Christ with a Staff

Christ with a Staff or St James the Less is a painting by a follower of Rembrandt, now in the Metropolitan Museum of Art. It was also known as Christ in 1854 and exhibited in 1933 as The Pilgrim. The picture is in Rembrandt's style of the 1660s and may have been painted in his workshop. Whilst the brushwork certainly imitates his unique style, some scholars have suggested that its manner of execution is similar to that of Arent de Gelder (1645–1727), one of his latter pupils.

In 1661 Rembrandt made a series of paintings of the apostles, including Self-Portrait as the Apostle Paul; these may have influenced this work. In an image by the copper-plate engraver Schelte a Bolswert, after a drawing by Gerard Seghers, St James the Less is shown with a book.

The physical object — Oil on canvas, 37 1/2 x 32 1/2 in. (95.3 x 82.6 cm) — carries its own history of handling and restoration. Rembrandt's brushwork here moves between exacting description and looser, more suggestive passages, a balance typical of Baroque studio practice.

Look closely and the painting opens up. Objects you might pass over — a folded letter, a half-drawn curtain, the angle of a glance — were placed to be read. Figures and gestures here follow a visual vocabulary contemporary viewers would have read fluently — attributes, poses, and settings that identify who is who and what is at stake.

The Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York now holds the work, where conservators and historians continue to revisit its condition and attribution. Each generation of scholarship adds a layer to how Rembrandt's output from this period is understood.

“A silence so complete it becomes its own witness.”