Rembrandt & Eighteenth- Century England.
Though not a movement by any stretch of the imagination, the
influence of Rembrandt on eighteenth-century art did have consequences for the
evolution of English painting. There were exceptions however: Allan Ramsay the
portrait painter only did one work in the Rembrandtesque manner; others such as
Nathaniel Hone adapted Rembrandt’s style when painting a specific subject.
Leading artists like Gainsborough seem to have virtually ignored Rembrandt,
though Gainsborough did a copy of one Rembrandt in the collection of the Duke
of Argyll.[1]
Later in England we see, surprisingly, classicists like James Barry who called
Rembrandt “slovenly” actually making a copy of a picture by the Dutch master,
though Barry’s source remains unknown since he was dead when the Rembrandt Portrait of Hendrickje arrived in this
country in 1816.[2] Probably
Rembrandt’s influence is felt most during the 1740s and 1750s, although several
decades earlier there were signs that a shift in taste was happening on the
continent which would spread to England. In 1721, the Director of the French
Academy, Antoine Coypel lamented the study of artists like Rubens, Van Dyck,
and Poussin as models who were being abandoned for Rembrandt. Coypel complained
in his own Discours: “The Rembrandts
have been the only models which one has endeavoured to imitate.” Artists like
Jean Raoux (1677-1734) and especially Alexis Grimou (1678-1733) typified the Rembrandtisme of the French. Another
French painter, Vanloo is said by Northcote to have been deceived by Reynold’s
copy of the “Head of an Old Woman” which he had done in the Corsini gallery on
his second day in Rome in 1750.[3]
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Rembrandt, Dulwich Girl and Reynold’s copy, oil
on canvas, measurements not known but probably smaller than original, Hermitage,
St Petersburg.
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Rembrandt, Girl Leaning on a Windowsill, 1649,
oil on canvas, 82 x 66 cm, Dulwich Picture Gallery, London.
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James Barry (after Rembrandt), Hendrickje
Stoffels in a White Cloak, oil on canvas, 73 x 58 cm, Royal Society for the
Encouragement of Arts, Manufactures and Commerce, London.
|
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| Thomas Gainsborough, John Campbell, 4th Duke of Argyll, 1767, oil on canvas, 265.50 x 154.30 cm, Scottish National Portrait Gallery, Edinburgh. |
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| Thomas Gainsborough (after Rembrandt), A Bearded Man in a Cap, 1770, oil on canvas, 77 x 64.1 cm, Royal Collection. |
Other English Collectors of Rembrandt.
Perhaps the first concrete link between Rembrandt and England
is when Godfrey Kneller arrived in the country in 1676, though he eventually
abandoned Rembrandtisme, as was shown
a few weeks ago. But for collectors, the publication of Gersaint’s (Watteau’s
friend) catalogue of etchings in England in 1752 was important for Rembrandt’s
reputation, not to mention the history of connoisseurship. In England,
Rembrandt’s achievements were initially recognised in his mezzotints after
Biblical subjects, though some scholars were sceptical of his ability to paint
“history” subjects. In fact, as Christopher White points out, there was a
“thriving practice “of reproducing the pictures of Rembrandt hanging in many
aristocratic collections in mezzotint which is how collectors would have got to
learnt about them.[4] Perhaps the earliest Rembrandt acquired was
“An Old Woman: The “Artist’s Mother,” at Wilton House by 1731, and probably
acquired on the continent by the eighth Earl of Pembroke when he was in Holland
in 1685.[5]
At his death in 1746 the Hon. John Spencer owned about seven pictures by
Rembrandt, housed either at Althorp or Wimbledon. Other collectors included the Dukes of
Bedford, Argyll, Portland, Montagu, and Buccleuch who all purchased Rembrandts
during the mid-eighteenth century. The Buccleuch holdings included Saskia as Flora (now in the London NG)
and Self-Portrait (now, Washington
N.G.). Later, in the 1760s, Sir Robert Walpole, later Earl of Oxford, acquired
seven pictures by the artist which have been dispersed to various collections.
Included in this group sold to Catherine the Great in 1779 is Abraham sacrificing Isaac (Hermitage).
Even the pictorially indifferent George III owned eight pictures attributed to
Rembrandt, though he kept only one genuine picture and one questionable work.
Other pictures he owned included the Deposition
(now London NG) which was owned by Reynolds.
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| Rembrandt, Self-Portrait with Beret and Turned-Up Collar, 1659, oil on canvas, 84.4 x 66 cm, National Gallery of Art, Washington. |
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| Rembrandt, Lamentation over the Dead Christ, about 1635, oil on paper and pieces of canvas, mounted onto oak, 31.9 x 26.7 cm, National Gallery, London. |
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| Rembrandt, Saskia as Flora, 1635, oil on canvas, 123.5 x 97.5 cm, National Gallery, London. |
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Rembrandt, Abraham sacrificing Isaac, 1635, oil
on canvas, 193 x 132 cm, Hermitage, St Petersburg.
|
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| Rembrandt, Portrait of Caterina Hooghsaet, 1657, oil on canvas, 123.5 x 95 cm, Penrhyn Castle. |
Reynolds, Richardson & Rembrandt
Reynolds’s first direct contact with Rembrandt’s art would
have been through the collection of his Devonshire master, Thomas Hudson
(1701-1779) who acquired them from his own teacher, Jonathan Richardson the Elder
(1667-1745). Richardson has the distinction to be the first Englishman to write
extensively on Rembrandt though he borrowed from French critics like Roger de
Piles. Richardson’s An Essay on the
Theory of Painting (1715) seems to have inspired the young Reynolds, though
Samuel Johnson’s Life of Cowley
suggests it was Richardson’s Two
Discourses on the Art of Criticism, as It Relates to Painting (1719) which encouraged
in Reynolds “the first fondness for his art.”[6]
A staunch admirer of Rembrandt, Richardson’s self-portrait in the Courtauld seems
to be based on Rembrandt’s early self-portraits. A number of drawings passed
from Richardson to his pupil, Hudson, and his
pupil Reynolds: Hudson and subsequently Reynolds owned sixty drawings by
Rembrandt. Owning so many drawings had equipped Richardson to write his books
on painting which affected Reynolds throughout his career. At the end of
Reynold’s life, the booksellers issued an edition of Richardson’s works (1792),
with a dedication inscribed to Reynolds which is fitting since the school of
art criticism founded by Richardson culminated in Reynold’s Discourses.[7]
In Richardson’s Essay, Rembrandt is
awarded the same position for the quality of “Grace “as Italian masters such as
Raphael, Correggio, and Guido.[8]
The interest in Rembrandt would continue in his An Account of some of the Statues, Bas-reliefs, Drawings and Pictures
in Italy etc with Remarks (1722) which was co-authored with his son. Though
mainly concerned with Italian and classical art, four paintings by Rembrandt
are mentioned including a Holy Family,
then in the Orleans collection, but later acquired by the English connoisseur
Richard Payne Knight.[9]
As White observes, Richardson’s judgement was based on fine examples of
Biblical and genre scenes. Significantly, Reynolds owned such drawings of Biblical
subjects, some of which had not passed through Richardson’s hands. But in tune
with current views on Rembrandt who wasn’t rated as a history painter in
England, the future Director of the Royal Academy made use of these drawings only
in his preparation for his portraits. For example, the figure of Tobias in a drawing
of a religious subject (Tobias and Angel at the River) may have inspired the
pose of Colonel Tarleton in the large Reynolds portrait now in the National
Gallery, London.
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Jonathan Richardson the Elder, Self-Portrait,
1729, oil on canvas, 29 in. x 24 3/4 in, National Portrait Gallery.
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Jonathan Richardson, Young Man in a Fur Cap,
possibly Self-Portrait, 1734, black lead on vellum, 14.7 x 11.6 cm, Courtauld
Institute, London.
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Rembrandt, Study for Heads, 1630s, pen,
Fondation Custodia, Paris.
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Rembrandt, Tobias and Angel at the River, 1630s,
pen, location unknown, possibly Louvre.
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Sir Joshua Reynolds, Colonel Tartleton, 1782,
oil on canvas, 236 x 145.5 cm, National Gallery, London.
|
Reynold’s Rembrandts.
Given Reynold’s largely negative pronouncements on the Dutch
school, the presence of Rembrandts in his collection might seem surprising. But
Reynolds wrote that “possessing portraits by Titian, Vandyck, Rembrandt etc”
was “the best kind of wealth.” It should also be remembered that both
Richardson and Hudson had encouraged him indirectly and directly to study
Rembrandt, though not without certain reservations which became more apparent
when he ascended to the post of the President of the Royal Academy. A glance at
the index of the Discourses shows how underrepresented Rembrandt is
compared to painters like Raphael, Michelangelo and Poussin, though Reynolds
seems to have seen a Rembrandt self-portrait when studying in Rome in the midst
of these eminent renaissance masters; and a “Portrait of a Man by Rembrandt” in
the Palazzo Durazzo in Genoa.[10]
He also copied Rembrandt’s Girl at a
Window though not slavishly in accordance with his own ideas on imitation
in the Discourses.[11]
Moreover, Reynolds drew on his own collection when imparting his views on art:
thus, in Discourse VIII, we get a reference to a Rembrandt in Reynold’s own
collection: an “Achilles,” now re-baptised as an Alexander.[12]
Reynolds owned something like twenty three paintings by Rembrandt, not
forgetting the drawings mentioned above. Amongst Reynold’s Rembrandts could be
found a version of Susannah and the
Elders (now in Berlin; “Man with a Knife,” also known as St Bartholomew (Tingal Gallery, San
Diego); a Deposition (now London NG);
a Woman Bathing in a Stream (London,
NG); Christ and the Woman of Samaria
(now Hermitage, St Petersburg and demoted to follower). As well as owning
pictures by Rembrandt, Reynolds made copies after them including the Tribute Money, Picture of an Old Woman (which deceived one painter as an original)
and a Self-Portrait copied in the
Corsini Gallery on his second day in Rome in 1750 which was described on a
visit to the home of the painter’s niece by one visitor (Maria Edgeworth) as “all but the face so black as to be unintelligible- the
face so good as to increase regret
that it must go too and that it is almost gone.” As White says, ostensibly
non-Rembrandt pictures by Reynolds such as his Venus and Cupid and the Infant
Hercules were curiously seen through the lens of Rembrandt. In passing
comment on the Hercules, James Barry reflected
that “it possesses all that we look for and admire in Rembrandt, united to
beautiful forms, and an elevation of mind to which Rembrandt had no
pretensions.”[13]
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| Rembrandt, The Standard Bearer (Floris Soop), 1654, oil on canvas, 140.3 x 114.9 cm, Metropolitan Museum, New York. |
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Rembrandt, Man with a Knife (St Bartholomew), 1657,
oil on canvas, 122.7 x 99.5 cm, Timken Art Gallery, San Diego.
|
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| Rembrandt, A Man in Armour, “Achilles,” or Alexander? 1655, oil on canvas, 137.5 104.5 cm, City Art Gallery and Museum, Glasgow. |
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| Pupil of Rembrandt, Christ and the Samaritan at the Well, 1659, oil on canvas, 60 x 75 cm, Hermitage, St Petersburg. |
Reynolds looks at Rembrandts on the Continent
Most of Sir Joshua’s time on the continent was spent in
Italy: he left Plymouth for Italy in 1749 and stayed in Italy for about three
years. Such an experience had a profound effect on Reynolds and shaped his
thinking on art. The High Renaissance, particularly Michelangelo and Raphael
were to be his guiding stars, but later in his career, Reynolds redressed the
balance by visiting Northern Europe with Philip Metcalfe; the trip lasted from
24th July to 16th September of the same year. After a
long section on the trip through Flanders, Reynolds arrived at The Hague where
he visited the Prince of Orange’s art collection where he says he looks at “a
study of a Susannah (by Rembrandt) which is in my collection.” Then there is
mention of a “Portrait of a Young Man” by Rembrandt, dressed in a black cap and
feathers, the upper part of the face overshadowed: “for colouring force nothing
can exceed it.”[14] This may have looked something like the Self-Portrait now in Boston. And then it was onwards to Amsterdam where Sir
Joshua mainly visited private cabinets- no Rijksmuseum yet. Masterworks like the Night Watch and the Syndics which impress audiences today simply bored Sir Joshua. The President became more interested in the Surgeons’
Hall where he comments on the Anatomy
Lesson of Dr Tulp (“nothing can be more truly the colour of dead flesh”);
and more enthusiastically the Anatomy Lesson of Dr Deyman,
where the head is “sublime,” reminiscent of Michelangelo, with the colouring
“much like Titian.”[15]
In the “Cabinet of Mr Hope “Reynolds comments on light in Rembrandt’s ill-fated
Christ on the Sea of Galilee; he also
notes a “Portrait, by Rembrandt.”[16]
After a lengthy section on the Dutch School generally, which seems to occupy Reynold's attention more than Rembrandt himself, Reynolds and his
companion travel to Dusseldorf where the Director cannot tear himself away from
the Italian schools. However, there were eight Rembrandts here at this time and
Reynolds proceeds to comment on them, none too favourably becoming exhausted at the monotony of the subject of Christ on the Cross. We could almost be back at the R.A. listening to the President point out deficiencies he finds in the painter, such as the “disagreeable string of light” he remarks in Rembrandt’s Elevation of the Christ.
Reynolds, Barry & the Rembrandt Problem
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Rembrandt, Self-Portrait with Plumed Hat, 1629,
oil on panel, 89.5 x 75.3 cm, Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, Boston.
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Rembrandt, The Anatomy Lesson of Dr Tulp, 1632,
oil on canvas, 169.5 x 216.5 cm, Mauritshuis, The Hague.
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Rembrandt, The Anatomy Lesson of Dr Deyman, 1656,
oil on canvas, 100 x 134 cm, Amsterdam Museum, Amsterdam.
|
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| Rembrandt, Christ on the Sea of Galilee, 1633, oil on canvas, 160 x 128 cm, Isabella Stewart Gardener Museum, Boston, stolen in 1990. |
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Rembrandt, Susannah surprised by the Elders, about
1634, oil on wood, 47.2 x 38. 6 cm, The Mauritshuis, The Hague.
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So, finally, how do we explain Reynold’s interest in Rembrandt?
For a start, it seems evident that out of all of the English painters in
eighteenth-century England, Reynolds has the keenest interest in the Dutch
master. It is true that sometimes his remarks on Rembrandt in the Discourses
are not always complimentary despite the fact that he owned some fine examples
of the master’s work; do we therefore conclude that Reynolds was inconsistent
in his thinking at best, or hypocritical about Rembrandt at worst? It seems
unfair to label Reynolds a hypocrite where Rembrandt is concerned because there
was clearly some ambivalence about Rembrandt in this period overall. Barry’s
mystifying copy of the Hendrickje bears that out. Why would such a Hellenistic
orientated painter with a penchant for austere linearity copy Rembrandt, the
epitome of what he called “slovenly” drawing? Perhaps Barry sought to address what he saw as
faults in Rembrandt. In his writings published in 1809 he complains about the “loads
of colour “in Rembrandt’s art.[17]
It is noticeable that Barry’s copy of the Hendrickje
eliminates the red curtain and instead of the glistening whites and yellows of
the chair rest and necklace, we get monotonous browns, and a dull, chalky
colour throughout which isn’t as appealing as the original. By chastening Rembrandt,
was Barry seeking to modify the artist according to his aesthetic lights? And as
far as Reynolds is concerned, there are remarks on Rembrandt’s “weaknesses” pointed out in
the Discourses; and in the Dutch journal we have Reynolds criticising
Rembrandt’s Susannah and the Elders while
standing in front of it at The Hague while doubtless comparing it mentally with
the version in his own collection. The revelations of the Berlin curators who
have strong suspicions that Reynolds painted over Rembrandt in the Susannah should be seen in the context of
the Rembrandt problem in Reynolds.[18]
Did the President of the R.A. re-paint parts of the Berlin Susannah as a way of “correcting” the “faults” he discerned in Rembrandt’s
art. The answer must remain a matter of speculation for the present, but it is
a concrete fact that Reynolds’s encounter with Rembrandt is an important topic
in the fields of studies of both painters, and it deserves more exposure.
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Rembrandt, Susannah and the Elders, 1636, Oil on
mahogany panel, 77 x 93 cm, Staatliche Museen, Berlin.
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Richard Earlom, (after Rembrandt), 1796,
Susannah surprised by the Elders, mezzotint.
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Pupil of Rembrandt (after Rembrandt), Bathsheba & the Elders, no further details known.
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Photo of over-painted areas by Reynolds: altered
areas of the painting are represented in green, Photo: Claudia
Laurenze-Landsberg via Berliner Morgenpost.
|
Slides.
1) Rembrandt, Girl Leaning on a Windowsill, 1649, oil on canvas, 82 x 66 cm, Dulwich Picture Gallery, London.
2) Rembrandt, Dulwich Girl and Reynold’s copy, oil on canvas, measurements not known but probably smaller than original, Hermitage, St Petersburg.
3) Rembrandt, Girl at a Window, 1651, oil on canvas, 78 x 63, National Museum, Stockholm.[19]
4) Sir Joshua Reynolds, The Death of Beaufort ( Shakespeare’s Henry VI) 1789, oil on canvas, 218.5 x 157.5 cm.[20]
5) Thomas Gainsborough (after Rembrandt), A Bearded Man in a Cap, 1770, oil on canvas, 77 x 64.1 cm, Royal Collection.[21]
6) Thomas Gainsborough, John Campbell, 4th Duke of Argyll, 1767, oil on canvas, 265.50 x 154.30 cm, Scottish National Portrait Gallery, Edinburgh.
7) James Barry (after Rembrandt), Hendrickje Stoffels in a White Cloak, oil on canvas, 73 x 58 cm, Royal Society for the Encouragement of Arts, Manufactures and Commerce, London.[22]
8) James Barry, Portrait of Edmund Burke, 1771, oil on canvas, 76 x 63.5 cm, Trinity College, Dublin.[23]
9) Richard Earlom, (after Rembrandt), 1796, Susannah surprised by the Elders, mezzotint.
10) Rembrandt, Saskia as Flora, 1635, oil on canvas, 123.5 x 97.5 cm, National Gallery, London.[24]
11) Rembrandt, Self-Portrait with Beret and Turned-Up Collar, 1659, oil on canvas, 84.4 x 66 cm, National Gallery of Art, Washington. [25]
12) Rembrandt, Abraham sacrificing Isaac, 1635, oil on canvas, 193 x 132 cm, Hermitage, St Petersburg.
13) Rembrandt, Portrait of Caterina Hooghsaet, 1657, oil on canvas, 123.5 x 95 cm, Penrhyn Castle.[26]
14) Allan Ramsay, Portrait of George III, 1761-2, oil on canvas, 249.5 x 163.2 cm, Royal Collection.
15) Rembrandt, The Concord of the State, c. 1642, oil on wood, 74.6 101 cm, Museum Boijmans van Beuningen, Rotterdam.
16) Rembrandt, Lamentation over the Dead Christ, about 1635, oil on paper and pieces of canvas, mounted onto oak, 31.9 x 26.7 cm, National Gallery, London.[27]
17) Jonathan Richardson the Elder, Self-Portrait, 1729, oil on canvas, 29 in. x 24 3/4 in, National Portrait Gallery.
18) Jonathan Richardson, Young Man in a Fur Cap, possibly Self-Portrait, 1734, black lead on vellum, 14.7 x 11.6 cm, Courtauld Institute, London.
19) Sir Joshua Reynolds, Colonel Tartleton, 1782, oil on canvas, 236 x 145.5 cm, National Gallery, London.
20) Rembrandt, Tobias and Angel at the River, 1630s, pen, location unknown, possibly Louvre.
21) Nathaniel Hone, The Conjuror, 1775, oil on canvas, 145 x 171 cm, National Gallery of Ireland, Dublin.
22) Rembrandt, Study for Heads, 1630s, pen, Fondation Custodia, Paris.
23) Rembrandt, The Standard Bearer (Floris Soop), 1654, oil on canvas, 140.3 x 114.9 cm, Metropolitan Museum, New York.[28]
24) Pupil of Rembrandt, Christ and the Samaritan at the Well, 1659, oil on canvas, 60 x 75 cm, Hermitage, St Petersburg.[29]
25) Rembrandt, A Man in Armour, “Achilles,” or Alexander? 1655, oil on canvas, 137.5 104.5 cm, City Art Gallery and Museum, Glasgow.[30]
26) Rembrandt, A Woman Bathing in a Stream: Hendrickje Stoffels (?), 1654, oil on oak, 61.8 x 47 cm, National Gallery, London.[31]
27) Rembrandt, Man with a Knife, (St Bartholomew?), 1661, oil on canvas, 86.7 x 75.6 cm, Getty Museum, Los Angeles.[32]
28) Photograph of current Rembrandt exhibition, Amsterdam.
29) Rembrandt, Man with a Knife, (St Bartholomew), oil on canvas, Worcester Art Museum, Massachusetts.[33]
30) Rembrandt, Man with a Knife (St Bartholomew), 1657, oil on canvas, 122.7 x 99.5 cm, Timken Art Gallery, San Diego.
31) San Diego St Bartholomew in frame.
32) Rembrandt (?), An Evangelist (?), 1661, oil on canvas, 103 x 80 cm, Museum Boijmans van Beuningen, Rotterdam.
33) Rembrandt, Self-Portrait with Plumed Hat, 1629, oil on panel, 89.5 x 75.3 cm, Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, Boston.
34) Rembrandt, Self-Portrait, c. 1635-36, oil on wood, 63 x 47 cm, The Mauritshuis, The Hague.
35) Rembrandt, Susannah surprised by the Elders, about 1634, oil on wood, 47.2 x 38. 6 cm, The Mauritshuis, The Hague.
36) Rembrandt, Susannah and the Elders, 1636, Oil on mahogany panel, 77 x 93 cm, Staatliche Museen, Berlin.
37) Photo of overpainted areas by Reynolds: altered areas of the painting are represented in green, Photo: Claudia Laurenze-Landsberg via Berliner Morgenpost.
38) Rembrandt or Pupil of Rembrandt, Toilet of Bathsheba, 1643, oil on wood, 57.2 x 76.2 cm, Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York.
39) Rembrandt, The Anatomy Lesson of Dr Tulp, 1632, oil on canvas, 169.5 x 216.5 cm, Mauritshuis, The Hague.
40) Rembrandt, The Anatomy Lesson of Dr Deyman, 1656, oil on canvas, 100 x 134 cm, Amsterdam Museum, Amsterdam.
41) Rembrandt, Christ on the Sea of Galilee, 1633, oil on canvas, 160 x 128 cm, Isabella Stewart Gardener Museum, Boston, stolen in 1990.[34]
[1] Rembrandt in Eighteenth-Century England,
App B, no. 37. Bust of a “Rabbi” now in the London NG.
[3] Rembrandt in Eighteenth-Century England,
p. 33.
[4]
Mezzotint was becoming more well-known and merits a large entry in Horace
Walpole’s Anecdotes of Painting.
[6]
See Pat Roger’s introduction to the Discourses, (Penguin, 1992), 14. The
idea that Richardson’s 1715 Essay
decided Reynolds on a career as an artist owes something to a remark made by
Boswell who interviewed Reynolds for a possible biography on 20th
December, 1791.
[7]
Rogers, Introduction to Discourses, 14.
[8] Rembrandt
in Eighteenth-Century England, 9.
[10]
Leslie, Life and Times, (40 ) who comments that a copy of the
Self-Portrait was “in the collection of R.L. Gwatkin esq.” Reynolds describes
the Durazzo Rembrandt as “a man by R, his hands one in the other, prodigious
colouring,” Leslie, Life and Times, 64. The only “Rembrandt” on the
Galeria Sabauda site (where the PD picture collection were moved to Turin in
1824) does not match this description.
[11] See
for example Discourse II (p.93): “How incapable those are of producing anything
of their own, who have spent much of their time in making finished copies, is
well known to all who are conversant with our art.”
[12]
This must be the Alexander, a pendant to Aristotle
Contemplating the Head of Homer (Met, NYC). Rembrandt in
Eighteenth-Century England, App. B, no. 79. Reynolds chooses his “Achilles”
to demonstrate a point about painting light effects. After censuring Rubens for
his painting of the moon [Landscape by
Moonlight], Reynolds says: “for though pure white is used in order to
represent the greatest light of shining objects, it will not in the picture
preserve the same superiority over flesh, as it has in nature, without keeping
that flesh colour of a very low tint. Rembrandt, who thought it of more
consequence to paint light than the objects which are seen by it, has done this
in a picture of Achilles which I have. The head is kept down to a very low
tint, in order to preserve this gradation and distinction between the armour
and the face; the consequence of which is, that upon the whole, the picture is
too black.” Discourses, 223
[13]
Barry (1809) cited in Rembrandt in Eighteenth-Century England, 33.
[14]
Joshua Reynolds, Works, (1855), Vol 2, “A Journey through Flanders and
Holland,” 139- 236, 192-3.
[15] Joshua
Reynolds, Works, 198-199
[16] Joshua
Reynolds, Works, 202-204.
[17] “It
may be worth observing, that no part of Rembrandt’s excellence is derived from
the loads of colour which he has employed, or from the obtrusive, licentious,
slovenly conduct of the pencil [brush], or his troewel he is said to have used.”
Cited in Rembrandt in Eighteenth-Century England, 14.
[18] This
is admirably discussed by White in Rembrandt in Eighteenth-Century England,
11f
[19] There
is also a similar painting at Woburn, Rembrandt in Eighteenth-Century
England, App. B, no. 65.
[21]
RCT say “Rembrandt's 'Beaded Man in a Cap' (National Gallery, London) signed
and dated 1657, belonged to the Dukes of Argyll in the eighteenth century. In
1767 Gainsborough painted a famous full length of the 4th Duke of Argyll
(Scottish National Portrait Gallery) which presumably gave him an opportunity
to study Rembrandt's painting and produce this excellent and very faithful
copy, probably painted 1767-70.
For such an un-academic artist, Gainsborough was
surprisingly fond of copying the old masters, with an especial preference for
the great painterly tradition, which passed from Venice to the Low Countries.
He copied Titian, Rubens and Van Dyck, as well as this work after Rembrandt.” Link.
[22]
Identified by the Barry scholar Pressly (cited in Rembrandt in
Eighteenth-Century England 25) as
the picture referred to as “A Female Portrait, style of Rembrandt” sold after
the artist’s Death. According to the Yale curators the original of Hendrickje
Stoffels was only imported from Amsterdam in 1817, and no copy is recorded, so
what was Barry’s source? The artist died in 1806.
[23] Rembrandt
in Eighteenth-Century England, no 7.
[24] Rembrandt
in Eighteenth-Century England, App. B, no. 13.In Duke of Montague’s coll by
1756, Duchess of Buccleuch, bt by Art Fund in 1938.
[26] Rembrandt
in Eighteenth-Century England, App. B, no. 60.
[27] Rembrandt
in Eighteenth-Century England, App. B, no. 106, as “The Deposition.” Acq by
George III from Consul Smith in 1762, bt for Reynolds, Sir George Beaumont,
then NG 1823-5.
[28] Rembrandt
in Eighteenth-Century England, App. B, no. 36. In Reynold’s coll by 1769. At
Warwick Castle for about fifty years.
[29] Rembrandt
in Eighteenth-Century England, App. B, no. 109. Bought by Reynolds by 1772.
[30] Rembrandt
in Eighteenth-Century England, App. B, no. 79. With Reynolds by 1764.
[31] Rembrandt
in Eighteenth-Century England, App. B, no. 16. Possibly bought by Reynolds
in 1759.
[32] Rembrandt
in Eighteenth-Century England, App. B, no. 113.It used to believed that
this was the version owned by Richardson, but Francis Broun has shown that
Richardson owned the San Diego version, not the Getty variant: “Sir Joshua
Reynolds’ Collection of Paintings [Doctoral dissertation, Princeton University,
1987], pp. 45–47, no. 4).” Thanks to Donato Esposito for this reference.
[33]
According to the Walpole Society, Reynolds “owned a St Bartholomew in 1769-70,
but wether this is the one cannot be verified.
