
oil on panel
14 x 11.7 cm
signed and dated in dark paint along upper right:“Cp 16(??)” (“C” and “p” in monogram)
RR-122© 2024 The Leiden Collection

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How to cite
De Witt, David. “Bust of an Old Woman” (2017). In The Leiden Collection Catalogue, 3rd ed. Edited by Arthur K.
Wheelock Jr. and Lara Yeager-Crasselt. New York, 2020–23. https://www.theleidencollection.com/archive/ (archivedDecember 2023).
A PDF of every version of this entry is available in this Online Catalogue's Archive, and the Archive is managed by apermanent URL. New versions are added only when a substantive change to the narrative occurs.

© 2024 The Leiden Collection

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This haunting image of an old woman wearing a black, hooded garment that drapes

Comparative Figures

over her shoulders is remarkably similar in appearance to an etching Rembrandt vanRijn (1606–69) made in 1628 of an aged woman with profoundly wrinkled skinwearing a similar hooded cape that likewise casts a shadow over her eyes (fig 1). In
both the etching and the painting the woman stares directly out at the viewer in amanner that emphasizes her deep-set eyes and the straight lines of her nose andmouth. Rembrandt’s model traditionally has been identified as his mother. This
identification going back to the 1679 inventory of the Amsterdam print and map
dealer Clement de Jonghe (1624/5–77), in which an etching of this elderly woman,
dated 1631, is listed as “Rembrandt’s Mother.”[1] This same woman appears in a
number of other prints, drawings and paintings by Rembrandt and other artists
associated with him in Leiden during the late 1620s and early 1630s.

Fig 1. Rembrandt van Rijn, Head ofan Old Woman with a Cap, 1628,etching, state 2 of 2, 63 × 64 mm,
Rijksprentenkabinet, Rijksmuseum,
Amsterdam, inv. no. RP-P-1961-1195

It is highly likely that the identification of the model in this etching as Rembrandt’s
mother is correct. Not only did Clement de Jonghe know the artist personally, but hewas also a passionate collector of Rembrandt’s etchings and would have known muchabout them. Rembrandt’s mother, Neeltgen Willemsdr, was born around 1568, whichmeans that she would have been about 60 years old in the late 1620s, an appropriate
age for the sitter in these images. Nevertheless, despite the close similarities between
Rembrandt’s etching of 1628 and the Leiden Collection painting, it is not certain thatthe same individual is depicted in both works. In the painting the woman has a moreelongated face, more pronounced cheek bones, and a stronger jaw line than those of“Rembrandt’s mother.”
Despite these physiological differences, the compositional similarities between

Fig 2. X-radiograph of Bust of an Old
Woman, RR-122

Rembrandt’s etching of 1628 and this painting helped persuade earlier scholars that
this head study was an autograph painting by Rembrandt. Strengthening that argument
is the fact that these scholars mistakenly read the monogram on the painting as an R.
However, in various publications from 1933 to 1966, Kurt Bauch cast doubt on that
attribution, proposing instead that this work was painted by Jan Lievens (1607–74)
and retouched by Rembrandt.[2] Subsequently, Horst Gerson omitted the painting
from his 1969 Rembrandt monograph. In 1982, the Rembrandt Research Project
declared it a nineteenth-century imitation of Rembrandt.[3] This assessment, however,is surely wrong, as subsequent dendrochronological analysis has determined that theFig 3. Detail of monogram at upper
right in Bust of an Old Woman,
RR-122 (photograph courtesy ofAnnette Rupprecht)

panel was available in the 1630s. The thin, translucent handling of paint, moreover, ischaracteristic of Leiden paintings from the early 1630s. Who painted this work,
however, is a question that is difficult to answer. Despite the close stylistic andthematic connections to Rembrandt and his workshop, the brushwork differs fromthat of any of the known artists working in Leiden around 1630, including
Rembrandt, Lievens, and Gerrit Dou (1613–75).
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The artist who executed this work changed the woman’s expression during thepainting process. An X-radiograph reveals that he originally portrayed the woman
with parted lips, as though she was in the act of speaking, and modeled both eyes withlead white paint, indicating that they were not originally meant to be cast in shadow (fig 2).[4] Why these changes were made is not known, but the result is that thewoman’s expression is more solemn and severe than originally conceived. Her blackhooded cloak relates closely to those worn by Roman Catholic lay sisters, known as
klopjes.[5]Instead of being an R the monogram appears to be a lowercase P inscribed inside alarger C (fig 3).[6] This monogram links the work to an enigmatic painting in thePalais des Beaux-Arts in Lille, Student Smoking a Pipe (fig 4), which has a similar
inscription: a large P inscribed in a C. That painting has long been attributed to Pieter
Codde (1599–1678), mainly on this basis. But the astonishing aesthetic performanceof this work—in composition, color, light, description, and evocation ofFig 4. Pieter Codde, A Student
Smoking a Pipe, ca. 1630, oil on panel,
46.2 × 33.4 cm, Palais des Beaux-Arts,
Lille, Don Antoine Brasseur, 1885,
inv. P. 240

emotion—outstrips even the finest examples of the respectably talented Amsterdam
genre painter. Furthermore, Codde’s typical monogram, with the C continuing theloop of the P then proceeding back and downward, differs markedly from thatappearing in the Lille painting, and his authorship of that work is no longer
accepted.[7]The similarity of the monogram in the Leiden Collection painting appears to provide
strong evidence of a common but as of yet unidentified artist. Nevertheless, caution
about making that association is still necessary because the appearance of these twopaintings is so different.[8] The Lille painting exhibits breathtaking coloristic
sophistication, with controlled contrasts of cool and warm hues, quite different fromthe overall grayish cast of the Leiden Collection painting. The pulsating rhythms in
the Lille painting, generated by bulky fabric forms and striking curved and angular
contours, find no parallel in the stark image of Bust of an Old Woman, which depends
more closely on Rembrandt’s models. The possibility of a workshop connection
between the Lille and Leiden Collection paintings—of master and pupil forinstance—might explain the shared monogram, but such a hypothesis remains purely
speculative.

- David de Witt, 2017

© 2024 The Leiden Collection

Bust of an Old Woman
Page 5 of 7Endnotes
1. See Josua Bruyn et al., A Corpus of Rembrandt Paintings, vol. 1: 1625–1631, Stichting Foundation
Rembrandt REsearch Project (The Hague, 1982), 1: 274.
2. Kurt Bauch, Der frühe Rembrandt und seine Zeit (Berlin, 1960), 208.
3. Josua Bruyn et al., A Corpus of Rembrandt Paintings, vol. 1: 1625–1631, Stichting Foundation
Rembrandt Research Project (The Hague, 1982), 1: 681–84.
4. Gerbrand Korevaar asserted that the X-radiograph shows that the eyes originally were downcast, as inRembrandt’s print, but the dense patches of paint containing lead-white fall too low to read as upper
eyelids, and must have represented bulging lower orbicularis oculis muscles, suggesting surprise.
5. For a depiction of a klopje, see Jan Steen, Woman Counting Coins, ca. 1665, in The Leiden Collection,
JS-101.
6. Gerbrand Korevaar in Rembrandts Mothery: Myth and Reality, ed. Christiaan Vogelaar and Gerbrand
Korevaar (Exh. cat. Leiden, Stedelijk Museum De Lakenhal) (Zwolle, 2005), 91, wrongly asserts thatthe monogram and date are later additions.
7. See Fred Meijer, The Collection of Dutch and Flemish Still Life Paintings Bequeathed by Daisy Linda
Ward (Zwolle, 2003), 219. The museum now ascribes the work to an anonymous follower ofRembrandt.
8. As urged by Fred Meijer in e-mail correspondence with the author, 2 November 2013.

ProvenanceGrand Duchess Maria Nikolayevna (1819–76); by descent to her daughter Elena Grigorevna Stroganov;by descent to her children.
Mrs. Von Dehn, St. Petersburg, by 1913.
Dr. Tobias Christ, Basel, by 1928.
(Sale, Sotheby’s, London, 29 October 1998, no. 10, as Manner of Rembrandt).
[Salomon Lilian, Amsterdam, 2005].
From whom purchased by the present owner.

Exhibition History© 2024 The Leiden Collection

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Basel, Basel Art Association, “Ausstellung von Kunstwerken des 15. bis 18. Jahrhunderts aus basler
Privatbesitz,” 15 April–28 May 1928, no. 145 [lent by Dr. Tobias Christ, Basel, as by Rembrandt].
Basel, Fine Arts Museum, “Meisterwerke holländischer Malerei des 16. bis 18. Jahrhunderts,” 23
June–19 August 1945, no. 74 [lent by a private collection, Basel, as by Rembrandt].
Leiden, Museum De Lakenhal, “Rembrandt als Leermeester,” 1 June–1 September 1956, no. 5 [lent bya private collection, Switzerland, as by Rembrandt].
Leiden, Museum De Lakenhal, “Rembrandts Moeder: Mythe en werkelijkheid,” 16 December 2005–19
March 2006, no. 6 [lent by Salomon Lilian, Amsterdam, as circle of Rembrandt].

References
Wrangel, Baron H. H. The Legacy of Grand Duchess Maria Nikolayevna. St. Petersburg, n.p. [ca. 1913],
56, no. 22 (as by Rembrandt).
Von Liphart, Ernst Friedrich. “Reiseeindrücke.” Zeitschrift für Bildende Kunst 13 (1913): 272–73 (as byRembrandt).
Bauch, Kurt. Die Kunst des jungen Rembrandt. Heidelberg, 1933, 220 (as by Jan Lievens andRembrandt).
Bredius, Abraham. Rembrandt: Schilderijen. Utrecht, 1935, no. 65 (as by Rembrandt).
Bredius, Abraham. The Paintings of Rembrandt. Vienna, 1937, no. 65 (as by Rembrandt).
Bauch, Kurt. “Rembrandt und Lievens.” Wallraf-Richardtz-Jahrbuch 11 (1939): 248–50, no. 169 (as byJan Lievens and Rembrandt).
Van Gelder, Jan Gerrit, Horst Gerson, Ary Bob de Vries, Jan Nicolas van Wessem, and Joop M. Joosten,eds. Rembrandt als Leermeester. Exh. cat. Leiden, Museum De Lakenhal. Leiden, 1956, 16, no. 5 (as byRembrandt).
Bauch, Kurt. Der frühe Rembrandt und seine Zeit: Studien zur geschichtlichen Bedeutung seines
Frühstils. Berlin, 1960, 208 (as by Jan Lievens, retouched by Rembrandt).
Bauch, Kurt. Rembrandt: Gemälde. Berlin, 1966, no. A 3 (as by Jan Lievens, retouched by Rembrandt).
Bredius, Abraham, and Horst Gerson. Rembrandt: The Complete Edition of the Paintings. London, 1969,
no. 65 (as by an unknown follower, not Lievens or Rembrandt).
Bruyn, Josua, et al. A Corpus of Rembrandt Paintings. Vol. 1: 1625–1631. Stichting Foundation
Rembrandt Research Project. The Hague, Boston, and London, 1982, 681–84, no. C 43 (as a nineteenthcentury imitation of Rembrandt).
Korevaar, Gerbrandt, and Christian Vogelaar, eds. Rembrandt’s Mother: Myth and REality. Exh. cat.
Leiden, Museum De Lakenhal. Zwolle, 2005, 88–91, no. 6 (as circle of Rembrandt).
© 2024 The Leiden CollectionPowered by TCPDF (www.tcpdf.org)

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Schnackenburg, Bernhard. Jan Lievens: Friend and Rival of the Young Rembrandt. Petersberg, 2016,81–82, 456, no. D2, as by Dirck Lievens.
Bijl, Martin. “Gerrit Dou as a Pupil of Rembrandt.” In Rembrandt and his Circle: Insights andDiscoveries. Edited by Stephanie S. Dickey, 176–77, no. 7.8 (as attributed to Gerrit Dou). Amsterdam,
2017.

Technical Summary
The support, a single plank of vertically grained, rectangular oak with a narrow wood addition along thelower edge, has been thinned, marouflaged, and cradled.[1] The lower edge of the wood addition, extended
composition, and cradle has been trimmed. The lower ends of the four fixed vertical battens have been cut at
sharp bevels, and the lowest horizontal batten has been cut in half and is now secured with brads. No wax
collection seals, paper labels, import stamps or panel maker’s mark are along the marouflage panel or cradle.
Dendrochronology of the plank has proved inconclusive, as Peter Klein’s findings in 2008 and Ian Tyers’s in2010 arrived at significantly different evaluations. Klein identifies the plank as oak from the Baltic/Polishregion with a plausible first use date of 1634, whereas according to Tyers, the tree-ring sequence was notfound to match eastern Baltic, western European, or other dated or undated reference data.[2]A light-colored ground has been thinly and evenly applied and the paint has been built up in successive layerswith visible brushwork through the background and low impasto through the white shirt. The composition
has been extended onto the wood addition along the lower edge.
The painting is signed with a monogram, a small P inside a large C, and dated in dark paint along the upperright. The monogram has been previously misidentified as an R. The painting was consistently listed inexhibition catalogues as being signed with “R” and dated 1627 upper right and attributed to Rembrandt. This
new interpretation of the monogram as a C and P has suggested to some that the painting is by Pieter Codde.

Technical Summary Endnotes

1. The characterization of the wood is based on Ian Tyers’s 2010 and Peter Klein’s 2008 dendrochronology
reports.
2. Peter Klein writes: “An earliest felling date can be derived for the year 1626, more plausible is a fellingdate between 1629..1632….1636 + x. With a minimum of 2 years for seasoning an earliest creation of
the painting is possible from 1628 upwards. Under the assumption of a median of 15 sapwood rings and2 years for seasoning a creation is plausible from 1634 upwards.”© 2024 The Leiden Collection