Rembrandt’s earliest known paintings, The Four Senses, a set of four small panels representing sight, hearing, smell and touch, can be seen in the Rembrandt House Museum from 1 December 2016 to 12 February 2017. Rembrandt very probably painted these works as part of a complete set of the five senses, but so far no trace has been found of Taste. For a long time only three of the panels in the set were known, but Smell surfaced at a sale in New Jersey last year. The French art dealer who discovered it sold it on to the New York collector Thomas Kaplan. After restoration, this spectacular find was presented at last year’s TEFAF in Maastricht. It is the first time the four small panels have been brought together in the Netherlands and – fittingly – in Rembrandt’s former home.
Rembrandt’s earliest known paintings, The Four Senses, a set of four small panels representing sight, hearing, smell and touch, can be seen in the Rembrandt House Museum from 1 December 2016 to 12 February 2017. Rembrandt very probably painted these works as part of a complete set of the five senses, but so far no trace has been found of Taste. For a long time only three of the panels in the set were known, but Smell surfaced at a sale in New Jersey last year. The French art dealer who discovered it sold it on to the New York collector Thomas Kaplan. After restoration, this spectacular find was presented at last year’s TEFAF in Maastricht. It is the first time the four small panels have been brought together in the Netherlands and – fittingly – in Rembrandt’s former home.
The three works owned by Kaplan were shown for the first time last summer in The J. Paul Getty Museum in Los Angeles. At present the four senses can be seen at the Ashmolean Museum in Oxford. After the show in the Rembrandt House, the works will travel to Musée du Louvre in Paris.
a. b. c. d.
a. Rembrandt (1606-1669), The Spectacles Seller (Sight), c. 1624, oil on panel, 21 x 17.8 cm, Museum De Lakenhal, Leiden b. Rembrandt (1606-1669), The Three Singers (Hearing), c. 1624, oil on panel, 21.6 x 17.6 cm, The Leiden Collection, New York c. Rembrandt (1606-1669), The Unconscious Patient (Smell), c. 1624, oil on panel, 31.7 x 25.4 cm, The Leiden Collection, New York d. Rembrandt (1606-1669), The Operation (Touch), c. 1624, oil on panel, 21.5 x 17.7 cm, The Leiden Collection, New York
Earliest Known Works The works date from around 1624 and were painted in Leiden when Rembrandt (1606-1669) was around eighteen years old. The paintings show the young artist in the throes of development: with talent and bravura, assiduously seeking convincing ways to tell stories and convey human emotions.
Lenders Rembrandt’s First Works: The Four Senses is made possible thanks to the generosity of the owners. The Spectacles Seller (Sight) is in the collection of Museum De Lakenhal in Leiden, the town where Rembrandt was born. The other three panels are in The Leiden Collection of Thomas and Daphne Kaplan in New York.
Statement by Thomas Kaplan “We are truly thrilled that the first museum in The Netherlands to exhibit Rembrandt’s earliest known signed work, the Sense of Smell, together with its three known companions in the Allegory of the Senses will be the Rembrandthuis. … To see Rembrandt’s Senses together is to behold the first blush of genius that changed the arc of art history.”
Even a great artist like Rembrandt was not a solitary genius. As a good networker he actively and purposefully cultivated his social network. He had family and friends who helped him, bought his art, lent him money and challenged him artistically. In Rembrandt’s Social Network you will get to know Rembrandt better through his friends: from his boyhood friend Jan Lievens and the art connoisseur Jan Six to his wife Saskia Uylenburgh’s family, his ‘blood friends’. This exhibition in the Rembrandt House Museum kicks off the Netherlands’ theme year Rembrandt and the Golden Age 2019, 350 years after his death.
As a friend Rembrandt was a strong-willed individual. He took little trouble to maintain good relations with the elite, preferring to surround himself with people who understood art. The extraordinarily intimate and informal atmosphere of his many works of art involving family members and friends made them unique in the seventeenth century.
‘Rembrandt’s world comes to life in the Rembrandt House. It was here that his friends and relations were regular visitors; here where he worked with countless pupils. It was where he shared joy and sorrow with his family. His clients and fellow artists were his neighbours. This makes it the ideal place to present the story of Rembrandt and his network and a perfect starting point for Rembrandt Year 2019.’
– Lidewij de Koekkoek, Director of The Rembrandt House Museum
Left: Rembrandt, Portrait of the Apothecary Abraham Francen, 1655-59, etching, drypoint and burin, 159 x 210 mm., Amsterdam Museum | Right: Jan Lievens, Portrait of Rembrandt, c. 1629, oil on panel, 57 x 44 cm., Rijksmuseum, private loan.
Boyhood Friend, ‘Blood Friend’ or True Friend?
Today Facebook asks you to categorize your online social network: ‘family’, a ‘good friend’ or perhaps simply ‘an acquaintance’. Anyone in the seventeenth-century would also be able to answer this question with ease: even then they had different categories of friendships. Striking portraits in Rembrandt’s Social Network enable us to identify five types of friendships in Rembrandt’s life.
There were the boyhood friends like the artist Jan Lievens, with whom Rembrandt shared a studio in Leiden. ‘Blood friends’ were family members who played a major role in Rembrandt’s social and financial life, in particular his wife Saskia Uylenburgh’s family. The connoisseurs, including Jan Six, were friendly collectors who bought works of art from Rembrandt and helped him with commissions. Among his artist friends there were also a number of pupil friends, like Philips Koninck, Roelant Roghman and Gerbrand van den Eeckhout. The close link with them is evidenced by the fact that Rembrandt went on excursions with them, where they drew together, and as a result their sketches are often very similar. Finally he had true friends: you get to know them in times of need. The hard times came for Rembrandt around 1652, when he was forty-six and money problems finally forced him to sell everything he owned. In this period he was helped by a few true friends, among them the collector Abraham Francen, for whom he made a special portrait print.
Rembrandt, Portrait of Titus c. 1660 Oil on canvas, 81.5 x 78.5 cm Baltimore, Museum of Art (The Mary Frick Jacobs Collection)
Highpoint: Rembrandt’s Portrait of Titus from Baltimore
The exhibition features paintings, drawings, prints, sculptures, books and documents. Among the eye-catchers are a number of unusual alba amicorum – friendship books – and the many portrait etchings Rembrandt made of various friends and relations. The highpoint of this exhibition is Rembrandt’s impressive and personal portrait of his nineteen-year-old son Titus. This special loan from the Baltimore Museum of Art has never before been shown in an exhibition in Europe.
Rembrandt’s son Titus worked for his famous father all his life. After Rembrandt went bankrupt in 1656, Titus and his father’s companion Hendrickje Stoffels took over the selling of his father’s works and started a gallery specializing in the great artist’s work. This kept his father’s creditors at bay and effectively made Titus his father’s employer. In Rembrandt’s painting, a relaxed Titus sits in his chair, his chin cupped in his hand. This loosely painted portrait is typical of the way Rembrandt approached his friends and members of his family – an informal and original masterpiece.
Rembrandt has always fascinated us—not just in this Rembrandt Year, 350 years after his death, but down through the centuries. Rembrandt’s etchings have motivated artists in all kinds of ways, and Inspired by Rembrandt explores his impact on their art. This time The Rembrandt House Museum is dipping into its own collection, for the museum is not just his former home and workshop. For more than a hundred years it has also been collecting art on paper—the collection now contains more than 4,000 prints. And not just Rembrandts, but art by his followers—from his own time and contemporary artists.
100 Years of Collecting by The Rembrandt House Museum
In eight stimulating themes—‘heads, ‘nature’, ‘life’, ‘himself’, ‘emptiness’, ‘black’, ‘the line’ and ‘raw’—Rembrandt’s etchings introduce work by such artists as Pablo Picasso, Horst Janssen, Charles Donker, Aat Veldhoen, Marlene Dumas and Glenn Brown. The exhibition, with its exciting modern design, runs from 7 June to 1 September 2019 in The Rembrandt House Museum.
Left: Glenn Brown, Half-Life (after Rembrandt) 2, The Rembrandt House Museum | Right: Pablo Picasso, Rembrandt and Three Heads of Women, 1934, The Rembrandt House Museum, Amsterdam
THE GREENGROCER’S WIFE
Sometimes artists borrow subjects from Rembrandt’s work, like his ‘tronies’—heads of a character or type, like a happy soldier or an unknown Oriental. Most artists, though, appear to have been interested primarily in the typical artistic questions that occupied Rembrandt: expressive line, rendering shadow, the search for a deep black and, of course, the uncompromising depiction of reality, including things that are still taboo, like contorted faces, old bodies, deep wrinkles and people who urinate in public.
Left: Marlene Dumas, Woman Urinating, 1996, The Rembrandt House Museum, Amsterdam | Right: Charles Donker, Hawthorn Bushes in the Snow in Groningen, c. 1985, The Rembrandt House Museum, Amsterdam
‘It is fantastic to be able to show some of the beautiful things we have in this exhibition. My personal favourite is the etching Aat Velthoen made of Mrs Vlek, the wife of the greengrocer in the Bloemgracht in Amsterdam, who posed naked for her next-door neighbour. Her pose is completely natural: waiting patiently until the artist has finished—there is something disarming about it. And there is a lot more, like the snowy landscape by Charles Donker who created an enormous sense of space with the large blank areas. Or the woman urinating by Marlene Dumas. Rembrandt had already etched this subject, but Dumas makes it clear that this subject is still not entirely ‘taboo free’.
– Epco Runia, Head of Collections, The Rembrandt House Museum
Right: Rembrandt, Nude Woman Seated on a Mound, c. 1631, etching, state II (2), 177 x 160 mm., The Rembrandt House Museum, Amsterdam. | Left: Aat Veldhoen, Mrs Vlek, 1964, The Rembrandt House Museum, Amsterdam
DEBUT FOR THE RECENT PURCHASE OF AN ETCHING BY FERDINAND BOL
The exhibition is also the debut for Ferdinand Bol’s 1643 etching of The Holy Family in a Living Room, which the museum purchased at TEFAF 2019. Ferdinand Bol (1616-1680) was apprenticed to Rembrandt between 1636 and 1640. He was the only one of Rembrandt’s pupils who went on to make a great many etchings as well as paintings. He often modelled his compositions on his former teacher’s, seemingly always trying to measure up to him. In this etching darkness predominates: two-thirds of the etching is almost all-absorbing black. But even in this dark space many more details emerge if you look for a little longer: a domestic interior with a box bed, a cradle and a cat with a wary eye on what is happening. Bol has proved to be just as accomplished as his former teacher.
Detail of Ferdinand Bol, The Holy Family in a Living Room, 1643, The Rembrandt House Museum, Amsterdam.
Hoe maakte Rembrandt zijn schilderijen, etsen en tekeningen? En hoe onderzoeken wij dat tegenwoordig? In het najaar van 2019 werd in het museum een laboratoriumachtige setting gecreëerd, waarin nieuwe inzichten werden blootgelegd over diverse schilderijen van Rembrandt, vondsten uit zijn beerput en zijn prenten en tekeningen. In de tentoonstelling Laboratorium Rembrandt. Rembrandts techniek ontrafeld stapten bezoekers in de schoenen van de wetenschappers.
De afgelopen jaren zijn diverse kunstwerken van Rembrandt door onderzoekers aan de nieuwste methoden onderworpen, waaronder Macro X-Ray Fluorescentie, kortweg macro-XRF. Hiermee kunnen we ín de verf van Rembrandts schilderijen kijken en onder andere veranderingen die tijdens het schilderen zijn gedaan in kaart brengen. Maar ook pigmenten, waarvan niet bekend was dat Rembrandt deze gebruikte, zijn zo gevonden. Sinds kort worden ook zijn tekeningen met deze methode onderzocht, om vast te stellen welke inkten hij gebruikte. Deze interactieve tentoonstelling bracht de wereld van het materiaal-technisch onderzoek tot leven voor zowel volwassenen als kinderen vanaf 6 jaar, dankzij de speciale Rembrandt Junior Lab-route – kunst meets wetenschap.
Links: Rembrandt, Portretten van Marten Soolmans en Oopjen Coppit, 1634. Collectie Rijksmuseum/ Collectie Musée du Louvre [als reproductie in de tentoonstelling te zien] | Rechts: Macro rontgenfluorescentie (MA-XRF) scan van Rembrandts portretten van Marten Soolmans en Oopjen Coppit uit 1634. Beeld: Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam.
Onder Marten en Oopjen spieken, Rembrandts gemiddelde werkdag en een recent ontdekt pigment
De tentoonstelling was opgebouwd in drie delen: ‘Verborgen ingrediënten’, ‘Rembrandt-raadsels’ en ‘Rembrandt aan het werk’. In elk deel kwam een aantal lopende onderzoeken aan bod, waarin je als bezoeker de kans kreeg om mee te denken over de uitkomsten. In totaal werden zes cases met verschillende onderzoeksvragen uitgelicht, gepaard met vaak verrassende nieuwe inzichten. Een tipje van de sluier:
Ze zijn wereldberoemd: Marten en Oopjen, als portretten ten voeten uit geschilderd door Rembrandt in 1634 (collectie Rijksmuseum en Musée du Louvre). Maar wat zit er onder het oppervlak van deze schilderijen? In Laboratorium Rembrandt werden voor het eerst de onderzoeksresultaten aan het grote publiek getoond, aan de hand van reproducties op ware grootte en scans die van de doeken zijn gemaakt.
Kunnen we erachter komen hoe een schilderdag er voor Rembrandt uitzag? Dankzij XRF-data kunnen we nu zien hoe hij zijn schilderij De man met de rode muts uit ca. 1660 (collectie Museum Boijmans van Beuningen) veranderde, en welke verf uit dezelfde schilderfase stamt. In de tentoonstelling wordt het originele schilderij getoond, samen met een indrukwekkende digitale impressie van deze mogelijke ‘giornate’.
Ook is er een nieuw (zeer giftig) pigment ontdekt in het werk van Rembrandt. Hierdoor is zijn kleurenpalet uitgebreid naar vijftien pigmenten. We kunnen het pigment koppelen aan slechts twee schilderijen, waaronder een van de beroemdste meesterwerken van de kunstenaar. Het pigment verandert na verloop van tijd van kleur en is mede daarom niet eerder opgemerkt. In de tentoonstelling werd, met behulp van microscopen en een reproductie met ingebouwd touchscreen, getoond hoe het is ontdekt.
Links: Rembrandt (toegeschreven), De man met de rode muts, ca. 1660, Museum Boijmans van Beuningen, Rotterdam. | Midden: Rembrandt, Jonge vrouw zittend bij een raam (Saskia?), ca. 1638. Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam | Rechts: False color beeld van de ijzer-, calcium- en zwavelkaarten (Macro X-Ray Fluorescence) van Rembrandts tekening van een jonge vrouw zittend bij een raam uit ca. 1638, collectie Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam. Beeld: Frank Ligterink (onderzoeksteam Drawing out Rembrandt)
Speciaal voor kleine ontdekkers
In deze tentoonstelling keek je niet alleen met je ogen, maar ook met je handen! Elke jonge bezoeker vanaf 6 jaar kreeg bij binnenkomst in het museum een speciaal clipboard mee met een onderzoekskit. Aan de hand van vragen en opdrachten ging je zelf op onderzoek uit in de tentoonstelling.
Zo vond je bij het onderdeel over Rembrandts etsen de vraag: ‘Is deze ets door Rembrandt gemaakt?’ Je speurde digitaal door verschillende watermerken om uit te vinden of er een match is met het watermerk dat je voor je ziet. Zo ontdekte je uit welk jaar het papier komt, en of hierop dus door Rembrandt kan zijn gedrukt. Bij het onderdeel over Rembrandts tekeningen kon je met ganzenveren op een magic drawing board tekenen: hoeveel verschillende lijndiktes zijn er mogelijk? Ook kon je met behulp van UV-licht zien ‘wat wij over het hoofd zien’: ontdek wat je niet met het blote oog op een tekening kunt zien, maar wat er wel zit!
Deze tentoonstelling wordt georganiseerd in samenwerking met het Rijksmuseum, de Rijksdienst voor Cultureel Erfgoed | Rijkserfgoed Laboratorium, de Universiteit van Amsterdam en de Technische Universiteit Delft (tezamen verenigd in NICAS), Monumenten en Archeologie Gemeente Amsterdam, het Rijksbureau voor Kunsthistorische Documentatie, The Watermark Identification in Rembrandt’s Etchings Project (WIRE) en zelfstandig onderzoekers.
Two newly rediscovered paintings begin a special visit to The Rembrandt House Museum on May 9th. Rembrandt’s Portrait of Petronella Buys (1635) and Man with a Sword (c. 1640-44), painted by Rembrandt and a member of his workshop, have not been on public view in decades.
The two works were recently acquired by the New York collectors Thomas S. Kaplan and Daphne Recanati Kaplan, the founders of The Leiden Collection, which is one of the largest private collections of seventeenth-century Dutch art in the world. The rediscovery of these two paintings and their presentation in the Rembrandt House Museum reveal a fascinating story about the history of Rembrandt attribution and the importance of continuing research and technical investigation.
Two newly rediscovered paintings begin a special visit to The Rembrandt House Museum on May 9th. Rembrandt’s Portrait of Petronella Buys (1635) and Man with a Sword (c. 1640-44), painted by Rembrandt and a member of his workshop, have not been on public view in decades.
The two works were recently acquired by the New York collectors Thomas S. Kaplan and Daphne Recanati Kaplan, the founders of The Leiden Collection, which is one of the largest private collections of seventeenth-century Dutch art in the world. The rediscovery of these two paintings and their presentation in the Rembrandt House Museum reveal a fascinating story about the history of Rembrandt attribution and the importance of continuing research and technical investigation.
(left) | Rembrandt and Workshop, Man with a Sword, c. 1640-44. Canvas, 102.3 x 88.5 cm, New York, The Leiden Collection
Man with a Sword was long regarded as a painting by Rembrandt with an excellent provenance, until scholars dismissed the attribution in 1970 and even suggested that the painting might be an eighteenth-century imitation. Recent research has revealed that Rembrandt both originally conceived of and painted the portrait, but that it was subsequently subjected to a drastic transformation by one of his pupils in his workshop. The result is the fantasy tronie that we see today. While a pupil overpainted much of the underlying portrait, Rembrandt’s hand is clearly visible in the rendering of the face, which has remained untouched and is characteristic of his work in the early 1640s.
(right) | Rembrandt, Portrait of Petronella Buys 1635. Panel, 79.5 x 56.3 cm, New York, The Leiden Collection
Portrait of Petronella Buys surfaced on the art market in 2017, following decades of its whereabouts being unknown. The portrait was painted in 1635, a busy time for Rembrandt. Although it bears his signature and is known to be the pendant of a fully attributed painting of her husband, Philip Lucasz (National Gallery, London), in 1989 the Rembrandt Research Project suggested that it was probably painted by an assistant. New research has led us to think differently. Rembrandt painted the work himself, but rather more loosely and swiftly than we are used to seeing. Perhaps he was adhering to a schedule: Petronella left for Batavia on 2 May 1635, leaving Rembrandt a short window to complete the portrait before the couple’s departure.
This exhibition is the second time in a relatively short period that The Leiden Collection has presented part of its collection in The Rembrandt House Museum. At the end of 2016, the spectacular discovery of a supposedly lost Rembrandt—one of his earliest works—led to the popular focus exhibition of Rembrandt’s First Painting:The Four Senses. This time around, The Rembrandt House Museum hosts the European premiere.
‘We are delighted to be the first to show these rediscovered paintings to European museum visitors. This is entirely in accordance with the position the museum has acquired over the preceding decades as the place where discoveries and research results relating to Rembrandt, his pupils and artists from his surroundings are presented. It is fantastic to have such treasures from The Leiden Collection here again.’
– Lidewij de Koekkoek, Director, The Rembrandt House Museum
The Portrait of Petronella Buys and the Man with a Sword will be displayed together with photographs and other relevant sources that bring to life the fascinating stories behind the works— from doubt and rediscovery to new research and attribution. The two paintings have not been in the Netherlands for around a century, and in the spring of 2019 they will travel on to the Louvre Abu Dhabi for the wide-ranging exhibition of The Leiden Collection.
The presentation Special Guests is on view in The Rembrandt House Museum until 2 September 2018. Update: The paintings will move on 4 September 2018 to the living room of Rembrandt’s former residence – the present-day museum – where they will remain on view until mid-January 2019. They will then depart for the Louvre in Abu Dhabi for an overview exhibition of The Leiden Collection.
The Leiden Collection
The Leiden Collection, founded in 2003 by Dr. Thomas S. Kaplan and his wife Daphne Recanati Kaplan, includes approximately 250 paintings and drawings. It represents the largest and one of the most significant private collections of 17th-century Dutch paintings in the world. Previously anonymous in its lending, the Collection was introduced to the public for the first time in 2017 through a special exhibition at the Louvre, and is presently on a world tour.
The Rembrandt House Museum
Between 1639 and 1658, Rembrandt lived and worked in this magnificent house, which is now a museum. An inventory drawn up in that period was used as the source for restoring the house with seventeenth-century furniture, art and objects. The Rembrandt House stages daily demonstrations of etching and paint-making, showing how the artist worked. The Rembrandt House Museum holds almost the complete collection of Rembrandt’s etchings, and mounts temporary exhibitions of the work of Rembrandt, his contemporaries and later artists in the modern museum wing.
Rembrandts huis was een creatieve broedplaats. Rembrandt werkte hier namelijk niet alleen; ook vele leerlingen maakten hier kunst, soms wel vier of vijf tegelijkertijd. Nu, bijna 400 jaar later, brengen we dit weer terug. Een nieuwe generatie kunstenaars krijgt de mogelijkheid om nieuw werk te maken, met een hedendaagse blik op de kunst van Rembrandts tijd en de wereld van nu.
Iriée Zamblé en Timothy Voges
In het najaar van 2020 hielden Iriée Zamblé en Timothy Voges atelier op zaal. Zij reflecteerden op de thema’s van de tentoonstelling Leef/Tijd: ouderdom, vergankelijkheid, kracht en kwetsbaarheid. Zamblé en Voges verbleven tegelijkertijd in de tentoonstellingszaal en waren afwisselend – soms alleen, soms samen – aan het werk en toonden bestaand werk.
Iriée Zamblé (Amsterdam, 1995) maakt geschilderde tronies en portretten van zwarte mensen. In haar werk gaat het vooral om representatie, identiteit en aanwezigheid. Essentieel is dat er ruimte is voor zwarte mensen om gewoon te zijn en zich bezig te houden met de dagelijkse dingen. Ze laat zich voor haar schilderijen inspireren door mensen die ze tegenkomt, veelal op straat.
De schilderijen van Timothy Voges (Willemstad, 1993) zijn uitsneden van gevonden beelden uit de media of oude bronnen, waarbij de context ontbreekt. Hierdoor is er veel open voor interpretatie. Mogelijkerwijs zeer willekeurige scènes lijken soms onheilspellend, kwetsbaar, voyeuristisch of juist nostalgisch. Dat ligt aan de kijker zelf.
From 27 January to 23 April 2017 the Rembrandt House Museum presents the work of the contemporary British artist Glenn Brown (1966) in Glenn Brown – Rembrandt: After Life. Brown is internationally renowned for his intriguing and confrontational works, which are usually very large and inspired by the work of Old Masters, Rembrandt among them. Brown appropriates and subverts the work of Rembrandt and his contemporaries with merciless audacity. He is making new work for the exhibition (paintings, drawings and etchings), which will be shown for the first time.
The Rembrandt House has long concentrated on showing Rembrandt’s influence on other artists, but this exhibition breaks new ground. Never before has the Rembrandt House staged an exhibition of work by a foreign artist of Glenn Brown’s international stature. In 1997 Brown’s work hung at Sensation in the Royal Academy of Arts in London alongside such artists as Damien Hirst and Tracey Emin. He is regarded as one of the leading YBAs (Young British Artists). His work enjoys wide recognition and this year was the subject of three solo exhibitions in the United States and France.
On the left: Poor Art, in progress, oil on panel, 108.5 x 74 x 2.2 cm, artist’s own collection. On the right: Joseph Beuys, 2001, oil on panel, 96 x 79.5 cm, private collection.
The Rembrandt House seeks to convey the unique character of Rembrandt’s and Glenn Brown’s art. This is best achieved by letting visitors get to work themselves. They have an opportunity to interpret Rembrandt’s work in their own way – like Glenn Brown – in workshops in the museum. The workshops are staged in collaboration with the Public Libraries in Rotterdam, The Hague and Amsterdam. Onsite workshops are part of the Rembrandt House’s policy with a view to raising its public profile as well as appealing to visitors to the house.
From 6 May to 3 September 2017 the Rembrandt House Museum presents Rembrandt and Jan Six: The Etching and the Friendship.
The friendship between Jan Six and Rembrandt van Rijn is the subject of one of the most famous stories from the seventeenth century. This bond is expressed in an intimate portrait of Jan reading by a window, which soon proved a highlight in Rembrandt’s graphic oeuvre. The exhibition examines a friendship at the height of the seventeenth century and the sublime skill manifest in the etching. The exhibition also sheds light on the fascination surrounding the etching, the client and the artist in the centuries that followed. Jan Six and his friendship with Rembrandt in Amsterdam has come alive more than ever since the publication of the book ‘De levens van Jan Six’ (The Lives of Jan Six) written by Geert Mak, which captured the imagination of half of the reading public of the Netherlands. The Rembrandt House is joining in with a small exhibition.
Rembrandt van Rijn, Jan Six, 1647, etching, The Rembrandt House Museum
The Rembrandt House Museum is Rembrandt’s former home and workplace, where the etching of Jan Six was made. It gives visitors a unique and relevant context for the exhibition, with loans from the Six Collection. There could be no better setting.
Rembrandt made illustrations for Jan Six’s friends’ book and his stage play, but the etched portrait is the finest example of their association. A relaxed Jan leans on the window-ledge and reads a magazine. Could it perhaps be Jan’s own house while Rembrandt was paying a visit? In any event, the 1647 etching displays the consummate skill of a successful artist, who perfectly captured the atmosphere and character of the moment. At the same time it evokes a seventeenth-century world that suddenly seems very close. This etching derives its extraordinary character from the various preliminary studies, states and etching plate, and from the many curious imitations in the Netherlands and abroad.
On the left: Rembrandt van Rijn, Jan Six, 1647, etching, The Rembrandt House Museum
On the right: Rembrandt van Rijn, Self-portrait, etching, 1648, etching, The Rembrandt House Museum
On the left: Nicolaas Pieneman, Rembrandt in his workshop 1852, Amsterdam Museum
On the right: Thomas Worlidge, Edward Astley as Jan Six, 1762, Private collection
Jan Six died in 1700 and left a legacy that reflected both his artistic and his administrative qualities: as a writer and as a burgomaster. From that moment on, artists and collectors have been fascinated by the image of the nonchalant young man in an interior, and artists felt a compulsion to romanticize the two in paintings. The friendship continues to inspire imagination—always thanks to Rembrandt’s universal and timeless etching.
The exhibition presents works from the Six Collection and loans from the Rijksmuseum and the Amsterdam Museum.
The exhibition was compiled by guest curator Menno Jonker. A publication with contributions by Nikki den Dekker, Erik Hinterding, Menno Jonker, Rudie van Leeuwen, Volker Manuth, Lilian Ruhe, Jan Six and Marieke de Winkel is being produced to coincide with Rembrandt and Jan Six: The Etching and the Friendship.
Information: Anita Soer at a.soer@rembrandthuis.nl | T +31 (0)20 520 04 09 | M: +31(0)6 24 61 72 52
Between 1639 and 1658. Rembrandt lived and worked in this magnificent house, which is now a museum. Based on an inventory from that time the house was refurbished with furniture, art and objects from the seventeenth century. There are daily etching and paint demonstrations in the Rembrandt House that show how the artist worked. The Rembrandt House owns the almost complete collection of Rembrandt’s etchings. Temporary exhibitions of work by Rembrandt, his contemporaries and later artists are staged regularly in the modern museum wing.
The Rembrandt House Museum receives a substantial financial contribution from Amsterdam City Council
After a succesful first selection of Rembrandt’s etchings, The Rembrandt House Museum is staging the second part of our exhibition Rembrandt’s Etchings: Highlights of the Rembrandt House collection from July 26th until September 17th 2017. A selection of some thirty etchings from the museum’s collection will give visitors insight into the artistic and technical aspects of Rembrandt’s printmaking.
After a succesful first selection of Rembrandt’s etchings, The Rembrandt House Museum is staging the second part of our exhibition Rembrandt’s Etchings: Highlights of the Rembrandt House collection from July 26th until September 17th 2017. A selection of some thirty etchings from the museum’s collection will give visitors insight into the artistic and technical aspects of Rembrandt’s printmaking.
Rembrandt is one of the greatest graphic talents of all time. A passionate etcher who left an extensive oeuvre of around 290 prints. He was admired by his contemporaries for his free drawing manner, his dramatic chiaroscuro and his bold experiments in etching technique. His prints have been a source of inspiration for countless artists, among them luminaries like Goya and Picasso, and still are today. Generations of artists have borrowed motifs and compositions from Rembrandt’s prints.
Rembrandt’s spontaneous yet assured drawing style is magnificently expressed in his etchings. The movements of his hand in this medium can be followed as precisely as in his drawings, and he endeavoured to make each print an individual work of art by varying the printing process. The Rembrandt House Museum has one of the most important collections of Rembrandt’s etchings in the world and its mission is to encourage greater interest in this extraordinary cultural heritage.
Every day there are continuous demonstrations in the artist’s former home, showing visitors how an etching is made. Enlargements of some of the prints in the exhibition illustrate the exceptional quality of the work and invite visitors to look more closely at the refinement of these works.
Left: Rembrandt, Christ preaching (‘The hundred-guilder print’), c. 1648, etching, drypoint and burin The Rembrandt House Museum. | Right: Rembrandt, Self-portrait with Saskia, 1636, etching, The Rembrandt House Museum.
Many paintings are coming together from all over the world, from museums and private collections, for this double exhibition in Amsterdam. Some of them will be back in the Dutch capital for the first time since the seventeenth century. The exhibition explores the mastery of Ferdinand Bol and Govert Flinck in the seventeenth century at two locations that complement one another: training at the ‘first academy of art’ versus independence in the art market
In the Rembrandt House, the place where the man who taught Ferdinand Bol (1616-1680) and Govert Flinck (1615-1660) lived and worked for almost twenty years, the emphasis is on their time with the master. Works of art transport visitors back in time to the painters’ early years and their training with Rembrandt, one soon after the other.
In the Amsterdam Museum, visitors will discover that Bol and Flinck developed into great artists in their own right. Helped by a carefully constructed and nurtured network, the ambitious painters succeeded in reaching the pinnacle of the art market. The two men, who were of an age, became formidable competitors of their former teacher – and of one another. During their lifetimes they were even more successful than Rembrandt.
In the same period, two other venues in the city, the Royal Palace in Dam Square and Museum Van Loon, will be reflecting the exhibition by presenting different facets of the two artists. The exhibition of Dutch Masters from the Hermitage will run almost concurrently in the Hermitage Amsterdam.
From 13 October 2017 to 18 February 2018, the Amsterdam Museum and the Rembrandt House Museum present the first ever exhibition devoted to the painters Ferdinand Bol and Govert Flinck.
Left: Ferdinand Bol, Self-portrait, c. 1647. Canvas, 93 x 83,5 cm. Private collection. / Right: Govert Flinck, Self-portrait, c. 1640. Panel, 59 x 47 cm. Cologne, Wallraf-Richartz-Museum (on loan from a private collection)
Two Artists, One Teacher
Bol and Flinck are Rembrandt’s two most important pupils. Their impressive work is admired all over the world, streets have been named after them – and after three and a half centuries this exhibition is at last bringing them out of their teacher’s shadow. With superb portraits and dramatic scenes based on the Bible and the Classics, Bol and Flinck met the demands of their clients, who included prosperous merchants and representatives of the country’s maritime and political power.
Another View
The exhibition, full of stories as it is, presents an opportunity to explore the Amsterdam story of the 17th century from a different point of view. Director and theatre-maker Jörgen Tjon A Fong of Urban Myth has been invited to bring his wide theatrical experience and narrative skills to bear on aspects of the 17th century that cannot usually be seen in paintings.
Book
WBooks is publishing a lavishly illustrated book on the life and work of the two artists to accompany the exhibition.
In deze tentoonstelling keek je niet alleen met je ogen, maar ook met je handen! Elke jonge bezoeker vanaf 6 jaar kreeg bij binnenkomst in het museum een speciaal clipboard mee met een onderzoekskit. Aan de hand van vragen en opdrachten ging je zelf op onderzoek uit in de tentoonstelling.
