The Story
Estate inventory, Eberhard Jabach (1618-95), Paris, 17 July 1696, no. 123 ('Portrait de Rimbrands, ayant un linge blanc autour de sa test, 1/2 figure grande comme le naturel, de luy-mesme. 100 liv[res]’);{The number ‘123’ painted on the reverse of the stretcher in imitation of the original corresponds to the number in the 1696 posthumous inventory; for the inventory see Grouchy 1894, pp. 249−92, esp. p. } …; ? s Cardinal Neri Maria Cosini, no. 15: ‘Dalla Vedova Wleughel. Il proprio Ritratto di Reimbrant s[cudi] 100’. The painting is no.
164 in the 1750 Inventario di tutti i quadri of Palazzo Corsini: ‘Il Ritratto di Reimbrant di sua mano, comprato sc[udi] 100. } …; purchased from the Corsini collection, by the London art dealer William Buchanan (1777-1864), summer 1807;{According to a label transferred from the original stretcher to the present one: ‘From the Corsini Palace of Rome / brought to England by William Buchanan Esq. } from whom, 500 guineas, to Charles Kinnaird (1780-1826), 8th Lord Kinnaird, Rossie Priory near Dundee, before 2 January 1809;{Buchanan 1824, vol.
Executed in oil on canvas, measuring width: 77; height: 91, the surface rewards close looking. Rembrandt van Rijn builds the composition through layered glazes and a tightly controlled palette, letting cool shadows recede so that the warm, lit passages step forward. The brushwork shifts from the precise to the almost dissolved — a hallmark of mature Baroque practice.
“A silence so complete it becomes its own witness.”
