Rembrandt in confidence

Rembrandt in confidence

As the uncontested master of Dutch art in the seventeenth century, Rembrandt was one of the greatest artists of his era. Possessing remarkable creative power, Rembrandt’s works explore the destiny of mankind as a whole, while focusing on representations of his inner circle. The artist represented his family and close friends—such as his wife Saskia, his last mistress Hendrickje Stoffels, and his son Titus—in numerous studies he executed throughout his life, along with works in which he was the subject; he perfected the art of the self-portrait.

Édouard André and Nélie Jacquemart acquired three of Rembrandt’s paintings, which to this day are incontestable masterpieces: the Pilgrims at Emmaus (1629), the Portrait of Princess Amalia van Solms (1632), and the Portrait of Doctor Arnold Tholinx (1656). Each of these three works illustrates a different and fundamental phase in Rembrandt’s creative career: his early years in Leiden, the rapid success of the first years in Amsterdam, and his artistic maturity. The idea emerged of complementing these pictures with other contemporary works by the artist—paintings, engravings, and drawings—, to gain a better understanding of the extent of Rembrandt’s genius and his genesis as a painter. By exploring the key phases in Rembrandt’s career, the exhibitionretraces the artist’s stylistic development and highlights the intimate side of his creative process.You will able to gain a better understanding of his artistic practices as well as his biography, as Rembrandt’s life was entirely interlinked with his work.

The exhibition comprises around twenty pictures and thirty graphic works, thanks to a series of exceptional loans from New York’s Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Hermitage Museum in Saint Petersburg, the National Gallery of London, the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam, the Musée du Louvre, and the Kunsthistorisches Museum in Vienna. The selection of drawings and engravings perfectly complements the paintings and enables the visitors to discover every facet of Rembrandt’s immense talent.