Rembrandt in America

Rembrandt van Rijn painted great works of art from 1628 to 1669. There wasn’t much art collecting in the United States in those years – of course, there wasn’t even a United States. The first Rembrandt painting came to America probably in 1884, more than 200 years after Rembrandt died. So it is not surprising that the most important paintings by this master, who was famous in his lifetime and has been famous ever since, were acquired for the great collections of Europe and can now be found in museums in Holland, Germany, Russia, France and England.

Nevertheless, toward the end of the 19th century great wealth was being accumulated in the United States and American art collectors were trying to catch up to the collections of Europe. And if you were building an Old Masters collection, you needed a Rembrandt. That is the first story of this exhibition: these are the paintings that Americans bought as “Rembrandts” and brought to this country, from the 1880s to today. Many of those paintings have turned out to be by someone other than Rembrandt, and that is the other story this exhibition tells. The overly optimistic attributions to Rembrandt, of course, didn’t occur solely on this side of the ocean. To put it in context, a century ago there were approximately 1,000 paintings in the world recognized as Rembrandts. Forty years ago there were 600. Today the number is closer to 300. But looking at the positive side, about one-third of Rembrandt’s accepted paintings now reside in America, and of those, one-third are in this show. We have here the largest collection of authentic Rembrandt paintings ever assembled in this country, so you’re in for a treat.

But let’s start with the basic question: what makes a Rembrandt a Rembrandt? How do connoisseurs decide which paintings were done by the Dutch master? This is not an easy question, but if we look first at one of Rembrandt’s best early works we can identify some characteristics that we can use as identifiers.

Old Man with a Gold Chain, c. 1631 (AIC)
Our curator Tom Rassieur considers this a demonstration piece by the 25-year-old Rembrandt when he moved from his hometown of Leiden to the big city, Amsterdam. In it, he was showing off his skill, and as such it is a good place to look for clues to Rembrandt’s personal style. What are some of the first things you notice?
1. The light. Light is always crucial in a Rembrandt. It is the prime way he focuses the viewer’s attention. Here the light hits squarely on the man’s right cheek, which literally jumps off the canvas. By contrast, the left side of the face lies in shadow. This stark contrast between dark and light is known as “chiaroscuro,” and it will be a hallmark of Rembrandt’s work until he dies.
2. Colors. Working with the dramatic lighting are the stark colors. Rembrandt’s regular palette consists of black, brown, gold and white (plus whatever he needs for the flesh tones). Again, this allows Rembrandt to concentrate our attention exactly where he wants it – on the man’s face.
3. Varied brushstrokes. Rembrandt never consigns himself to painting just one way: his paint can be smooth and glossy, or it can be rough and glistening. Look at the strokes that make up the gold chain – bold dabs of paint up close that coalesce from a distance. Then look at the cheek and eyes – you won’t see any evidence of the brush.
4. Neutral background. The background is different shades of one color – here a gray, more often a brown. Again, there’s nothing to distract from the principal subject, the man’s face. At the same time, by modulating the background tone, Rembrandt gives a depth to the pictorial space that many of his imitators don’t achieve.
5. Non-idealized subject. Rembrandt is not interested in flattering his subjects, nor does he, at least as regards their looks. When he paints Jesus, he uses a man from the streets as his model, not some ideal. For this ‘demonstration piece’ he presumably could have painted a handsome, dashing young man, but instead chose this older, grizzled character.
6. Exotica. Rembrandt collected costumes and objects that had come to Amsterdam from all over the world and he loved dressing up his models and painting exotic objects whenever he could, notably in his history paintings. Here, in addition to the gold chain and the steel gorget (neck armor), he has concocted an outlandish plumed hat to cap off the portrait.
7. Finally, sentience. This is a word our curator continually uses in describing Rembrandt’s portraits. “Having thoughts and feelings” is another way to say it.
When you look at the eyes in a Rembrandt portrait – and you have to look at the eyes –you get the impression that someone is there.

Let’s apply these tests to the first example of Rembrandt/not Rembrandt, to your left.

Portrait of a Girl Wearing a Gold-trimmed Cloak, 1632 (private collection)
What about the light? It is streaming in from the left, leaving half the face in shadow, just as it was in Man with a Gold Chain. The spot on her forehead is particularly amazing, and I urge you to look at it very closely when you can.
There is the same limited palette, with white and gold, although brown replaces gray as the predominant background, probably in deference to the girl’s red hair.
Brushstrokes: the white shirt, the gold brocade, the fine hair, the smooth skin are each applied in an entirely different manner.
The neutral background supplies air for the girl to breathe while not distracting attention.
Is the subject idealized? With her baby fat, glum expression and thin hair, I would say she’s rather unattractive – but I’ll leave that to your own judgment.
And finally, although I don’t know what she’s thinking – maybe, how long do I have to sit for this portrait? – there are thoughts in her head and we relate to her as a real person.

Portrait of a Young Woman, 1632 (workshop) (Allentown)
By contrast, here is our first example of a work that was brought to America as a Rembrandt – in this case in 1928 by dime-store magnate Samuel Kress – but is now universally regarded as being the product of someone in Rembrandt’s workshop, trying to paint like the master but falling far short.
There is no chiaroscuro, no shadow on the face, and as a result the face is flat. The background, while neutral, has no depth: there is no air for the girl to breathe. The brushstrokes have none of the confidence of the other painting: the girl’s white collar, especially, is a loose mess. And as for sentience, does she have a thought in her head? If so, it is not apparent. [bought from Petworth]

I think you will agree that this (pointing) is the more engaging painting, the one you want to spend more time with, the real Rembrandt. This, however, is the last easy call you will probably have.

As we leave this gallery, I want you to look at two small men’s heads, both of which have been called Rembrandt self-portraits. At the moment, only one is considered to be by Rembrandt. Apply this simple test: see which portrait engages you more.

Self-Portrait, c. 1630 (Met)
Bust of a Young Man, 1629? (Fogg)

In Amsterdam, maybe because of demonstration pieces like Man with a Gold Chain, Rembrandt quickly became a sought-after artist for portrait commissions, and in the next gallery we will start with one of his best.

Portrait of Marten Looten, 1632 (LACMA)
What strikes you first about this painting? Or, another way of saying it, where does Rembrandt make you look? The eyes, right? We’ve seen already how Rembrandt does this: the chiaroscuro, with the light coming in from the left. The shadow on the sitter’s face doesn’t make that part disappear: it makes you look harder – again, engaging your attention. We are already familiar with the limited palette – here, almost just black and white – and the neutral background.
There are a few new touches, however, that make this work particularly satisfying. Looten’s brilliant white collar sets off his face at a perfect angle. And note how his hands and the collar create a diagonal line that bisects the canvas, creating a sense of stability – and this line parallels his left shoulder and arm in a harmonious rhyme.
There is nothing exotic or gnarly about this portrait, but that is because this is a commission early in Rembrandt’s career in Amsterdam (1632), and pleasing the subject was of some importance. Still, you get the feeling that this is what Marten Looten actually looked like, don’t you?

The same year, 1632, Rembrandt was commissioned to produce the husband and wife portraits on this wall. I’d ask you to compare Marten Looten with the woman, whom we will call Mrs. Van Beresteyn (for although we don’t know her identity, we do know the family in which these portraits descended before being purchased by American sugar baron H.O. Havemeyer, who bequeathed them to the Metropolitan Museum in New York in1929).

Portrait of a Woman, Probably a Member of the Van Beresteyn Family, 1632 (Met)
Which portrait engages you more?
Unlike Looten’s obvious intelligence, Mrs Van B has a vacant stare. Her ruff, instead of drawing attention to her face, draws attention away from it.
How is her head even attached to her body? It seems to float on top of the ruff, like it’s been photoshopped on.
Her hands are too bright and take your eye away from the face. Her right hand is limp, lifeless. The left hand is another problem: is her arm straight or is the elbow bent? Judging from the table that projects forward from her hip, the arm must be bent, yet the cuff on her left wrist goes up and down, unlike the cuff on her right arm.
Nor does the background do the work it did for Marten Looten and the Young Girl.
Yet despite all these apparent problems, this is considered one of the authentic “Rembrandts” in the show.
This brings us to the issue of how Rembrandt worked, especially in the 1630s. He had a studio with assistants, who were often accomplished painters in their own right who were trained to paint in the style of the studio master. It was possible that Rembrandt and a studio assistant worked together: maybe the assistant painted the body and Rembrandt painted or touched up the head. If the work met a certain standard Rembrandt could sign the painting and sell it as his own, even if an assistant had done some or all of the actual painting. There are no records of who did what, although we do know what years certain assistants worked in the studio. Thus, it is very possible that this painting of Mrs. Van Beresteyn could have been largely a studio production. Compare it with the much finer portrait of Mr. Van Beresteyn, hanging next to it. Look at his face, then look back at hers. The man being the more important person, it is conceivable that Rembrandt worked on it himself while directing a studio assistant on the wife’s.

When assessing a painting’s authorship, the expert will say, there are these weaknesses in the painting, therefore it can’t be by Rembrandt. The trouble with this analysis is, it overlooks the possibility that Rembrandt, like every other human being, may have just had some bad days and may have been responsible for some inferior work. I will let you decide whether the next painting we look at is a good one or a bad one, but in this case there is extraneous evidence that points to Rembrandt as the author.

Minerva in her Study, 1635 (private collection)
It’s great to have this particular painting in the show, for it highlights a different aspect of Rembrandt’s art. The subject is a mythological one, and we can surmise that this was no commission, this was something Rembrandt painted for himself. The model for the goddess was Saskia, Rembrandt’s wife, and curator Tom Rassieur speculates that this painting could have hung in Rembrandt’s studio, watching over his workplace. Minerva, or Athena in Greek mythology, was the goddess of both war and wisdom. Here she has put aside the helmet and shield of war and is reading from a book – hence, favoring the arts and wisdom over war.
You will note, as usual, that Rembrandt doesn’t flatter his subject, except in the lush fabric and accoutrements. We still see his typical chiaroscuro, but in the richness of this painting we are reminded of the one painter in northern Europe whose legacy Rembrandt surely had to deal with, Peter Paul Rubens. Rembrandt, in the mid-1630s, went through a Baroque phase, with overly dramatic and cluttered compositions, brighter colors and, as here, Rubensian figures. Two details: on the shield, Rembrandt has painted a self-portrait as Medusa – another bit of evidence that he is the author. And as a student of Rembrandt hands, which can be very good or very weak, I wonder why Minerva’s left hand is so slender while her right hand is so pudgy.

[I am something of a Rembrandt hand fetishist. As an example of how little attention he gave to hands, look at the right hand on the portrait to your right, now in San Francisco. (Joris de Caulerij)]

Portrait of a Woman, 1635? (workshop) (Cleveland)
Next to Minerva, who is rather a battleaxe, is, to my mind, one of the loveliest women in the exhibition. Her face is delicate, and the white of her hairpiece sets her off nicely from the plain background. She is Miss Demure. Compared to Minerva, this is more a cameo than a Rembrandt portrait, and indeed it is now considered a workshop production, not an autograph Rembrandt. If you could have one of these two paintings for yourself, though, which would you take?
Interestingly, one of the co-presenters of this show is the Cleveland Museum of Art, and they are the largest lender, with four paintings in the exhibition, including this one. They acquired what they thought was a “Rembrandt” in each decade from the 1930s to the ‘60s. Unfortunately for them, not one of them is now judged to be by the master.

As we enter the next phase in Rembrandt’s career, we go from Minerva to Aunty (anti-) Minerva.

Study of Elderly Woman in a White Cap, c. 1640 (private)
The first difference, of course, is size. Next, everything extraneous has been stripped away. In Rembrandt’s Baroque period, there was turbulence in his paint. Now he is turning to Classicism, and his work is marked by simplicity and solemnity.
Again, we see the emphasis on light, and our curator calls this a study of light, how it illuminates the white cap worn by the servant. We see, as well, the neutral background that supplies depth and the limited palette of one or two colors. But I see this as much more than a technical tour de force. To me, this housekeeper has the most interesting personality we have so far encountered. Marten Looten has obvious intelligence, but this lady has thoughts and emotions you want to study and understand. There is nothing idealized about her appearance, but there is a dignity in the way Rembrandt paints each strand of her hair. We don’t know who she is, but you can understand, from the sympathetic way Rembrandt painted her, that some have speculated that the model was Geertghe Dircx, who was a nurse to Rembrandt’s son and became Rembrandt’s lover.
Rembrandt’s wife Saskia had died in 1642; and whether as a result or not, Rembrandt’s art became more introspective. The Elderly Woman is a harbinger of that trend. But before we get lost in late Rembrandt, let’s take one look back to 1634 and the only pair of full-length portraits by Rembrandt in America.

Portraits of Reverend Johannes Elison and Maria Bockenolle, 1634 (BMFA)
These are, in fact, one of only three full-length portrait pairs known by Rembrandt in the world; they are from the Boston Museum of Fine Arts and were just cleaned for this show; so this is a fabulous opportunity for us.
I won’t go through the characteristics that make these typical Rembrandts of the period, for you are all familiar with that rundown. I would, however, ask that you compare the two works, and think back to the pair of Van Beresteyn portraits we studied earlier, where I thought the painting of the man to be by Rembrandt but the woman perhaps not. How would you compare these two?
Start with the floor. The husband’s has character, the wife’s is a blank. Look at the hands – my pet subject. His are expressive: one gripping the chair, one holding his heart. Her right hand grips the chair, too, but without any of his authority. But it is her left hand that bothers me. Whenever I see it, it looks upside-down. I know it isn’t – she just apparently has a disjointed pinky, but it takes my attention away from her face and her personality, if she has one. Look, too, at their respective collars and cuffs. Hers are painted mechanically; his collar is painted in a sensitive, modulate manner that, unlike hers, highlights but doesn’t distract from the face. Lastly, when you get close, study the robes, how deftly Rembrandt provides depth using different shades of black, and how much less sophisticated are the blacks of her attire.

As we leave this gallery, pause a minute before another female portrait that haunts me.

Portrait of a Woman (Hendrickje Stoffels?), c. 1653 (follower) (Bader Coll.)
Some think this is a portrait of Hendrickje Stoffels, the much younger servant who came into Rembrandt’s household and soon replaced Geertghe Dircx in Rembrandt’s bed. She is attractive, without being flattered. The variety of brushwork is typical of Rembrandt – look at the rough, but convincing, way the artist paints the white chemise. The deep brown colors are also typical of late Rembrandt, as we will see in the next gallery. As for provenance, this painting was purchased by Norton Simon, one of America’s greatest collectors of Old Masters, from an aristocratic English collection in 1957. Yet the experts now say it was done, not by Rembrandt or even his studio, but by a “follower” – in other words, someone who has studied Rembrandt’s style, as we have done on this tour, and imitated it. The label points to “ineffective use of the butt end of the brush to depict the fur” as a disqualifying point. You be the judge.

While the Woman we are looking at may be a close call, we will now look at some paintings by imitators of Rembrandt that are not.

The Death of Lucretia(?), c. mid-1640s (follower) (Detroit)
In addition to his portraits, so well represented in our show, Rembrandt was a master of historical paintings, scenes from the Bible and mythology, that were considered, at the time, the pinnacle of art. You can see some wonderful examples of this skill in the exhibition of Rembrandt etchings just outside the door of the next gallery. American collectors, however, were not so successful in obtaining examples of Rembrandt history paintings; as a result, this room showcases some of their misses. James Scripps, the Detroit newspaper publisher, bought this scene at Christie’s in London in 1888 and gave it to the Detroit Institute of Arts. It is believed to represent the death of Lucretia, whose story is well known to MIA members. But a comparison of this dying woman with the Lucretia by Rembrandt in the next gallery is embarrassing. Still, you can see why an eager collector in the 19th century could have been fooled. There is the attempt at chiaroscuro, the bright light on the central figures while all else is in darkness, although there is no light source that makes sense of what is lit and what isn’t. Especially typical of Rembrandt are the exotic costumes worn by the men, and the Middle Eastern dagger. They have nothing to do with the story of Lucretia, but then again this may not even have been intended as the story of Lucretia. As far as deep emotion goes, there is none. Instead of real people in a human situation, I feel as if I am looking at a scene on the Guthrie stage.

If American collectors failed at capturing Rembrandt’s history scenes, they fared much better in collecting portraits of single historical figures. We have already seen Rembrandt’s Minerva. We will now look at Rembrandt’s compelling take on St. Bartholomew. In fact, we have two portraits of St. Bartholomew, and since you are all experts by now, I will quiz you on their authorship.

St. Bartholomew, 1657 (San Diego); St. Bartholomew, 1661 (Getty)
First, how do we know these are St. Bartholomew? Because both men are holding a knife – and see how briefly both knives are painted. This was St. Bartholomew’s attribute because he achieved his martyrdom for Christ by being flayed – that is, skinned alive by a knife. Which, to you, looks more like a Rembrandt?
One painting is active, one is passive. One has slashes of brushstroke and a bottom half that looks unfinished. The other is carefully built up, finely painted around the eyes and with a left hand that is a marvel of sensitivity, much like Rodin’s The Thinker 200 years later. The first saint doesn’t even have a left hand!
Yet both paintings are unquestionably accepted as genuine Rembrandts. They were painted only four years apart – 1657 for this one from San Diego, 1661 for this one from the Getty in Los Angeles, yet show a remarkable divergence of styles – always within the general frame of reference for a Rembrandt: raking light, muted colors, focus on the eyes and, above all, interior depth. While other painters of saints and history concentrate more on the narrative story, Rembrandt only lightly alludes to St. Bartholomew’s flaying – he concentrates on what the historical character must be thinking and feeling. [This foreshadows his treatment of Lucretia.]

These paintings of St. Bartholomew personify the late Rembrandt, and we will look further at this period in the final gallery.

Portrait of a Young Man, 1666 (KC)
By date, this, along with our Lucretia, is the latest painting by Rembrandt in the show. It dates from 1666, three years before his death. While there are many paintings by Rembrandt of old men, and no one assayed old age in art better than Rembrandt, it is somewhat encouraging to see him, at the age of 60, painting such a relatively hopeful and benign portrait of a youth.
See how his style has matured, but remained the same, over his entire career.

By contrast, look at the only work in this gallery that is no longer attributed to Rembrandt. (Portrait of A Man, c. 1655-60) Again, sad to say, it is from Cleveland. The man is wearing the same kind of clothes you find in a Rembrandt, and a floppy hat that is familiar. His eyes are shaded, there is light on one side of his face. The background is neutral. But what is missing? Everything.

Go from this face to the most famous face in art history – Rembrandt’s own.

Self-Portrait, 1659 (NGA)
First, let’s get rid of the hands. I’ve expressed my concern about Rembrandt’s lack of attention to the hands in several works already. What does he do with his hands here? He merely suggests where they are, no more. That is part of his self-assurance. What other artist would have felt he could put hands in a portrait but leave them almost blank? Look at the colors – the painting, beyond the face, is almost monochromatic, but look at how much depth and volume he achieves with the slightest variety in his brown. There is just a hint of the usual gold, along the brim of the cap.
Look at the light. There is no attempt at realism in the light – it is used to focus your eye. If you are staring at someone closely, you will not be noticing the color of the shirt, seems to be what Rembrandt is saying.
There is, again, a great variety of brushwork: simply compare the face with the hands. Or look at how roughly he has painted the fur trim on his jacket. The face now, however, is not as smooth as the first old man’s. Rembrandt has intuitively learned that rougher paint draws the viewer in; smooth paint puts the viewer off.
Now look at the eyes. How can you do anything but?
One critic has smartly said: early Rembrandt portraits appear to breathe; later portraits appear to think. Nowhere is this more true than in his self-portraits, of which this is a great one.
The other famous quote is one I will leave you with. It is from Vincent Van Gogh:
“He says things for which there are no words in any language.”

Thank you for joining me for “Rembrandt in America.”