The Philosopher

c. 1653

Dutch 17th Century

Painter

Willem Drost

Painter, Dutch, c. 1630 - after 1680

Shown from the chest up, a light-skinned man with a gaunt face, wearing a large, dark brown hat, almost fills this vertical painting. His chest faces us, leaning over his hands, which are folded along the bottom of the painting. His head turns to our left, and he looks in that direction. His deep set, hazel eyes are rimmed in pink under dark, thick brows. His long nose has a slight bump at the bridge, and his pale coral-red mouth is slightly open, creating shaded hollows under high cheek bones. His brown beard is trimmed straight across the bottom. The soft, oversized, earth-brown beret covers most of his head, leaving just a fringe of dark brown hair along his forehead. A brocaded robe with bands of rust red and gold is draped over a mustard-yellow garment with a low scooped neckline. The garment is layered over a high-necked, pleated, ivory-white undergarment. A thick gold chain hangs low across his chest, and the background is mottled with honey and tawny brown.

Media Options

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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 painting of a bearded man with chiseled features and penetrating eyes is a tronie, a bust-length figure study, rather than a formal portrait. The man wears a wide, floppy beret and a red-and-yellow patterned robe. From 1639 until 1656 Rembrandt lived in a large house on the Jodenbreestraat on the edge of the Jewish quarter in Amsterdam, and during those years he frequently depicted Jewish models in his paintings. This model appears in another tronie dated 1653, so this work probably dates from the same period.

A close examination of the painting techniques in The Philosopher indicates that this work, though executed with great sensitivity, cannot be by the master. A number of stylistic similarities exist between this work and paintings by one of Rembrandt’s pupils, Willem Drost. Many of Drost's male sitters, for example, stare intently out of the picture plane, as does this man. The Philosopher is painted on a panel made out of two different types of wood. Most of the image is on a walnut panel, whereas the hands are painted on an oak strip joined to the walnut along the bottom. The hands must have bothered an early collector or restorer because, from the time this painting first entered the Rembrandt literature until it was cleaned in 1981, they were covered by overpaint.

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Artwork overview

  • Medium

    oil on panel

  • Credit Line

    Widener Collection

  • Dimensions

    overall: 61.5 x 49.5 cm (24 3/16 x 19 1/2 in.)
    framed: 105.4 x 92.4 x 9.2 cm (41 1/2 x 36 3/8 x 3 5/8 in.)

  • Accession

    1942.9.66

More About this Artwork

Scholarly Article:  Dutch Paintings of the Seventeenth Century: The Philosopher, c. 1653

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

(Charles Sedelmeyer, Paris, 1905). Maurice Kann [1839-1906], Paris, by 1906;[1] (Charles Sedelmeyer, Paris); sold 20 December 1906 to Peter A. B. Widener, Lynnewood Hall, Elkins Park, Pennsylvania; inheritance from Estate of Peter A. B. Widener by gift through power of appointment of Joseph E. Widener, Elkins Park, Pennsylvania; gift 1942 to NGA.
[1] Sedelmeyer Gallery, Catalogue of 100 Paintings by Old Masters, Paris, 1905, 36, does not mention that the painting came from the Kann Collection. Since provenance was generally cited in Sedelmeyer's catalogues, and Maurice Kann bought almost all of his paintings from Sedelmeyer, it seems reasonable to infer that The Philosopher had not yet been owned by Kann when Sedelmeyer offered it for sale in 1905. When the picture was catalogued in 1906 (Wilhelm von Bode, assisted by Cornelis Hofstede de Groot, The Complete Work of Rembrandt, trans. Florence Simmonds, 8 vols., Paris, 1897-1906, 8: 39, 126, 378), Bode noted on page 126 that the painting was in the Kann Collection and then on page 378 that it had changed hands and was with Sedelmeyer.

Associated Names

Exhibition History

1909

  • The Hudson-Fulton Celebration, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, 1909, no. 96.

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. 5, 15, repro., as by Rembrandt.

Bibliography

1897

  • Bode, Wilhelm von, and Cornelis Hofstede de Groot. The Complete Work of Rembrandt. 8 vols. Translated by Florence Simmonds. Paris, 1897-1906: 8:39, 126, 378, no. 582.

1905

  • Sedelmeyer, Charles. Illustrated Catalogue of the Ninth Series of 100 Paintings by Old Masters. 2 vols. Paris, 1905: 36, no. 27, repro.

1907

  • 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: 5(1916):233, no. 449.

  • 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):203, no. 449.

1908

  • Rosenberg, Adolf. Rembrandt, des Meisters Gemälde. Klassiker der Kunst in Gesamtausgaben, 2. 2nd ed. Stuttgart and Leipzig, 1908: 365, repro.

  • "P.A.B. Widener Collection, February 1st, 1908." Typescript, 2 vols., Library, National Gallery of Art, 1908: 212.

1909

  • Valentiner, Wilhelm R. Catalogue of a collection of paintings by Dutch masters of the seventeenth century. The Hudson-Fulton Celebration 1. Exh. cat. Metropolitan Museum of Art. New York, 1909: 97, no. 96, repro., 156, 161.

  • Marguillier, Auguste. "Collection de feu M. Maurice Kann." Les Arts (April 1909): 1-32, no. 88.

  • Rosenberg, Adolf. Rembrandt: Des Meisters Gemälde. Edited by Wilhelm R. Valentiner. Klassiker der Kunst in Gesamtausgaben 2. Stuttgart and Leipzig, 1909: repro. 365.

1910

  • Valentiner, Wilhelm R. "Die Ausstellung holländischer Gemälde in New York." Monatshefte für Kunstwissenschaft 3 (1910): 9.

  • Valentiner, Wilhelm R. Catalogue of a Loan Exhibition of Paintings by Old Dutch Masters Held at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in Connection with the Hudson-Fulton Celebration. New York, 1910: repro. 324, 325, no. 96.

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: unpaginated, intro., no. 34, repro., as by Rembrandt van Rijn.

1914

  • Valentiner, Wilhelm R. The Art of the Low Countries. Translated by Mrs. Schuyler Van Rensselaer. Garden City, NY, 1914: 247, no. 56.

1923

  • Meldrum, David S. Rembrandt’s Painting, with an Essay on His Life and Work. New York, 1923: 110, 197, pl. 283.

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

1931

  • Valentiner, Wilhelm R. Rembrandt Paintings in America. New York, 1931: no. 108.

  • Paintings in the Collection of Joseph Widener at Lynnewood Hall. Edited by Wilhelm R. Valentiner. Elkins Park, Pennsylvania, 1931: 70, repro., as by Rembrandt.

1935

  • Bredius, Abraham. Rembrandt Schilderijen, 630 Afbeeldingen. Utrecht, 1935: no. 260, repro.

  • Bredius, Abraham. Rembrandt Gemälde, 630 Abbildungen. Vienna, 1935: no. 260, repro.

1936

  • Bredius, Abraham. The Paintings of Rembrandt. New York, 1936: no. 260, repro.

1942

  • National Gallery of Art. Works of art from the Widener collection. Washington, 1942: 6, no. 662, as by Rembrandt van Ryn.

  • Bredius, Abraham. The Paintings of Rembrandt. 2 vols. Translated by John Byam Shaw. Oxford, 1942: 1:no. 260, repro.

1948

  • Douglas, R. Langton. "Three Pictures by Rembrandt from the Van Loo Collection." Art in America 36 (April 1948): 73-74, fig. 3.

  • Rosenberg, Jakob. Rembrandt. 2 vols. Cambridge, MA, 1948: 1:59, 2:fig. 98.

  • National Gallery of Art. Paintings and Sculpture from the Widener Collection. Washington, 1948: 41, repro., as by Rembrandt van Ryn.

1959

  • National Gallery of Art. Paintings and Sculpture from the Widener Collection. Reprint. Washington, DC, 1959: 41, repro., as by Rembrandt.

1963

  • Walker, John. National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C. New York, 1963 (reprinted 1964 in French, German, and Spanish): 313, repro., as by Rembrandt van Rijn.

1964

  • Rosenberg, Jakob. Rembrandt: Life and Work. Revised ed. Greenwich, Connecticut, 1964: 111, fig. 98.

1965

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

1966

  • Bauch, Kurt. Rembrandt Gemälde. Berlin, 1966: 12, no. 214, repro.

1968

  • National Gallery of Art. European Paintings and Sculpture, Illustrations. Washington, 1968: 96, repro., as by Rembrandt.

1969

  • Bredius, Abraham. Rembrandt: The Complete Edition of the Paintings. Revised by Horst Gerson. 3rd ed. London, 1969: repro. 539, 569, no. 260A.

  • 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: 7, 15, no. 5, repro.

1975

  • National Gallery of Art. European paintings: An Illustrated Summary Catalogue. Washington, 1975: 288, repro., as by Rembrandt.

  • Walker, John. National Gallery of Art, Washington. New York, 1975: 273, no. 362, color repro.

1984

  • Walker, John. National Gallery of Art, Washington. Rev. ed. New York, 1984: 273, no. 356, color repro., as by Rembrandt van Ryn.

1985

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

1990

  • Liedtke, Walter A. "Dutch Paintings in America: The Collectors and their Ideals." In Great Dutch Paintings from America. Edited by Ben P.J. Broos. Exh. cat. Royal Picture Gallery Mauritshuis, The Hague; Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco. The Hague and Zwolle, 1990: 43 fig. 30.

1995

  • Wheelock, Arthur K., Jr. Dutch Paintings of the Seventeenth Century. The Collections of the National Gallery of Art Systematic Catalogue. Washington, 1995: 309-314, color repro. 311.

2000

  • Dunn, Nicola. Old Masters. Exh. cat. Salomon Lilian Gallery, Amsterdam, 2000: 22-23, fig. 2.

2004

  • Wagstaff, Sheena, et al. Edward Hopper. Exh. cat. Tate Modern, London; Museum Ludwig, Cologne, 2004-2005. London, 2004: 17, fig. 7.

2005

  • Bikker, Jonathan. Willem Drost (1633-1659): a Rembrandt pupil in Amsterdam and Venice. New Haven and London, 2005: 154-156, 155, no. R24, repro.

Wikidata ID

Q20177377

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