Past Exhibition

Rembrandt's Late Religious Portraits

Shown from about the knees up, an older, bearded, pale-skinned man sits at a desk with his head in one hand in a shadowy room in this vertical painting. His body is angled to our right, and he sits in a heavy wooden armchair next to a desk. His left elbow, farther from us, rests on the chair’s arm, and he holds that hand to his forehead. He holds a quill with his other hand, which brushes his knee. He has ash-brown hair covered at the back by a cap and a long shaggy beard. He looks off to our right with dark, shaded eyes. His voluminous brown robe is brushed loosely with golden brown highlights. The rust-red garment under the robe is visible at the sleeves, neckline, and one knee. The desk, to our right, has a stack of papers or parchment. The oversized hilt of a long sword leans against the wall behind the desk. The background is painted with areas of earth and chestnut brown. Some areas of the scene are loosely painted so brushstrokes are visible, especially the brightest white highlights on his collar, the quill, the edges of the parchment, and glints on the sword. The artist signed the painting on the face of the desktop, near the lower right corner: “Rembrandt f.”
Rembrandt van Rijn, Anonymous Artist, The Apostle Paul, c. 1657, oil on canvas, Widener Collection, 1942.9.59

Details

  • Dates

    -

  • Locations

    West Building, Main Floor, Galleries 50 and 51
Shown from about the knees up, an older, bearded, pale-skinned man sits at a desk with his head in one hand in a shadowy room in this vertical painting. His body is angled to our right, and he sits in a heavy wooden armchair next to a desk. His left elbow, farther from us, rests on the chair’s arm, and he holds that hand to his forehead. He holds a quill with his other hand, which brushes his knee. He has ash-brown hair covered at the back by a cap and a long shaggy beard. He looks off to our right with dark, shaded eyes. His voluminous brown robe is brushed loosely with golden brown highlights. The rust-red garment under the robe is visible at the sleeves, neckline, and one knee. The desk, to our right, has a stack of papers or parchment. The oversized hilt of a long sword leans against the wall behind the desk. The background is painted with areas of earth and chestnut brown. Some areas of the scene are loosely painted so brushstrokes are visible, especially the brightest white highlights on his collar, the quill, the edges of the parchment, and glints on the sword. The artist signed the painting on the face of the desktop, near the lower right corner: “Rembrandt f.”
Rembrandt van Rijn, Anonymous Artist, The Apostle Paul, c. 1657, oil on canvas, Widener Collection, 1942.9.59

Overview: 17 half-length portraits of religious figures painted by Rembrandt van Rijn late in life were brought together for the first time from private and public collections in the United States and Europe. Scholars had long wondered whether the paintings, roughly similar in size and composition, formed part of a series.

The Camerata Trajectina presented special family concerts of 17th-century Dutch music on January 30 and February 6 in the West Building Lecture Hall in conjunction with the exhibition.

Organization: The exhibition was organized by the National Gallery of Art, Washington, in association with the J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles. Arthur K. Wheelock Jr., curator of northern baroque painting at the National Gallery, was the curator.

Sponsor: Mr. and Mrs. Thomas A. Saunders III supported the exhibition in Washington. The exhibition received an indemnity from the Federal Council on the Arts and the Humanities.

Attendance: 266,986

Catalog: Rembrandt's Late Religious Portraits, by Arthur K. Wheelock Jr. et al. Washington, DC: National Gallery of Art, in association with the University of Chicago Press, 2005.

Brochure: Rembrandt. NGAkids Inside Scoop. Washington, DC: National Gallery of Art, 2005.

Other Venues:

  • The J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles, 06/07/2005–08/28/2005

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