Young Woman with a Red Necklace

Young Woman in a Pearl Necklace (circa 1654) is an oil on canvas painting by the Dutch painter Willem Drost. It is an example of Dutch Golden Age painting and is part of the collection of Gemäldegalerie Alte Meister. The woman (the same model as in Drost's Bathsheba with King David's Letter) is looking at the viewer and is wearing a red bodice that is slightly open to reveal a pearl necklace. This painting was documented in 1914 by Hofstede de Groot as a copy of a Rembrandt in the collection of the Metropolitan Museum of Art.

That painting had just been acquired the year before through the Benjamin Altman bequest and was considered one of the gems of the collection. Hofstede de Groot thought he saw a portrait of Rembrandt's wife Hendrickje Stoffels and wrote; "719. HENDRICKJE STOFFELS. Half-length. She sits, inclined to the right, bending her head and looking at the spectator. With the right hand she puts a string of pearls on her left wrist. Her red gown is cut out at the bosom, and the pleated chemisette is open; on her bare breast lies a pearl necklace.

Working in Oil on wood at Overall, with added strips, 8 1/2 x 7 1/4 in. (21.6 x 18.4 cm), Rembrandt constructs depth through value contrast rather than outline, letting figures emerge from darkness the way they would under candlelight or through a shuttered window.

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. The sitter is constructed: clothes, pose, and attributes were chosen to project status, virtue, and lineage.

Housed at The Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, the painting has passed through the hands of collectors, dealers, and institutions before reaching public view — a provenance that is itself part of the object's story.

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