Portrait of Rembrandt van Rijn

• Portrait of Rembrandt van Rijn
• Portrait of Rembrandt

SK-C-1598

signature: ‘I.L.’

As young artists, Rembrandt and Lievens shared a workshop in Leiden. Lievens painted his friend wearing a metal gorget and a beret. Rembrandt also portrayed himself in the same outfit a number of times during this period. In this little painting Lievens not only recorded his friend’s likeness, but also imitated his style, adopting Rembrandt’s characteristic dark colours, powerful contrasts of light and shade and tiny scratches in the paint.

W. Bürger, Trésors d'Art en Angleterre, 1865, p. 251

painter: Jan Lievens

c. 1629

olieverf op paneel

• height 57 cm x width 44.7 cm
• height 75 cm x width 62.8 cm x depth 7.6 cm

On loan from a private collector

Public domain

...; ? purchased in Holland for £5 by Hamlet Winstanley (1694-1756) for James Stanley (1664-1736), 10th Earl of Derby, Knowsley Hall, near Liverpool;{Recorded in an 1801 catalogue of the collection. See Scharf 1875, no. 74} first recorded in an inventory of the paintings at Knowsley Hall, 1736 (`A head of one of the Earls of Derby, by Lievens. Price £ 6´.);{Scharf 1875, no. 74} by descent to Edward John Stanley (1919-94), 18th Earl of Derby, Knowsley Hall; sale [section The Earl of Derby], London (Christie´s), 17 July 1964, no. 48, as Portrait of a gentleman, to Daniël Hendrik Cevat (1913-1990), Saint Peter Port, Guersney...; on loan from a private collection to the museum, since 1979

Please note that this provenance was formulated with a special focus on provenance research for the years 1933-45 and could therefore be incomplete. There may be more (mostly earlier) provenance information known in the museum. In case this item has an uncertain or incomplete provenance for the years 1933-45, the Rijksmuseum welcomes information and assistance in the investigation and clarification of the provenance of all works during that era.

• W. Bürger, Trésors d'Art en Angleterre, 1865, p. 251
• A. von Wurzbach, II, 1910, p. 46
• G. Scharf, Pictures at Knowsley Hall, 1875, nr. 74
• K. Bauch, 'Zum Werk des Jan Lievens', Pantheon 25 (1967), p. 263
• A.F. Janson, Rembrandt in the Indanapolis Museum of Art, Perception I (1981), p. 10
• Documentatiemap.
• Pieter Roelofs, 'Nu of nooit : Lievens eindelijk op bezoek bij vriend Rembrandt', Oog 3 (2009) nr. 3, p. 96-97.
• H. Gerson, 'The Rembrandt Exhibitions of 1969', The Burlington Magazine 111 (1969), p. 782

To refer to this object, please use the following persistent URL:

https://id.rijksmuseum.nl/200109432