19th C. Oil Painting On Canvas After Rembrandt

Fine Art : Paintings

 

This early 19th century painting is a study of one of the gentlemen in Rembrandt’s famous 1662 painting, "De Staalmeesters", or "The Syndics Of The Drapers Guild", which hangs in the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam. This painting was executed by a later student or follower of Rembrandt Van Rijn. The painting is unsigned, but the artist is extremely talented and shows his astute skills by rendering an almost duplicate of the original portrait. The finer details of the background and chair were left unpainted, lending importance to the play of light on the features of the face. This important life size portrait copies not only a character in one of the most important works of art in history, but also captures the artistic flair and treatment of light of the Dutch Golden Age of painters.

We have had the painting scientifically examined in order to more precisely ascertain its date of execution. It has been determined through microscopic pigment analysis that the paints used came into existence during the first quarter of the 19th century. This is an excerpt from the written analysis:

The painting is quite large, 145.0 cm high by 75.5 cm wide, painted on canvas. It is in excellent condition and shows signs of having been restored; although there is a small loss about 50 cm from the top and 9.5 cm from the left, on the subject’s right shoulder. The painting has been relined and mounted onto a wooden stretcher. Inspection with a stereomicroscope shows that craquelure is present and more or less uniform throughout the painting. The canvas is loosely woven; no evidence of the canvas having been treated with a sealant (such as glue) was found; the off-white ground was applied directly to the canvas. The color of the canvas is light beige. Examination with ultraviolet fluorescence illumination showed a few spots of probably restoration; the predominant look was of patchy green areas and areas with little or no obvious fluorescence.

The painting was brought to us from a fine estate, but provenance is mostly unknown. The scientific analysis confirmed what we already surmised; that it was executed in the early to mid 1800’s and that is has had minor restoration both in the 19th and 20th centuries, including adding a canvas backing to the original. The painting is inset into a molded frame and is in good age appropriate condition; size of image 57 ¾” Height x 29 ½” Width; size of frame 63 ½” Height x 36 ½” Width.

Item ID: PS06-17-08-01