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The young Titus van Rijn stares dreamily over the edge of his lectern. His father Rembrandt captured that gaze in 1655, in the stately house on the Jodenbreestraat where he lived and worked with his family, now home to the Rembrandt House Museum. Titus was the only one of Rembrandt and Saskia’s four children to survive childhood, and grew up in this house.
From 18 March to 11 June 2023, the painting was on loan from Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen in Rotterdam and on view here in the exhibition ‘Titus is Back Home’: nearly 400 years after it was painted, the portrait returned for a few months to the place where it was made and where Titus was born.
the year Titus was born, the only one of Rembrandt and Saskia’s four children who survived
the year Rembrandt painted this portrait of his son, in this house on the Jodenbreestraat
Titus died of the plague in 1668, shortly after his marriage to Magdalena van Loo
Titus leans over his desk and gazes dreamily to the side, pen in hand. Rembrandt painted the portrait while still living with his family in this house, at the height of his artistic career but on the eve of serious financial trouble. The painting belongs to the collection of Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen in Rotterdam.
From 18 March to 11 June 2023, it was on loan at the Rembrandt House Museum, in a dedicated space within the exhibition The Art of Drawing. A multimedia tour offered visitors three ways to view the painting: an art historical story, a psychological portrait of father and son, and musical accompaniment, a kind of guided meditation in which you kept discovering something new. The presentation ‘Titus is Back Home’ was made possible by the ‘Buitenkans’ project of the Turing Foundation and the Vereniging Rembrandt, and was the first exhibition within that project.
Titus was born in 1641, the fourth child of Rembrandt and Saskia van Uylenburgh, and the only one of their children to survive infancy: his three brothers and sisters died shortly after birth and were buried near the Zuiderkerk, close to this house. Titus grew up on the Jodenbreestraat, in the years his father was at the height of his fame.
In February 1668, Titus married Magdalena van Loo. He was living on the Singel at the time. Later that year, in September, he died of the plague, aged 27. Six months after his death, his daughter Titia was born, Rembrandt’s granddaughter. Titus died before his father: Rembrandt himself died in 1669, a year later.
Walk past the gate to the Zuiderkerk and the house on the Singel, on the free walking tour.
View the walking tour →Read about Jan Six, the befriended regent's son who grew up elsewhere in the city.
Read about Jan Six →Find more paintings and etchings from this period in the museum's collection.
View the collection →Discover the Jewish Quarter and Waterlooplein, the neighbourhood where Rembrandt once lived and worked.
Explore the area →Visit the Rembrandt House Museum, the house where Titus grew up and where this portrait was painted, in 45 minutes through the house. Combine it with a walk past the places from Titus’ Amsterdam.