Man with a Sheet of Music

1633

Rembrandt van Rijn

Painter, Dutch, 1606 - 1669

Shown from the waist up, a bearded man with pale, peachy skin, wearing a black wide-brimmed hat and jacket, and a broad, layered, white collar, holds up a piece of rolled up paper in this vertical portrait painting. His shoulders are angled to our right but he turns his face to look at us with dark gray eyes. He has a bumped nose, and his full pink lips are slightly parted. There are bags under his heavy-lidded eyes. A light brown mole marks his soft cheek, on our left, and there are jowls along his jawline. His honey-brown goatee is trimmed to a point, and his brown curly hair falls to his collar. The wide brim of the hat sweeps down a bit to our right. Layers of white fabric create a wide collar that rests against his chest and nearly reaches his shoulders. His dark coat is a field of black, broken only by the sheer white cuff and the hand he holds up in front of his chest. The skin of that hand, his left, has a greenish cast, and he wears a gold ring on the pinky finger. Musical notation is visible on the rolled-up paper he holds loosely in that hand. He is lit from our upper left so casts a shadow against the peanut-brown wall behind him. The artist signed and dated the painting near the man’s shoulder, to our right: “Rembrandt f 1633.”

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Artwork overview

Artwork history & notes

Provenance

Jan Stolker [1724-1785], Rotterdam; (his sale, Rotterdam, 27 March 1786, no. 8). possibly Earl Howe.[1] private collection, Russia.[2] jointly owned by (Durand-Ruel) and (M. Knoedler & Co., New York), by July 1912;[3] purchased September 1912 by William A. Clark [1839-1925], New York; bequest April 1926 to the Corcoran Gallery of Art, Washington; acquired 2014 by the National Gallery of Art.
[1] According to Algernon Graves, a painting by Rembrandt titled A Man with Roll of Music was lent by Earl Howe to the British Institution exhibition of 1860. See A Century of Loan Exhibitions 1813-1912, 5 vols., London, 1914: 3:1008.
[2] M. Knoedler & Co. Records, accession number 2012.M.54, Research Library, Getty Research Institute, Los Angeles: Sales book 10, 1912 February-1916 April, p. 70.
[3] Knoedler's records suggests that the painting was already in the possession of Durand-Ruel by July 1912 at which time Knoedler acquired the half share. The painting is stock number 12893 in the M. Knoedler & Co. records, accession number 2012.M.54, Research Library, Getty Research Institute, Los Angeles: Stockbook 6, 12653-15139, 1911 December-1920 July.

Associated Names

Exhibition History

2001

  • Antiquities to Impressionism: The William A. Clark Collection, Corcoran Gallery of Art, Washington, 2001-2002, unnumbered catalogue, repro.

Bibliography

2013

  • Kiger, Patrick. "Attempted Rembrandt Heist at the Corcoran." Posted 19 March 2014 at https://boundarystones.weta.org/2014/03/19/attempted-rembrandt-heist-corcoran (accessed 19 January 2022), repro.

Inscriptions

center right, to the right of the sitter's shoulder: Rembrandt f[-] / 1633

Wikidata ID

Q21522272

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