Room 22

This melancholy image of an old man lost in thought is one of a group of studies made by Rembrandt in the 1650s. They were not portraits of individuals – the identity of the sitter wouldn‘t have been considered relevant, either to the artist or the person who bought the painting. They were known...

This man is wearing the habit of an order of monks founded to follow the teachings of Saint Francis of Assisi. His pose, eyes cast down and apparently lost in thought, reflects the Franciscan way of life – one of simplicity and prayer. This may be a portrait of an individual friar, or perhaps a t...

Rembrandt’s painting, unique for him in its tender intimacy, shows a young woman almost up to her knees in a stream. She lifts her shift and looks down with a little smile of pleasure at the cool water rippling against her sturdy legs.Although it’s not certain, this woman may be Hendrickje Stoffe...

Rembrandt’s pensive Saint Paul belongs to a series of half-length pictures of religious figures that the artist painted in the late 1650s and early 1660s. The dark picture is devoid of unnecessary details, but the saint’s traditional attributes are just about visible: an open book sits on the tab...

A cold, grey light creeps through an open window into a room that is itself very old – no glass in the window, a heavy wooden shutter, an open fire with an earthenware pot beside it. The light falls onto an old man. He sits facing into the room, his hands clasped, his head lowered, his face almos...

In his great dramatic painting, Rembrandt tells a story from the Old Testament (Daniel 5: 1–5, 25–8). The man in the gold cloak, enormous turban and tiny crown is Belshazzar, King of Babylon. His father had robbed the Temple of Jerusalem of all its sacred vessels. Using these to serve food at a f...

‘Ecce Homo’, the Latin title of this painting, is taken from the Bible, and means ‘Behold the man!’ These were the words of Pontius Pilate, the Roman governor of Judea, when he was sitting as the judge during the trial of Christ. Pilate, here shown wearing a turban and rising to his feet, is pres...

The optical illusion created by this painting is a powerful one. Rembrandt has used contrasts between light and dark – for example, the blacks and whites of the sitter’s clothes, the highlights on her nose and the heavy shadow under her chin – to create a highly convincing three-dimensional effec...

The sitter – whom Rembrandt did not name – has an almost regal poise. She looks down on us from a slight height, her right hand resting on what must be part of the arm of a chair, but which has the air of a sceptre. She wears expensive pearl earrings and jewellery and what seems to be a fur mantl...

This is one of a pair of portraits of a husband and wife, one of the richest couples in the Netherlands. Jacob Trip, who made much of his money as an arms dealer, had been married to Margaretha de Geer for nearly 60 years. The paintings, both in the National Gallery, were made to hang together, a...

This is one of a pair of portraits of a husband and wife, one of the richest couples in the Netherlands. Margaretha de Geer had been married to Jacob Trip for nearly 60 years, and the two portraits, both in the National Gallery, were made to hang together, almost certainly in one of the grand rec...

When this portrait was made, Philips Lucasz. was in his thirties and an important official in the Dutch East India Company. He had been in charge of the company’s fleet, which had sailed home from the East Indies in December 1633 and was to leave Holland again on 2 May 1635, shortly after this pi...

Saskia van Uylenburgh, the daughter of a burgomaster of Leeuwarden in Friesland, was Rembrandt’s first wife. Here, she is 23 years old; they have been married for a year. She is dressed as Flora, the Roman goddess of spring and fertility.Her gorgeous gown is a seventeenth-century version of Renai...

This is one of three self portraits Rembrandt made just before his death in 1669. About 80 survive from his 40-year career, far more than any other artist of his time. He painted them for different reasons – to practise different expressions, to experiment with lighting effects, and also to sell...

Christ’s body has just been taken down from the Cross, and his family and followers mourn over him – a moment known as The Lamentation. Rembrandt laboured over this small monochrome picture. He began by making an oil sketch on paper, then tore out a section and mounted the rest on canvas. He cont...

A woman weeps on the steps of a shadowy temple, while members of the Jewish ruling council gather round. Afraid of Christ’s popular preaching, they planned to trick him into transgressing the Jewish law. They said to him: ‘Teacher, this woman has been caught in the act of adultery. Now in the law...

Some of Rembrandt’s most powerful paintings are of men and women immersed in thought, depicted with bold brushwork and dramatic, shadowy light effects. Slumped sideways across a chair, one hand gripping the wooden arm and the other resting lightly on his temple, this elderly man is in just such a...

Margaretha de Geer was married to Jacob Trip – an extremely wealthy merchant and arms dealer – for nearly 60 years. Rembrandt painted large-scale likenesses of each, which were originally designed to hang together. Both are now in the National Gallery.This smaller portrait of Margaretha was paint...

This atmospheric painting shows a lonely figure seated in front of a huge volume open on the table before him. Brilliant sunlight floods through the gloom onto the wall of the room. Much of the image’s power lies not just in the dramatic tension between light and dark, but in the way the artist h...