Rembrandt as Universal Artist
How to cite
Wheelock, Arthur K., Jr. “Rembrandt as Universal Artist” (2020). In The Leiden Collection Catalogue, 3rd ed.
EditedbyArthurK.

Wheelock

Jr.

and

Lara

Yeager-Crasselt.

New

York,

2020–.

https://theleidencollection.com/essays/rembrandt-as-universal-artist/ (archived December 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
occurs.

© 2020 The Leiden Collection

Rembrandt as Universal Artist
Page 2 of 21

As I write this essay in the fall of 2020, we face many uncertainties in our daily
lives caused by a worldwide pandemic, civil unrest, systemic racism, climatechange, and economic concerns. In unsettled times like these, works of art
can provide solace and guidance and inspire hope. They reflect our corevalues and basic humanity. Rembrandt van Rijn (1606–1669) is one of thosemasters whose enduring legacy, which is both universal and personal, seems
to matter now more than ever because of his ability to convey deeply felt
emotions to which we can all relate.[1]Rembrandt (fig 1) derived his essential humanism from the triumphs andtragedies of his own life as well as from his studies of artistic and literary
traditions, including the Bible and mythology, and he assimilated theseexperiences in paintings, drawings, and etchings. He depicted the physicalcharacteristics of those he portrayed, but also their thoughts and feelings,

Fig 1. 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.

from pride and dignity to worry and embarrassment. Through his artistic
sensitivities and human insight, Rembrandt’s figures come alive, whether herendered them from life or his imagination.
Rembrandt firmly belonged to the tradition of the “universal” artist, adesignation well established in the Netherlands by the Dutch theorist Karelvan Mander (1548–1606) for identifying great masters, such as Raphael(1483–1520) and Lucas van Leyden (1494–1533), who worked in a variety of
media and depicted a broad range of subjects.[2] However, from the very
earliest years of his career, when he was still active in Leiden, Rembrandt
redefined the essence of this concept by emphasizing, as well, the emotionaland spiritual realms of the human experience in his art.
This distinctive quality of Rembrandt’s artistic genius was already recognizedin the late 1620s by Constantijn Huygens (1596–1687) (fig 2), one of theFig 2. Jan Lievens, Portrait ofConstantijn Huygens, ca.
1628–29, oil on panel, 99 x 84
cm. Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam,
on loan from the Musée de laChartreuse, Douai.

premier connoisseurs of the day and secretary to the Prince of Orange,
Frederick Hendrick. After a visit to Leiden to meet Rembrandt and hiscolleague

Jan

Lievens(1607–1674),

Huygens

wrote

admiringlyof

Rembrandt’s ability to capture the “movements of the soul.”[3] This remarkableaspect of Rembrandt’s manner drew continued admiration in subsequentcenturies, particularly by the late nineteenth-century German scholar Wilhelmvon Bode (1845–1929), whose outlook was deeply influenced by the
Romantic movement and its ideals of creative genius. Bode admired the way
Rembrandt’s chiaroscuro effects allowed him to suppress surface details sothat he could render “souls rather than existences.” For Bode, Rembrandt’s
art marked “a climax in the development of universal art.”[4] Although the fullFig 3. Rembrandt van Rijn, SelfPortrait in a Cap, Wide-Eyedand Open-Mouthed, 1630,
etching, 50 x 45 mm,
Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam, inv.
© 2020 The Leiden Collection

Rembrandt as Universal Artist
Page 3 of 21

story of Rembrandt’s path to becoming a universal artist is beyond the scope

no. RP-P-OB-697.

of this essay, its essence is found in each of the master’s paintings in The
Leiden Collection, which give shape to the following narrative.

Rembrandt’s Life Trajectory as Seen through His
Art
Rembrandt’s appearance and life story are known to us from many sources,
but none so compelling as the self-portraits he made over the course of his
career. We watch him age from a rough-hewn, unrefined young artist in
Leiden, where strong contrasts of light and dark capture momentary
expressions (fig 3), to a respectable and successful burgher after he moved
to Amsterdam in the early 1630s (fig 1). We also observe, through the eyes of
the artist, how late in life his body, if not his indomitable spirit, began toFig 4. Rembrandt van Rijn, SelfPortrait, 1658, oil on canvas,
133.7 x 103.8 cm, The Frick
Collection, New York, inv. no.
1906.1.97.

weaken and fail (fig 4). Rembrandt did not idealize his features in his
paintings, drawings, and etchings, and, over time, we see his bulbous nose
widen and his jowly cheeks grow ever more distended. The one constant in
his late portraits is his steady gaze, often heavy and not without sadness, butwith a sense of dignity and equanimity that reflects Rembrandt’s convictionthat his legacy was equal to that of any master from antiquity or the
Renaissance.
Rembrandt’s character emerged from the vagaries of his life, and his
successes and failures, as well as his excesses and limitations, provided him
with a broad range of experiences that informed the depth and breadth of his
art. While he rendered all aspects of the world with great sensitivity, he wasFig 5. Rembrandt van Rijn, The
Artist's Mother, Head and Bust,
1628, etching, 66 x 63 mm,
Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam, inv.
no. RP-O-1961-1196.

particularly fascinated with the human face, whether old or young. He drew,etched, and painted both strangers on the street and members of his
family—another reason that we can relate so directly to the world in which helived. For example, Rembrandt captured the forceful personality of his mother(fig 5) and the quiet solemnity of his blind father. We feel connected toRembrandt’s beloved Saskia (fig 6), whom he rendered from the very day thatthey were betrothed in 1633 to when she lay bedridden before her untimely
death in 1641. Only one of their children, Titus, survived infancy, and throughRembrandt’s paintings and drawings we watch him grow to early manhood,
not only in genre-like portraits but also when he served as a model in his
father’s biblical and mythological scenes. Finally, Rembrandt’s dearcompanion Hendrickje (fig 7), who came into his life in the mid-1640s, oftenfeatures in his work. Their life together, while caring and supportive, was notwithout economic distress: in 1656, Rembrandt had to declare a form of

Fig 6. Rembrandt van Rijn,
Saskia van Uylenburgh, theWife of the Artist, probably
begun 1634/35 and completed
1638/40, oil on panel, 62.5 x 49
cm, National Gallery of Art,
Washington, D.C., WidenerCollection, inv. no. 1942.9.71.
© 2020 The Leiden Collection

Rembrandt as Universal Artist
Page 4 of 21

bankruptcy and, a few years later, he was forced to sell his large home andextensive art collection.[5] In 1663, Hendrickje tragically died of the plague, apandemic not unlike the one we are facing today, which tore through the
Netherlands. These powerful life experiences inform the empathy that one
always feels in the presence of one of Rembrandt’s works.
When Rembrandt died at age sixty-three in 1669, he was largely alone,predeceased by Hendrickje and Titus. At his death, moreover, the art world
had largely passed him by. After years of success, his dark and roughly
brushed portraits and religious, historical, and mythological paintings lostfavor, not only among younger patrons but also with Amsterdam’s city fathers
who had become enthralled by more elegant artistic styles. Nevertheless,even as many of Rembrandt’s contemporaries turned away from him, he did

Fig 7. Rembrandt van Rijn,
Hendrickje Stoffels (?), probably
1654–56, oil on canvas, 101.9 x
83.7 cm, National Gallery,
London, inv. no. NG6432.

continue to receive commissions from those who seemingly realized that his
artistic creations probed the very essence of human life by fusing the physicaland spiritual in ways never before reached (fig 8).

Rembrandt in Leiden in the Early 1620s
Rembrandt’s story begins in Leiden on July 15, 1606, when he was born to amiller, Harmen Gerritsz van Rijn, and his wife, Neeltgen van Zuytbrouck.[6] As
the youngest son of at least ten children, Rembrandt was not expected tocarry on his father’s business but was allowed to follow his natural instincts,
which were, according to his first biographer, “toward the art of painting anddrawing.”[7] The family was prosperous enough to send him to the Leiden
Latin School, where he remained for seven years, and to the University of

Fig 8. Rembrandt van Rijn,
Portrait of a Seated Woman
with Her Hands Clasped, 1660,
oil on canvas, 77.5 x 64.8 cm,
The Leiden Collection, New
York, inv. no. RR-113.

Leiden, where he was enrolled from 1620 to at least 1622.[8] Such an
education would have given him a solid foundation in theology and theliterature of classical antiquity. This familiarity with narratives from the Bible
and Roman mythology provided him with the intellectual framework forbecoming a history painter, then understood to be the highest echelon for an
artist.
Rembrandt was raised as a Protestant, yet his family’s sympathies lay notwith the Orthodox Calvinists but with the Remonstrants—a faction of the Dutch
Reformed Church that opposed the Orthodox Calvinists’ position onpredestination. Calvinist doctrine maintained that God’s elect were choseneven before the fall of Adam, and that those selected for damnation could notameliorate their destiny through repentance and faith. The Remonstrants
argued, on the other hand, that God would save those who had fallen if theyFig 9. Rembrandt van Rijn,
Portrait of an Old Man (Possiblya Rabbi), ca. 1645, oil on panel,
22.2 x 18.4 cm, The Leiden
Collection, New York, inv. no.
RR-109.

lived in “true obedience of faith.”[9] Debates between the Remonstrants and© 2020 The Leiden Collection

Rembrandt as Universal Artist
Page 5 of 21

the Orthodox Calvinists, known as the Counter Remonstrants, were intense
during the early to mid-1620s, particularly at the University of Leiden, while
Rembrandt was a student.
Although Rembrandt’s own religious views are not known, the importancethat the Remonstrants placed on personal faith is consistent with
Rembrandt’s emphasis on the inner life of his subjects. There was nothing
dogmatic about his ideology, however. He would eventually have important
contacts with individuals from a wide range of religious traditions—not only
Remonstrants and Counter Remonstrants—who would inform and broaden the

Fig 10. Jacob van Swanenburg,
The Sibyl Showing Aeneas theUnderworld Charon’s Boat, ca.
1620, oil on panel, 93.5 x 124
cm, Museum De Lakenhal,
Leiden, inv. no. S 251.

perspective he had derived from his family and early education. Rembrandt
studied with two masters who were Roman Catholics: in the early 1620s with
Jacob Isaacsz van Swanenburgh (1571–1638) in Leiden, and in the
mid-1620s with Pieter Lastman (1583–1633) in Amsterdam. He also had close
relationships with Mennonites, including the Amsterdam art dealer Hendrick
van Uylenburgh (ca. 1587–1661), for whom he worked as a master painter inthe early 1630s, as well as associations with many Jews—not only individuals
who served as models (fig 9) but also those who commissioned paintings andetchings from him. This acceptance of and engagement with different religious
traditions helps account for the broad humanity of his art.
To judge from the type and character of the images Rembrandt produced
throughout his long career, he found spiritual affinities with each of thesereligious traditions. He was well versed in the Bible, but another importantFig 11. Jan Lievens, SelfPortrait, ca. 1629-30, oil on
panel, 42 x 37 cm, The Leiden
Collection, New York, inv. noJL-105.

literary source for Biblical themes was Jewish Antiquities, a book recorded in
his 1656 inventory.[10] Written by the Jewish historian Flavius Josephus (ca.
37–100 CE), this tome describes the psychological state of Old Testament
figures faced with painful choices, frequently as a result of God’scommands—subjects that Rembrandt also gravitated toward throughout his
career because of their expressive possibilities and wider implications forhuman behavior. In order to depict stories from the Bible and antiquity with asense of authenticity, Rembrandt began to collect artifacts from many parts of

Fig 12. 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.

the world, including Africa, Turkey, and India.[11] He also amassed a large
collection of prints and drawings by and after such masters as Raphael, Titian(ca. 1488–1576), Albrecht Dürer (1471–1528), and Lucas van Leyden thatprovided him with inspiration for his own inventions.
The first evidence of Rembrandt choosing an artistic career dates to 1620
when, at the age of 16, he entered the studio of Van Swanenburgh, aprominent history painter in Leiden. Van Swanenburgh’s paintings depicting
fiery scenes of hell (fig 10) were by then already rather old fashioned, andFig 13. Jan Lievens, Card
Players, ca. 1625, oil on© 2020 The Leiden Collection

Rembrandt as Universal Artist
Page 6 of 21

they had no perceptible influence on the young artist. Nonetheless, thisLeiden master, almost certainly guided by Karel van Mander’s Het Schilder-canvas, 97.5 x 105.4 cm, The
Leiden Collection, New York,
inv. no. JL-102.

boeck (The Art of Painting), taught Rembrandt the fundamentals of painting.
Van Mander’s important art treatise, originally published in Haarlem in 1604
and reprinted in 1618, just two years before Rembrandt entered Van
Swanenburgh’s studio, provided both practical advice and a historical andtheoretical framework for the broader significance of art in the culturallandscape of the time.[12] Van Mander noted, for example, that an aspiring
young artist should draw constantly, first copying prints and paintings by older
masters and subsequently drawing after nature. He should learn to express
himself through a variety of techniques, including painting, drawing, andprintmaking. Importantly, Van Mander emphasized that history painting, which
encompassed allegorical scenes and subjects drawn from the Bible, antiquity,
or Greek and Roman mythology, was the most noble and prestigious genre ofpainting.[13] History paintings focus on uplifting or cautionary narratives thatencourage one to contemplate the meaning of life. They deal with ethical and

Fig 14. Rembrandt van Rijn,
Unconscious Patient (Allegoryof Smell), ca. 1624-25, oil on
panel, inset into an eighteenthcentury panel, 31.75 x 25.4 cm,
The Leiden Collection, New
York, inv. no. RR-111.

moral choices that confront individuals in times of crisis, where emotions andpassions are expressed in dramatic and evocative ways. History painters had
to be learned artists, knowledgeable about stories and cultures from the past,
but also able to work from the imagination.[14]Van Mander’s Het Schilder-boeck not only provided guidelines for producing awork of art, but it also recounted the great achievements of artists from thepast—not only Italians, such as Raphael, but also Netherlandish artists,
including Lucas van Leyden, both of whom he specifically celebrated for being“universal” artists. Van Mander wrote that Van Leyden was “naturally gifted”
and “never stopped drawing everything from life: faces, hands, feet, houses,
landscapes and all manner of fabrics, in which he took a particular pleasure.
He was in fact universal, or familiar with . . . all that the art of painting

Fig 15. 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.

comprehends: for he painted histories, portraits, landscapes and figures in oil
and watercolor and practiced glass-painting and engraving from an earlyage.”[15] Rembrandt clearly embraced Van Mander’s assessment of Lucasvan Leyden as a universal artist, for this Leiden native was, in many ways,
Rembrandt’s spiritual forefather. He was a model worthy of emulation;indeed, Rembrandt based one of his earliest etchings on a Van Leyden
composition. He also recognized that Van Leyden’s self-portraits helped
ensure his lasting reputation, which may be one reason that Rembrandt
featured self-portraits in his work.[16]Rembrandt and Lievens in Leiden in the

Fig 16. Rembrandt van Rijn,
Three Musicians (Allegory of© 2020 The Leiden Collection

Rembrandt as Universal Artist
Page 7 of 21

Mid-1620s and Early 1630s
Rembrandt left Van Swanenburgh’s workshop in 1624, likely because he

Hearing), ca. 1624-25, oil on
panel, 21.6 x 17.6 cm, The
Leiden Collection, New York,
inv. no. RR-105.

wanted to paint in a more modern manner and found a sympathetic colleague
in Jan Lievens (fig 11). Although one year younger than Rembrandt, thisLeiden native had already established himself as a precocious master. Like
Rembrandt, Lievens had first trained in Leiden, but in 1617, his parents sent
him to Amsterdam to study for two years with Pieter Lastman, the preeminent
history painter of the day. In Lastman’s studio, Lievens would have seen
history paintings, such as David Gives Uriah a Letter for Joab (fig 12), that
depict narrative episodes from the Bible. Lievens learned from Lastman key
principles of the genre, including the arrangement of figures within acomposition and how gesture and glance help create a compelling narrative.
Having gained this knowledge, Lievens returned to Leiden around 1620. It
seems, however, that the young artist soon went briefly to Utrecht to train with
Gerrit van Honthorst (1592–1656), who had just returned to Utrecht fromFig 17. Rembrandt van Rijn,
Samson and Delilah, 1628, oil
on panel, 60.3 x 50.1 cm,
Staatliche Museen,
Gemäldegalerie, Berlin, inv. no.
812A.

Rome. Van Honthorst had embraced the revolutionary style of painting
developed by Caravaggio (1571–1610), with dramatic chiaroscuro effects(contrasts of light and dark), which he adapted in scenes that often featured
candlelight. Lievens enthusiastically embraced Van Honthorst’s muchacclaimed Caravaggist manner in both his history paintings and scenes ofdaily life, such as the Card Players of ca. 1625 (fig 13). Aside from its
pronounced chiaroscuro effects, Card Players has a visual power that comesfrom Lievens’s tightly cropped composition and the physicality of his figures.
Strikingly, Rembrandt was the model for the seated smiling figure holding apipe, the earliest known depiction of this young Leiden artist. The fact that
Rembrandt served as one of Lievens’s models clearly indicates that the twoartists knew each other well—and perhaps even shared a studio.
Rembrandt painted his earliest known works, his multipanel Allegory of theFig 18. Jan Lievens, Boy in a
Cape and Turban (Portrait ofPrince Rupert of the Palatinate),
ca. 1631, oil on panel, 66.7 x51.8 cm, The Leiden Collection,
New York, inv. no. JL-104.

Senses, around this time, presumably in Lievens’s workshop. Three paintingsfrom this series of the five senses are in The Leiden Collection: Unconscious
Patient (Allegory of Smell) (fig 14), Stone Operation (Allegory of Touch) (fig15), and Three Musicians (Allegory of Hearing) (fig 16). In these works,
Rembrandt fully embraced Lievens’s modern manner, including his boldbrushstrokes, strong chiaroscuro effects, closely cropped composition, andsense of humor. Moreover, just as Rembrandt is an actor in the Card Players,
young Lievens appears as a participant in the Allegory of Hearing, the earliest
known image of that artist.
This allegorical series reveals Rembrandt’s imaginative approach to the well© 2020 The Leiden Collection

Rembrandt as Universal Artist
Page 8 of 21

established pictorial tradition of the five senses. Each of the panel paintings
features three tightly framed figures who focus on a shared experience in adark, undefined space. Rembrandt robed his figures in bright pink and light
blue attire that, lit by artificial light sources seen and unseen, provides

Fig 19. Jan Lievens, Head of an
Old Woman: ''Rembrandt's
Mother'', ca. 1628 red and black
chalk on yellow-hued, buffcolored laid paper, 10.8 x 8.5
cm, The Leiden Collection, New
York, JL-103.

splashes of color that greatly enliven the images. As depicted, thesesurgeons, patients, and singers—young and old, male and female, crude andrefined—are unforgettably expressive characters involved in activities thatconnect the senses of smell, touch, and hearing in ways both humorous andempathetic, whether reviving a fainted patient, undertaking a surgicaloperation, or singing from an open songbook. In Three Musicians (Allegory of
Hearing) (fig 16), for example, an unforgettable bespectacled man withwrinkled forehead holds a large music book and beats time with his raised
hand to guide the other members of his trio—an elderly woman wearing acolorful striped turban and young man in a dark beret—both of whom eagerlylean forward to join him in song. Stone Operation (Allegory of Touch) (fig 15)
is no less humorous, as a barber-surgeon in old-fashioned dress wields a
scalpel to remove a stone from the head of a patient clenching his fists andgrimacing in pain. Rembrandt had an irreverent sense of humor, and theexaggerated expressions and gestures of the figures in these paintings almost

Fig 20. Rembrandt van Rijn,
Bust of a Bearded Old Man,
1633, oil on paper, mounted on
panel, 8.9 x 6.4 cm, The Leiden
Collection, New York, inv. no.
RR-116.

induce one to laugh out loud at the recognizable human foibles he depicted.
In 1625, shortly after painting Allegory of the Senses, Rembrandt followed in
Lievens’s footsteps and went briefly to Amsterdam to study with Pieter
Lastman, from whom he, like Lievens, learned key principles of history
painting. After Rembrandt returned to Leiden in 1626, he matured quickly as
an artist and composed a number of history paintings that both emulated andcompeted with those of Lastman by depicting the same subjects in more
dynamic ways. In a similar manner, during the late 1620s Rembrandt also
competed with his Leiden colleague Lievens: the two young artists often
portrayed the same narratives in their paintings, prints, and drawings. Theirstylistic approaches were so similar that attributions of their works weresometimes disputed.[17]Lievens’s and Rembrandt’s innate artistic abilities, and their shared desire to

Fig 21. 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.

portray themselves as outsiders who felt free to express themselves in new
and different ways, brought them great notoriety, even at their early age. Theirfame spread to The Hague and to Constantijn Huygens, who traveled to
Leiden in 1628–29 to see these two young artists, in part because he was insearch of new home-grown talent for the Prince of Orange’s art collection.
Huygens was enthralled with what he saw, particularly a portrait that Lievens
painted of him (fig 2). He registered his praise in an epigram that reads, in© 2020 The Leiden Collection

Rembrandt as Universal Artist
Page 9 of 21

part: “This is the face of Huygens, who was meditating, / If you look for thesoul, you will see the one who is full of breath.”[18]Huygens wrote at length about the two artists in his autobiography, where hedistinguished between their artistic strengths and weaknesses. He noted thatwhile Lievens “chooses a larger scale,” “Rembrandt was superior . . . in his
sure touch and liveliness of emotions,” qualities that were essential for
painting expressive history scenes (fig 17). Much as with his praise for
Lievens, Huygens lauded Rembrandt’s ability to capture the “movements ofthe soul,” which he contended rivalled the achievements of the great masters
from antiquity, including Protogenes, Apelles, and Parrhasius.

[19]

Huygens’s

assertions about this young master’s expressive abilities explicitly raised thelevel of his creations to that of artists renowned through the ages, an

Fig 22. Rembrandt van Rijn,
Portrait of a Man in a Red Coat,
1633, oil on oval panel, 63.7 x50.8 cm, The Leiden Collection,
New York, inv. no. RR-108.

implication that Rembrandt took to heart.
Huygens’s visit to Leiden would have real consequences for both Lievens’s
andRembrandt’s

careers,

for

both

subsequently

receivedprincelycommissions from Huygens that greatly enhanced their prestige and publicesteem for their works. Among these commissions were requests that eachartist portray Prince Rupert of the Palatinate, a nephew of the Prince ofOrange. Lievens’s likeness of Prince Rupert in The Leiden Collection is oneof these masterpieces (fig 18). Lievens depicted Prince Rupert exotically
dressed in a golden cape attached with a chain clasp as well as a blue andgold turban festooned with the soaring plume of a bird of paradise. The young
sitter looks like a Turkish or Persian character from a biblical story, but thebrilliant, shimmering yellow, gold, and blue fabrics of this wardrobe reflect astyle of dress then in vogue at the Dutch court.[20]Fig 23. Rembrandt van Rijn andWorkshop, Portrait of Antonie
Coopal, 1635, oil on Brazilian
chestnut (sucupira), 83.5 x 67.6
cm, The Leiden Collection, New
York, inv. no. RR-103.

Despite their successes, both Rembrandt and Lievens remained rebels,
anxious to make their marks in Leiden by breaking with establishedconventions of decorum and artistic presentation. Around 1630, Rembrandt, inparticular, made a number of etched self-portraits in which he presents
himself as unbeholden to social norms, including freely rendered images
showing himself as coarse, rough-hewn, and unrefined as he smiles, frowns,
or snarls directly at the viewer (fig 3). The courtly contact they had throughHuygens created inner conflicts for both artists, who struggled to reconcile
their identity as rebels, working outside the norms of Dutch society, with being
court artists who would be expected to conform to a certain code of
demeanor. Rembrandt, in particular, was caught in a vortex of conflicting
artistic ideals and styles of painting, from comic to serious and from refined to

Fig 24. Rembrandt van Rijn,
Minerva in Her Study, 1635, oilon canvas, 138 x 116.5 cm, The
Leiden Collection, New York,
inv. no. RR-107.

broadly executed, which he never quite reconciled into a consistent whole—a© 2020 The Leiden Collection

Rembrandt as Universal Artist
Page 10 of 21

tension that makes his work fascinating and unpredictable. This sense ofbeing an outsider but also wanting to be accepted by the Dutch court andsociety in general also constitutes an important factor in the universality of
Rembrandt’s art, which touches on all aspects of the human condition.
Throughout their careers, both Lievens and Rembrandt were captivated withthe challenge of rendering the human countenance, and they depicted thefaces of those around them in paintings, drawings, and etchings. In thesehead studies, known as tronies, they rendered not only themselves but alsofamily members, see (fig 4), (fig 5), and (fig 11), friends, and working-classpeople they encountered in and around Leiden, some of whom they dressed
in imaginative, exotic costumes. Both artists were fascinated with the faces ofthe old, for in age they found “character,” whether in the creases that lined a

Fig 25. Rembrandt van Rijn,
Holy Family, 1645, oil oncanvas, 117 x 91 cm, The State
Hermitage Museum, St.
Petersburg, inv. no. 741.

wizened visage or in the wisdom that radiated from those who haveexperienced the vagaries of life. They painted, drew, and etched tronies fromlife (“naar het leven”), from memory (“van onthout”), or from the imagination(“uit den gheest”), but always with the aim of enhancing the expressive
character and inner life of the figures they were depicting. Tronies were often
independent works of art, but Rembrandt and Lievens later adapted manysuch character studies in their history paintings.[21]One of Rembrandt’s most compelling tronies is Bust of a Bearded Old Man (fig 20), a small painting that he executed in 1633 on a sheet of paper nolargerthanaplayingcard.

Rembrandt’s

bold

and

energeticbrushstrokes—particularly those rendering the elder’s furrowed brow, unkempt
hair, and beard—create a dynamic image even though the elder, with eyes

Fig 26. Rembrandt van Rijn,
Head of a Girl, ca. 1645, oil on
panel, 20.8 x 17.4 cm, The
Leiden Collection, New York,
inv. no. RR-112.

obscured in shadow, looks down in a moment of quiet reflection. Rembrandt
signed and dated this tronie, signifying that he greatly valued its expressive
character and viewed it as being no less significant than a full-scale painting.
He may have executed this treasure for a friend or collector, since it is unlikelythat he would have made such a small work for the open market.

Rembrandt in Amsterdam during the 1630s
The dynamic relationship that Rembrandt and Lievens enjoyed in Leiden as
they challenged each other to greater and greater levels of artistic expression
ended in the early 1630s, when Lievens left for London and Rembrandt
moved to Amsterdam, both in search of larger and more prestigious artistic
centers.[22] Amsterdam was a much more cosmopolitan city than Leiden, andRembrandt’s move gave him an opportunity to feature his skills as a portrait

Fig 27. Rembrandt van Rijn,
Study of a Woman in a White
Cap, ca. 1640, oil on panel,
47.3 x 39 cm, The Leiden
Collection, New York, inv. no.
RR-101.

painter, which he had hardly displayed prior to 1631. It seems likely that© 2020 The Leiden Collection

Rembrandt as Universal Artist
Page 11 of 21

Rembrandt’s move came about in part through the invitation of Hendrik van
Uylenburgh, who ran a so-called “academy,” which was primarily a workshop
for portrait commissions.[23] Rembrandt acted as head of Van Uylenburgh’s
workshop and quickly established his reputation in Amsterdam as a portrait
painter.
The cosmopolitan environment Rembrandt encountered in Amsterdam
encouraged the artist to abandon the persona of a rebel artist that he had
developed in Leiden and to present himself as a respectable member ofsociety, particularly by 1634 when he married Hendrick van Uylenburgh’s
younger cousin, Saskia (fig 6). In one of the most engaging self-portraits fromthis period of his career, Self-Portrait with Shaded Eyes (fig 1), the artist,
wearing a fur-trimmed jacket, gazes at the viewer from beneath a dark beretworn at a jaunty angle. As he peers out from an oval framing element,

Fig 28. Rembrandt van Rijn,
Self-Portrait, 1659, oil oncanvas, 84.5 x 66 cm, National
Gallery of Art, Washington,
D.C., Andrew W. Mellon
Collection, inv. no. 1937.1.72.

Rembrandt presents himself as a sincere and scholarly artist-suitor, fardifferent from disreputable painters who were characterized by such slurs as“hoe schilder hoe wilder” (the more of a painter the wilder he is).
Rembrandt appears here with his face largely in shadow, an unusualapproach to self-portraiture, announcing, yet again, that he thought differently
about presenting himself to the world than did his contemporaries. By leaving
both eyes in the shade of his beret’s soft brim, and hence somewhat
undefined, Rembrandt encourages the viewer to look carefully at the image,thereby becoming more fully engaged with the artist’s persona. Rembrandt
modeled the face with blended strokes and subtle half-lights that further
enhance his physical reality and psychological presence.

Fig 29. Rembrandt van Rijn,
Self-Portrait with Two Circles,ca. 1665, oil on canvas, 114.3 x
94 cm, Kenwood House, The
Iveagh Bequest, inv. 57.

In Amsterdam, Rembrandt found an enthusiastic clientele eager to acquire his
portraits. They admired the way Rembrandt created lifelike images throughhis innovative poses, subtle rendering of flesh tones, and control of light anddark. Young Girl in a Gold-Trimmed Cloak (fig 21), signed and dated 1632, is
one such work. Rembrandt modeled the young woman’s face with smoothly
blended strokes and rendered her blond hair with flowing touches of thebrush. He vividly characterized her distinctive features—pronounced forehead,slight pout, and double chin—in ways that capture her unique personality.
Although she gazes directly out at the viewer, her body slightly turns in space,an effect Rembrandt enhanced through his handling of light. For example,
Rembrandt juxtaposed the illuminated left side of her body against a dark
background while doing the opposite at the right, where light illuminates theocher wall behind her shaded form. The differing character of the glints
shining off the gold trim on the woman’s jacket also reflect this subtle twist of© 2020 The Leiden Collection

Rembrandt as Universal Artist
Page 12 of 21

her body, which enhances the lifelike character of this image.
Another painting that Rembrandt executed soon after he came to Van
Uylenburgh’s Amsterdam workshop is Portrait of a Man in a Red Coat (fig 22). Artist and sitter must have immediately found that they had an easy rapport.
Rembrandt depicted his subject with moustache twirled upward and a friendly
demeanor as he looks directly out at the viewer. The essence of the sitter’seasy personality is evident in his robust features, arched eyebrows, andgenerous girth. The red doublet he wears, which Rembrandt brushed with anappropriate freedom of touch, and particularly the garment’s horizontal
braided clasps add sparkle to this image. The sitter’s conspicuous attire, so
different from the black wardrobes often found in other portraits at that time,
may indicate that he was a member of the military, but it is also likely that hedressed this way because it suited him.
Rembrandt attracted a number of students who came to learn his method of
painting in Van Uylenburgh’s studio, among them Govaert Flinck (1615–1660), Ferdinand Bol (1616–1680), and Jacob Backer (1608–1651), all artists
represented in The Leiden Collection. As was customary in Dutch workshops,
Rembrandt occasionally had pupils and assistants aid him in meeting the highdemand for commissioned portraits. In such instances, the master would paintthe face and hands, while the assistant would help execute the costume. Suchseems to have been the case with Portrait of Antonie Coopal, which is signed
by Rembrandt and dated 1635 (fig 23). Here, the manner in which Coopal’s
face is rendered is consistent with Rembrandt’s touch, but the elaborate lacecollar lacks the nuanced modelling of other collars in Rembrandt portraits ofthe mid-1630s. After Rembrandt left Van Uylenburgh’s workshop and began
painting on his own, he continued to involve students and apprentices in his
creative process, teaching them not only the value of tronies for probing thehuman psyche but also the importance of history painting.
Rembrandt’s active engagement in portraiture in Amsterdam during the1630s did not preclude him from painting magnificent biblical and mythologicalscenes, among them Minerva in Her Study (fig 24) of 1635. Rembrandt
believed that to be a universal master, one must excel in history painting, andhe began executing history paintings at a scale and with a visual power
beyond anything he had created in his Leiden period. Although we do notknow what motivated Rembrandt to paint in such an imposing manner at thistime, he probably sought to emulate and even compete with the achievementsof the Flemish master Peter Paul Rubens (1577–1640), then recognized as
the greatest history painter of the day. Constantijn Huygens, who was an© 2020 The Leiden Collection

Rembrandt as Universal Artist
Page 13 of 21

admirer of Rubens, noted that the Flemish master was without equal in his
inventiveness and the variety of his subject matter and that he was“experienced in all the humanities.”[24] Huygens further described Rubens as
the “Apelles of our time,” a designation that would have registered with
Rembrandt, whom Huygens had also compared to Apelles after visiting theyoung artist in Leiden.
Minerva was an appropriate subject for an artist who sought to compete with
Rubens. In Rembrandt’s painting, this Olympian goddess is regal in both
appearance and demeanor as she quietly sits at a tapestry-covered table.
Light, which enters from the upper left, illuminates not only the laurel wreathcrowning Minerva’s head, but also her flowing blond hair, the shimmering
gold-embroidered cloak draped over her shoulder, and, importantly, the whitesof her eyes. Although the goddess’s facial features are somewhat similar to
those of Saskia (fig 6), they are generalized and idealized, much as Rubens
would have done, in a manner befitting an important Olympian deity.
Rembrandt depicted Minerva as the goddess of wisdom, engaged in learningand reflecting on scholarly discourse in a manner that connects directly to thehuman experience. With her left hand resting on a large leather-bound folio,
she looks up toward the viewer, her alert, open expression indicating that she
is contemplating the text she has just read. The nearby globe further signifies
the broad scope of her knowledge. Arrayed behind her are attributes
associated with her role as goddess of war and peace: a helmet, sword, andlarge oval shield, with its frightening image of Medusa’s severed head.
Rembrandt, however, explicitly depicts Minerva facing away from such
associations with war to pursue her scholarly interests.
Rembrandt likely painted this work for one of Amsterdam’s regents, civic
leaders who believed that a peaceful environment was beneficial tointernational trade and hence to Amsterdam’s prosperity. His intent, thus, was
not solely to portray a mythological goddess but also to demonstrate how her
example could help guide contemporary social and political concerns in the
Dutch Republic.

Rembrandt’s Mature Period in the 1640s and1650s
In 1639, five years after his marriage to Saskia and at the height of his artistic
success, Rembrandt purchased a large house on the Sint-Anthonisbreestraat
in Amsterdam. To acquire the house, he had to borrow heavily, assuming adebt that would eventually figure in his financial problems of the mid-1650s.
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Rembrandt as Universal Artist
Page 14 of 21

Rembrandt and Saskia had four children, but only Titus, born in 1641,
survived infancy. After a long illness, Saskia died in 1642, the year Rembrandt
paintedperhapshis

mostrenownedcomposition,

The

Night

Watch (Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam). After Saskia’s death, Rembrandt seemed
to find comfort in taking long walks in the countryside, with sketchbook in
hand, making landscapes and figure studies, much as Karel van Mander had
urged artists to do. He also found solace in painting quiet and intimate scenes
from the Bible set in domestic interiors, which reflected the new reality hefaced as a single father to a small child who needed love and caring from his
devoted parent. This personal tragedy and his varied reactions to it expanded
Rembrandt’s life experiences in ways that had a huge impact on thecharacter of his later work, which now conveyed an even greater empathy for
those who suffered losses and disillusionment in their lives.
One subject that Rembrandt featured in his paintings of the 1640s was theHoly Family, as with this intimate scene in the Hermitage (fig 25). As noted
above, Rembrandt often made tronies in anticipation of his history paintings,
to study not only expression but also effects of light and dark. One such tronie
is Head of a Girl (fig 26), which served as the model for Mary in the
Hermitage painting. In this freely executed tronie, Rembrandt illuminated the
young woman’s face with strong light falling from the upper left while he used
more nuanced strokes of the brush to render her shaded cheek. Largely
through the tilt of her head, he captured a sense of tenderness that he would
adapt in his portrayal of Mary gazing down at the sleeping Christ Child.
Many of Rembrandt’s tronies from the 1640s portray individuals whosecharacter he found intriguing, whether it be an elderly Ashkenazi Jew wearing
a wide, flat beret (fig 9) or a formidable yet humble woman who conveys astrong inner core of beliefs, as in Study of a Woman in a White Cap (fig 27).
Rembrandt depicted such figures in different ways, perhaps to reflect their
distinctive personalities, but also to indulge his interest in exploring various
ways to model their faces. For example, he painted the Ashkenazi Jew withquick brushstrokes, contrasting dense impastos on the face with thinly
brushed areas in his clothing, while he captured the working woman’s
distinctive personality by modeling her features with subtly nuanced areas oflight and dark.
The 1640s were a difficult period in Rembrandt’s life for many reasons. He
became involved with Geertje Dirckx, who had entered the household as anurse for Titus, but their relationship ended acrimoniously a few years later.[25]In 1647, Rembrandt met Hendrickje Stoffels (fig 7), who would become his© 2020 The Leiden Collection

Rembrandt as Universal Artist
Page 15 of 21

companion and would care for him and Titus until her death from the plague in1663. However, Rembrandt and Hendrickje never married because of a
stipulation in Saskia’s will that he would have to transfer half of their joint
assets to Titus should he remarry—money the artist did not have.[26] Partly asa result of public outrage over his domestic situation and partly because
Rembrandt’s dark, roughly brushed portraits and religious, historical, andmythological paintings had largely lost favor among both younger patrons andAmsterdam’s city fathers, he was beset with financial difficulties.[27] In 1658,
Rembrandt suffered the humiliation of seeing his possessions, including hislarge art collection, auctioned because of insolvency. He then moved to theartist’s quarter in the Jordaan district of Amsterdam, eventually renting a
relatively small house on the Rozengracht where he lived for the rest of hislife.[28]Although Rembrandt still received some important portrait commissions during
the late 1650s and early 1660s, stylistic trends had veered away from his
deeply personal manner of painting. Many of his contemporaries preferred themore elegant styles of former students, like Flinck and Bol, and Rembrandt
became more and more isolated from the mainstream of Dutch art. No
students are documented as having worked with him during the latter half ofthe 1650s, and only one, Arent de Gelder (1645–1727), is known to havestudied with him in the 1660s.
Those who did welcome Rembrandt’s broad manner of painting wererewarded with such powerful images as Portrait of a Seated Woman with Her
Hands Clasped (fig 8), which the master executed in 1660. The name of thiswoman is not known, but Rembrandt’s portrayal of her forceful visage, with its
rough skin and pronounced features, is unforgettable. Aged she may be, but
the years have not taken away the intensity of her gaze or the alertness of her
mind, qualities that Rembrandt captures in the woman’s upright pose andtightly clasped hands. The master’s vigorous, unblended brushstrokes left,
without hesitation, for all to see, convey both her rugged outward appearance
and her inner strength. Neither the setting, a dark room with plaster walls, nor
the woman’s fur-trimmed jacket and red-velvet sleeves provide muchinformation about her identity or social class, although her black headdress
may indicate that she was a widow. Given the forcefulness of this image,which seems to exist in a realm between portraiture and character study, one
wonders if Rembrandt associated this woman with some biblical or
mythological figure, as he occasionally did at this late stage of his career.

Rembrandt’s Late Self-Portraits as Expressions© 2020 The Leiden Collection

Rembrandt as Universal Artist
Page 16 of 21

of a Universal Artist
Rembrandt’s conviction that he was an artist who reached beyond his own
time and place is particularly evident in his late self-portraits, among them the1658 Self-Portrait at the Frick Collection in New York (fig 4), the 1659 SelfPortrait at the National Gallery of Art in Washington (fig 28), and the ca. 1665
Self-Portrait with Two Circles at Kenwood House in London (fig 29). One
would never guess from these works that the master’s fortunes and prospects
were at such a low ebb. In each of them, Rembrandt exudes confidence andinner strength. He looks out at the viewer with a calm, resigned equanimitythat is both sympathetic and stately. In these works, Rembrandt fuses theabstract and the real so that they become one and the same.
In the Frick’s Self-Portrait, Rembrandt sits in a Savonarola chair and holds asilver-knobbed wooden staff lightly between his fingers, both symbols of
authority. His striking garments—a golden tunic with brocade lapels and red
sash, and a fur-trimmed robe—are not the clothes of a practicing artist or a
Dutch burgher. They are fanciful evocations of ancient dress, similar to what
Jupiter wears in Rembrandt’s Jupiter and Mercury Visiting Philemon andBaucis, which the master also executed in 1658.[29] Rembrandt does not
specifically assume the awe-inspiring persona of Jupiter in this Self-Portrait,
for his seated pose is inviting rather than intimidating, and his deep humanity
is evident in his firm yet caring expression. For the National Gallery ofArt’s Self-Portrait, Rembrandt chose to emulate Raphael’s famed portrait of
the author and courtier Baldassare Castiglione, which he had seen at an
auction in Amsterdam on April 19, 1639. He not only made a copy ofRaphael’s painting but also adapted Castiglione’s pose in an etching in thatyear, and again in a painted Self-Portrait in 1640.[30] The memory ofCastiglione’s direct gaze and clasped hands must have remained deeply
ingrained in Rembrandt’s mind for the next two decades. He returned toRaphael’s prototype because he found in it a vehicle for expressing his
perception of himself as a learned painter, equal to the great masters of the
past.
The

Kenwood

painting

isparticularly

evocativeforunderstanding

Rembrandt’s perception of himself as a universal artist. Rembrandt stands
proudly as a painter, brush and palette in hand, before a wall on which
portions of two circles flank him. These abstract shapes resemble the paired
circles on double-hemisphere wall maps that were being produced in the
Dutch Republic.[31] It seems probable that in depicting these circles,
Rembrandt was inspired by the symbolism of such maps, which were viewed© 2020 The Leiden Collection

Rembrandt as Universal Artist
Page 17 of 21

as images of the entirety of the visible world.[32] These double circles,
however, also evoke terrestrial and celestial globes, such as those seen in
portraits of scholars—among them Thomas de Keyser’s image of Constantijn
Huygens—that symbolized knowledge of both the physical and metaphysicalworlds.[33]Throughout his life, Rembrandt aspired to be a universal artist, a concept thatwas instilled in him from an early age through the writings of Van Mander andpersonal communications with Huygens. He sought to achieve that status inmany ways, not only by working in diverse media including painting, etching,and drawing, but also by becoming a history painter. With his powers ofobservation and fertile imagination, Rembrandt explored new ways ofrendering both the spiritual realm and the physical world around him, including
landscapes and domestic interiors. His genius resides in his ability to convey
the depth of human emotion—whether in family members and friends or people
he met on the street, sometimes in quick sketches and sometimes in carefully
finished commissioned portraits—in ways that speak to all of us. His essential
humanism provided him with insights that allowed him to capture the“movements of the soul” to a degree that no other artist has ever equaled, inimages that resonate profoundly amid the fraught circumstances that confront
us today.

- Arthur K. Wheelock Jr., 2020

© 2020 The Leiden Collection

Rembrandt as Universal Artist
Page 18 of 21

Endnotes

1. I would like to thank Lara Yeager-Crasselt for her thoughtful comments on this text, as well as
Kristin Swan and Antoine Artiganave for their editorial guidance. Caroline Van Cauwenberge
provided helpful administrative assistance.
2. In writing this essay, I have greatly benefited from Boudewijn Bakker, “Rembrandt and the
Humanist Ideal of the Universal Painter,” in Rembrandt and His Circle: Insights andDiscoveries, ed. Stephanie Dickey (Amsterdam, 2017), 67–98. Bakker notes that Karel van
Mander, in Het Schilder-boeck (Haarlem, 1604), was the first northern theorist to celebrate
artists as being “universal,” a category he derived from Giorgio Vasari’s Le Vite de’ più
eccellenti pittori, scultori, e architettori (The Lives of the Most Excellent Painters, Sculptors,
and Architects) (Florence, 1568). Among the artists Van Mander designated as “universal”
were Raphael (folio 121r) and Lucas van Leyden (folio 211v).
3. Huygens wrote his autobiography, which he called “De Vita Propria” (“My Own Life”), in
1629–30. For a translation of his text on Jan Lievens and Rembrandt, see Arthur K. Wheelock
Jr., ed., Jan Lievens: A Dutch Master Rediscovered (Exh. cat. Washington, National Galleryof Art; Milwaukee Art Museum; Amsterdam, Museum Het Rembrandthuis) (New Haven,2008), 286–87.
4. Wilhelm von Bode and Cornelis Hofstede de Groot, The Complete Work of Rembrandt, trans.
Florence Simonds (Paris, 1897–1906), 8: 19.
5. They also suffered from social ostracization because, among other reasons, they had a childborn out of wedlock.
6. In writing this text I have benefited from two important essays in this catalogue: Piet Bakker’s
biography of Rembrandt van Rijn and Perry Chapman’s essay “Rembrandt and The Leiden
Collection” about paintings by Rembrandt and his contemporaries in The Leiden Collection.
7. “Zijne natuyrlicke beweginghen alleen streckten tot de Schilder ende Teycken Conste.” Jan
Jansz. Orlers, Beschrijvinge der Stadt Leyden (Leiden, 1641), 375.
8. Although it had long been thought that Rembrandt was only briefly enrolled at the Universityof Leiden in 1620, the recent discovery of a document in the university archives has revealed
that he was also enrolled there in 1622. I am grateful to Lara Yeager-Crasselt for informing
me about this discovery. See http://www.universiteitleiden.nl/en/news/2019/06/documentdiscovered-about-rembrandts-student-years-in-leiden. This discovery has been published in
J. Schaeps and M. van Duijn, Rembrandt en de Universiteit Leiden (Leiden, 2019), 28–31.
9. Shelley Perlove, Pursuit of Faith: Etchings by Rembrandt from the Thrivent Financial
Collection of Religious Art (Dearborn, 2010), 20–21.
10. Walter L. Strauss and Marjon van der Meulen, The Rembrandt Documents (New York, 1979),© 2020 The Leiden Collection

Rembrandt as Universal Artist
Page 19 of 21

doc. 1656/12, 379. See also Amy Golanhy, Rembrandt’s Reading: The Artist’s Bookshelf ofAncient Poetry and History (Amsterdam, 2003), 77–133.
11. See Bob van den Boogert et al., eds., Rembrandt’s Treasures (Amsterdam, 1999).
12. Karel van Mander, Het Schilder-boeck (Haarlem, 1604). For an English translation, see Karelvan Mander, The Lives of the Illustrious Netherlandish and German Painters, from the First
Edition of the “Schilder-Boeck” (1603–1604), 6 vols., ed. Hessel Miedema (Doornspijk,
1994–99). Van Mander drew heavily from Giorgio Vasari’s Le Vite de’ più eccellenti pittori,
scultori, e architettori (The Lives of the Most Excellent Painters, Sculptors, and Architects)(Florence, 1568).
13. Karel van Mander, Het Schilder-boeck (Haarlem, 1604), provides his guidelines for becoming
an artist in the first section of his book: “Den Grondt der Edel vry Schilder-const” (“TheFoundations of the Noble and Free Art of Painting”). For a general discussion of history
painting, with specific reference to Van Mander, see Albert Blankert, “General Introduction,”in Albert Blankert et al., Gods, Saints and Heroes: Dutch Painting in the Age of
Rembrandt (Exh. cat. Washington, National Gallery of Art; Detroit Institute of Arts;
Amsterdam, Rijksmuseum) (Washington, 1980), 15–33.
14. Van Mander included in Het Schilder-boeck (Haarlem, 1604) a Dutch translation of
Ovid’s Metamorphosis (Wtlegghingh op den Metamorphosis Pub. Ouidij Nasonis), an
important literary source for Dutch history painters, including Rembrandt.
15. For Van Mander’s discussion of Lucas van Leyden’s universality as an artist, see Boudewijn
Bakker, “Rembrandt and the Humanist Ideal of the Universal Painter,” in Rembrandt and His
Circle: Insights and Discoveries, ed. Stephanie Dickey (Amsterdam, 2017), 71–72. The
specific text concerning Lucas van Leyden in Karel van Mander, Het Schilder-boeck(Haarlem, 1604), folio 211v, is: “Hy is oock gemeensaem oft universael gheweest, te weten,in alles wat de Schilder-const omhelsen mach, bequaem en gheschickt, schilderende van Olyverwe en water-verwe Historien, Conterfeytsels, Landtschappen, en Beelden, Glas-schrijven,
Plaet-snijden van jongs aen oeffenende.” For an English translation, see Karel van Mander,
The Lives of the Illustrious Netherlandish and German Painters, from the First Edition of the“Schilder-boeck” (1603–1604), ed. Hessel Miedema. Vol. 1: The Text (Doornspijk, 1994), 105.
16. See Arthur K. Wheelock Jr., “Rembrandt Inventing Himself,” in Rembrandt Creates
Rembrandt: Art and Ambition in Leiden 1629–1631, ed. Alan Chong (Exh. cat. Boston,Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum) (Zwolle, 2000), 16–17.
17. For excellent discussions of Rembrandt’s Leiden during the 1620s and 1630s, see Alan
Chong, ed., Rembrandt Creates Rembrandt: Art and Ambition in Leiden 1629–1631 (Exh. cat.
Boston, Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum) (Zwolle, 2000); and Jacquelyn Coutré, ed., Young
Rembrandt and Leiden circa 1630: Rembrandt Emerges (Exh. cat. Kingston, ON, Agnes
Etherington Art Centre, Queen’s University; Edmonton, AB, Art Gallery of Alberta; Art Galleryof Hamilton, ON) (Hamilton, 2019).
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Rembrandt as Universal Artist
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18. See Arthur K. Wheelock Jr., ed., Jan Lievens: A Dutch Master Rediscovered (Exh. cat.
Washington, National Gallery of Art; Milwaukee Art Museum; Amsterdam, Museum Het
Rembrandthuis) (New Haven, 2008), 112–13, no. 16.
19. For a translation of Huygens’s text on Lievens and Rembrandt, see Christiaan Vogelaar,ed., Rembrandt en Lievens in Leiden: “een jong en edel schildersduo” (Exh. cat. Leiden,
Museum de Lakenhal) (Zwolle, 1991), 128–34.
20. Rembrandt’s painting is now in the J. Paul Getty Museum, where it is identified as: Workshop
of Rembrandt van Rijn, A Young Scholar and His Tutor, ca. 1629–30, oil on canvas, 104.6 x
88.9 cm, J. Paul Getty Museum, inv. no. 84.PA.570. The attribution of this painting has been
debated over the years, and it may be a collaboration between two members of Rembrandt’s
workshop; the young scholar (presumably Prince Rupert) is painted in a very refined manner
similar to that of Gerrit Dou, while his tutor is broadly rendered.
21. See Arthur K. Wheelock Jr., “Making Faces: The Development of the Tronie in SeventeenthCentury Leiden,” in Anonymous Portraits: Dutch Seventeenth-Century Tronies (Sales cat.
Nicholas Hall) (New York, 2019), 9–28.
22. For an assessment of Lievens’s career, see Arthur K. Wheelock Jr., ed., Jan Lievens: A
Dutch Master Rediscovered (Exh. cat. Washington, National Gallery of Art; Milwaukee Art
Museum; Amsterdam, Museum Het Rembrandthuis) (New Haven, 2008).
23. See Friso Lammertse and Jaap van der Veen, Uylenburgh and Son: Art and Commerce from
Rembrandt to De Lairesse, 1625–1675 (Exh. cat. London, Dulwich Picture Gallery;
Amsterdam, Museum Het Rembrandthuis) (Zwolle, 2006). See also S.A.C. Dudok van Heel,“Rembrandt als portretschilder bij Hendrick Uylenburgh, 1631–1635, met opdrachten in DenHaag, Leiden en Rotterdam,” no. Amstelodamum 107, no. 2 (2020): 56–91.
24. Boudewijn Bakker, “Rembrandt and the Humanist Ideal of the Universal Painter,”in Rembrandt and His Circle: Insights and Discoveries, ed. Stephanie Dickey (Amsterdam,2017), 73.
25. Rembrandt and Geertje Dirckx became embroiled in several contentious lawsuits thatsuggest he treated his former companion quite badly.
26. After Saskia’s death, the net value of their assets was determined to be more than forty
thousand guilders. Presumably, in the early 1650s, Rembrandt did not have twenty thousand
guilders to give to Titus. Being unmarried caused Hendrickje public humiliation when she
became pregnant in 1654. She was called before a council of the Dutch Reformed Church
and censured for having “lived with Rembrandt like a whore.” The couple’s daughter,
Cornelia, was baptized on October 30, 1654.
27. Although Rembrandt still received important portrait commissions during the late 1650s andearly 1660s, his painting style had fallen out of favor. Rembrandt hoped to repay debts he
had incurred with money he would receive from his large painting for one of the lunettes in the© 2020 The Leiden CollectionPowered by TCPDF (www.tcpdf.org)

Rembrandt as Universal Artist
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Amsterdam Town Hall, The Conspiracy of Claudius Civilis (Nationalmuseum, Stockholm).
Rembrandt’s composition, however, was rejected by city authorities in 1662.
28. For Rembrandt’s bankruptcy, see Paul Crenshaw, Rembrandt’s Bankruptcy: The Artist, His
Patrons, and the Art Market in Seventeenth-Century Netherlands (New York, 2006).
Hendrickje died in 1663 from the plague, and Titus died four years later, the victim of anotherepidemic. Rembrandt died on October 4, 1669, at age 63. He was buried in a rented grave in
the Westerkerk, Amsterdam.
29. Rembrandt van Rijn, Jupiter and Mercury Visiting Philemon and Baucis, 1658, oil on panel,
54.5 x 68.5 cm, National Gallery of Art, Washington, Widener Collection, inv. no. 1942.9.65.
30. Raphael, Portrait of Baldassare Castiglione, ca. 1514–15, oil on canvas, 82 x 67 cm, Muséedu Louvre, Paris, inv. no. 611. Rembrandt saw Raphael’s painting at the Amsterdam sale ofthe collection of Lucas van Uffelen on April 9, 1639. For Rembrandt’s adaptations ofRaphael’s work in his drawn copy, self-portrait etching of 1639, and self-portrait painting of1640 (National Gallery, London), see Christopher White and Quentin Buvelot, eds.
Rembrandt by Himself (Exh. cat. London, National Gallery; Mauritshuis, The Hague) (Zwolle,
1999), 170–75.
31. For the depiction of a similar wall map produced in the early seventeenth century, see Jan
Miense Molenaer, Studio of the Painter, 1631, oil on canvas, 86 x 127 cm, Staatliche
Museen, Gemäldegalerie, Berlin, inv. 873.
32. See H. Perry Chapman, Rembrandt’s Self-Portraits (Princeton, 1990), 97–101. Chapman
makes a particularly good case that these circles relate to wall maps; however, the circles
have been subject to many interpretations over the years, which she enumerates in her text.
33. See, for example, Thomas de Keyser, Portrait of Constantijn Huygens and His (?) Clerk,
1627, oil on panel, 92.4 x 69.3 cm, National Gallery, London, inv. no. NG212. As noted by
Boudewijn Bakker in “Rembrandt and the Humanist Ideal of the Universal Painter,”in Rembrandt and His Circle: Insights and Discoveries, ed. Stephanie Dickey (Amsterdam,2017), 86, circles that symbolized the entirety of the universe were important for garden
architectural design, as at the Dutch court in The Hague.

© 2020 The Leiden Collection