Head of Saint Matthew

probably early 1660s

Shown from the shoulders up, the head of a pale-skinned, elderly man with a long beard and short brown hair takes up most of this vertical portrait painting. The man’s face is turned slightly to our right, and his amber eyes gaze in that direction. Thick strokes of taupe, smoke gray, harvest gold, and flecks of black paint form his thick, chest-length beard. Patches of peach, butterscotch yellow, and rust red create his face. Wide squiggles of chestnut and tawny brown suggest short curls under a coffee-brown cap. The loose painting technique blurs his features, and his shoulders are suggested by sloping areas of coffee and chestnut brown below his head. He is lit from our left so the far side of his face is in shadow, and he is set against an earth-brown background.

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After learning the fundamentals of drawing and painting in his native Leiden, Rembrandt van Rijn went to Amsterdam in 1624 to study for six months with Pieter Lastman (1583–1633), a famous history painter. Upon completion of his training Rembrandt returned to Leiden. Around 1632 he moved to Amsterdam, quickly establishing himself as the town’s leading artist, specializing in history paintings and portraiture. He received many commissions and attracted a number of students who came to learn his method of painting.

This broad, impressionistic sketch of a bearded old man wearing a beret is one of four oil studies on panel that depict the same model. Traditionally, these works have been considered autograph sketches by Rembrandt in preparation for his painting Saint Matthew and the Angel of 1661, now in the Louvre, Paris. However, since the late 1960s, the attribution of these sketches to Rembrandt has been called into question. It seems probable that this Head of Saint Matthew and the other tronies depicting this figure were made by pupils of Rembrandt while the master was occupied with the Louvre painting.

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Artwork overview

  • Medium

    oil on panel

  • Credit Line

    Widener Collection

  • Dimensions

    overall: 25 × 19.5 cm (9 13/16 × 7 11/16 in.)
    framed: 43.82 × 38.42 × 6.35 cm (17 1/4 × 15 1/8 × 2 1/2 in.)

  • Accession

    1942.9.58

More About this Artwork

Scholarly Article:  Dutch Paintings of the Seventeenth Century: Head of Saint Matthew, probably early 1660s

This horizontal painting shows a group of eight light-skinned musicians and onlookers gathered closely around a rectangular, carpet-covered table. The front edge of the table runs parallel to the bottom edge of the painting, and seems close to us. Shown from about the waist up, the men and women’s vivid lapis-blue, coral-red, buttercup-yellow, lilac-purple, and moss-green garments fall in crisp folds. Bright reflections on the fabric suggest a satin-like material. Two women wear feathers in their hair and one man’s hat is plumed. One man, wearing crimson red and black, sits with his back to us to our left on the near side of the table. He holds the neck of a bass viol, about the size of a cello, with his left hand, and points to pages of an open music book with the bow in his right hand. The other people cluster on the far side of the table. A man to the left plays a violin; a woman at the center plays a guitar-sized bandora, and a woman to our right plays a lute. The musicians, along with a man who leans over the table from between the two women, look down at the music books. A young man behind the woman at the center holds up a glass of pale liquid with his right hand as he touches his left forefinger to his smiling lips. A man and woman stand close together in the background to our right, in the top right corner of the canvas.

Scholarly Series:  Dutch Paintings of the Seventeenth Century

Artwork history & notes

Provenance

Alfred Buckley, New Hall, England, by 1882.[1] Rodolphe Kann [1845-1905], Paris, probably after 1893 but by 1900;[2] purchased 1907 with the entire Kann collection by (Duveen Brothers, Inc., London, New York, and Paris);[3] sold to (F. Kleinberger & Co., Paris);[4] by exchange to (Leo Nardus [1868-1955], Suresnes, France, and New York); by exchange early 1909 to Peter A.B. Widener, Lynnewood Hall, Elkins Park, Pennsylvania;[5] inheritance from Estate of Peter A.B. Widener by gift through power of appointment of Joseph E. Widener, Elkins Park; gift 1942 to NGA.
[1] Buckley lent the painting to the 1882 Winter Exhibition at the Royal Academy in London.
[2] Émile Michel, Rembrandt: sa vie, son oeuvre et son temps, Paris, 1893: 432-433, lists the picture as still in Buckley's possession. It was catalogued with the Kann collection by Wilhelm von Bode, Gemälde-Sammlung des Herrn Rudolf Kann in Paris, Vienna, 1900: no. 7, repro.
[3] Duveen Brothers Records, accession number 960015, Research Library, Getty Research Institute, Los Angeles: reels 38 and 39, boxes 115-118, Stock books, Paris Ledger, and Sales Book for the Kann Collection.
[4] Duveen Brothers Records, accession number 960015, Research Library, Getty Research Institute, Los Angeles: reel 39, box 117, Paris Ledger, no. 1, Kann Collection.
[5] Nardus received this painting and NGA’s Head of an Aged Woman (1942.9.64) from Kleinberger in exchange for a portrait of a lady by Hans Memling. The same two paintings, along with ten others, were sent to Widener in early 1909, as replacements for a dozen paintings Nardus had sold to and then took back from the collector, after they were deemed by art historians of the day to be modern copies of “Old Masters.”
These two transactions involving Nardus are revealed in correspondence between Widener, his lawyer, John G. Johnson, Nardus, and Nardus’ assistant, Michel van Gelder, now in the John G. Johnson Collection Archives at the Philadelphia Museum of Art (box 5, folders 5 and 6, especially a letter, Michel van Gelder to John G. Johnson, 29 January 1909). The correspondence was found, transcribed, and kindly shared with the NGA by Jonathan Lopez (letter, sent with transcriptions, 24 April 2006, to Arthur K. Wheelock, Jr., in NGA curatorial files). See also Jonathan Lopez, “‘Gross False Pretenses’: The Misdeeds of Art Dealer Leo Nardus,”_ Apollo_, ser. 2, vol. 166, no. 548 (December 2007): 80–81, fig. 8.

Associated Names

Exhibition History

1882

  • Exhibition of Works by the Old Masters, and by Deceased Masters of the British School. Winter Exhibition, Royal Academy of Arts, London, 1882, no. 99.

1969

  • Rembrandt in the National Gallery of Art [Commemorating the Tercentenary of the Artist's Death], National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C., 1969, no. 9, repro.

Bibliography

1882

  • Royal Academy of Arts. Exhibition of works by the old masters, and by deceased masters of the British School. Winter Exhibition. Exh. cat. Royal Academy of Arts, London, 1882: 23, no. 99.

1883

  • Bode, Wilhelm von. Studien zur Geschichte der holländischen Malerei. Braunschweig, 1883: 590, no. 248.

1885

  • Dutuit, Eugène. Tableaux et dessins de Rembrandt: catalogue historique et descriptif; supplément à l'Oeuvre complet de Rembrandt. Paris, 1885: 43, 64, 69, no. 418.

1893

  • Michel, Émile. Rembrandt: Sa vie, son oeuvre et son temps. Paris, 1893: 432-433, 559.

1894

  • Michel, Émile. Rembrandt: His Life, His Work, and His Time. 2 vols. Translated by Florence Simmonds. New York, 1894: 2:114, 235.

1897

  • Bode, Wilhelm von, and Cornelis Hofstede de Groot. The Complete Work of Rembrandt. 8 vols. Translated by Florence Simmonds. Paris, 1897-1906: 7:15, 106, no. 522, repro., 8: 378.

1900

  • Bode, Wilhelm von. Gemälde-sammlung des Herrn Rudolf Kann in Paris. Vienna, 1900: vii, pl. 7.

1904

  • Rosenberg, Adolf. Rembrandt: des Meisters Gemälde. Klassiker der Kunst in Gesamtausgaben 2. Stuttgart, 1904: 237, repro.

1906

  • Rosenberg, Adolf. Rembrandt, des Meisters Gemälde. Klassiker der Kunst in Gesamtausgaben 2. 2nd ed. Stuttgart, 1906: repro. 362, 405.

1907

  • Sedelmeyer, Charles. Catalogue of Rodolphe Kann Collection. 2 vols. Paris, 1907: 1:iv, no. 73.

  • Hofstede de Groot, Cornelis. A Catalogue Raisonné of the Works of the Most Eminent Dutch Painters of the Seventeenth Century. 8 vols. Translated by Edward G. Hawke. London, 1907-1927: 6(1916):100, no. 174.

  • Rosenberg, Adolf. The Work of Rembrandt, reproduced in over five hundred illustrations. Classics in Art 2. New York, 1907: 362, repro.

  • Hofstede de Groot, Cornelis. Beschreibendes und kritisches Verzeichnis der Werke der hervorragendsten holländischen Maler des XVII. Jahrhunderts. 10 vols. Esslingen and Paris, 1907-1928: 6(1915):100, no. 174.

1908

  • Rosenberg, Adolf. Rembrandt, des Meisters Gemälde. Klassiker der Kunst in Gesamtausgaben 2. 3rd ed. Stuttgart and Berlin, 1908: repro. 455.

1909

  • Rosenberg, Adolf. Rembrandt: Des Meisters Gemälde. Edited by Wilhelm R. Valentiner. Klassiker der Kunst in Gesamtausgaben 2. Stuttgart and Leipzig, 1909: repro. 455.

1912

  • Hofstede de Groot, Cornelis. "Nieuw Ontdekte Rembrandts, II." Onze Kunst 22 (December 1912): 182 pl. 9, 187-188.

1913

  • Hofstede de Groot, Cornelis, and Wilhelm R. Valentiner. Pictures in the collection of P. A. B. Widener at Lynnewood Hall, Elkins Park, Pennsylvania: Early German, Dutch & Flemish Schools. Philadelphia, 1913: intro., no. 39, repro. as by Rembrandt van Rijn.

  • Rosenberg, Adolf. The Work of Rembrandt, reproduced in over five hundred illustrations. Classics in Art 2. 2nd ed. New York, 1913: repro. 455.

  • Graves, Algernon. A Century of Loan Exhibitions, 1813–1912. 5 vols. London, 1913-1915: 3(1914):1011, no. 99.

1914

  • Valentiner, Wilhelm R. The Art of the Low Countries. Translated by Mrs. Schuyler Van Rensselaer. Garden City, NY, 1914: 249, no. 85.

1921

  • Rosenberg, Adolf. The Work of Rembrandt. Edited by Wilhelm R. Valentiner. Classics in Art 2. 3rd ed. New York, 1921: 455, repro.

1923

  • Meldrum, David S. Rembrandt’s Painting, with an Essay on His Life and Work. New York, 1923: 202, no. 416A.

  • Paintings in the Collection of Joseph Widener at Lynnewood Hall. Intro. by Wilhelm R. Valentiner. Elkins Park, Pennsylvania, 1923: unpaginated, repro., as by Rembrandt Harmensz Van Rijn.

1931

  • Valentiner, Wilhelm R. Rembrandt Paintings in America. New York, 1931: no. 155, repro.

  • Paintings in the Collection of Joseph Widener at Lynnewood Hall. Intro. by Wilhelm R. Valentiner. Elkins Park, Pennsylvania, 1931: no. 155, repro.

1935

  • Bredius, Abraham. Rembrandt Schilderijen, 630 Afbeeldingen. Utrecht, 1935: no. 302, repro.

  • Bredius, Abraham. Rembrandt Gemälde, 630 Abbildungen. Vienna, 1935: no. 302, repro.

1936

  • Bredius, Abraham. The Paintings of Rembrandt. New York, 1936: no. 302, repro.

1938

  • Waldman, Emil. "Die Sammlung Widener." Pantheon 22 (November 1938): 342.

1942

  • National Gallery of Art. Works of art from the Widener collection. Washington, 1942: 6, as by Rembrandt van Ryn.

  • Bredius, Abraham. The Paintings of Rembrandt. 2 vols. Translated by John Byam Shaw. Oxford, 1942: 1:no. 302, repro.

1948

  • National Gallery of Art. Paintings and Sculpture from the Widener Collection. Washington, 1948 (reprinted 1959): 43, repro., as by Rembrandt van Ryn.

1957

  • Duveen, James Henry. The Rise of the House of Duveen. New York, 1957: 234.

1959

  • National Gallery of Art. Paintings and Sculpture from the Widener Collection. Reprint. Washington, DC, 1959: 42, repro.

1963

  • Walker, John. National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C. New York, 1963: 314, repro., as by Rembrandt van Rijn.

1964

  • Usarralde, Hilda. De El Greco a Tiepolo. Exh. cat. Museo Nacional de Bellas Artes (Argentina). Buenos Aires, 1964: no. 101, repro.

1965

  • National Gallery of Art. Summary Catalogue of European Paintings and Sculpture. Washington, 1965: 110, as by Rembrandt.

1966

  • Rosenberg, Jakob, Seymour Slive, and Engelbert H. ter Kuile. Dutch Art and Architecture: 1600–1800. Pelican History of Art. Baltimore, 1966: 78, repro.

  • Bauch, Kurt. Rembrandt Gemälde. Berlin, 1966: 48, no. 302.

1967

  • Regteren Altena, J.Q. van. "Review of Bauch 1966." Oud Holland 82 (1967): 70-71.

1968

  • National Gallery of Art. European Paintings and Sculpture, Illustrations. Washington, 1968: 98, repro., as by Rembrandt.

1969

  • Bredius, Abraham. Rembrandt: The Complete Edition of the Paintings. Revised by Horst Gerson. 3rd ed. London, 1969: repro. 230, 573, no. 302.

  • National Gallery of Art. Rembrandt in the National Gallery of Art: Commemorating the tercentenary of the artist's death. Exh. cat. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1969: 19, no. 9, repro.

1975

  • National Gallery of Art. European paintings: An Illustrated Summary Catalogue. Washington, 1975: 286, repro., as by Rembrandt.

1976

  • Fowles, Edward. Memories of Duveen Brothers. London, 1976: 52.

1984

  • Rosenberg, Jakob, Seymour Slive, and Engelbert H. ter Kuile. Dutch Art and Architecture. The Pelican History of Art. Revised ed. Harmondsworth, 1984: 78, repro.

1985

  • National Gallery of Art. European Paintings: An Illustrated Catalogue. Washington, 1985: 334, repro.

1995

  • Wheelock, Arthur K., Jr. Dutch Paintings of the Seventeenth Century. The Collections of the National Gallery of Art Systematic Catalogue. Washington, 1995: 333-336, color repro. 335.

1998

  • Fichner-Rathus, Lois. Understanding art. 5th ed. Upper Saddle River, New Jersey, 1998: 94, fig. 407.

2002

  • Quodbach, Esmée. "The Last of the American Versailles: The Widener Collection at Lynnewood Hall." Simiolus 29, no. 1/2 (2002): 71.

2007

  • Lopez, Jonathan. "‘Gross False Pretenses’: The Misdeeds of Art Dealer Leo Nardus." Apollo ser. 2, 166, no. 548 (December 2007): 80-81, fig. 8.

2008

  • De Witt, David. The Bader Collection: Dutch and Flemish paintings. Agnes Etherington Art Centre Catalogues. Kingston, Ont., 2008: 273, 274 n. 3.

Wikidata ID

Q20177503

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