Rembrandt Painting Loaned to Getty
Portrait of a Girl... from Private Collection on View Through 2008
A New York private collection has loaned Dutch artist Rembrandt van Rijn's "Portrait of a Girl Wearing a Gold-trimmed Cloak" (1632) to Los Angeles' J. Paul Getty Museum.
Los Angeles, California's J. Paul Getty Museum has secured the extended loan of Portrait of a Girl Wearing a Gold-trimmed Cloak (1632) by Dutch Baroque painter, draftsman and engraver Rembrandt Harmensz. van Rijn (1606-1669). Lent by a New York private collection, the painting will be displayed in the museum's East Pavilion near the master's The Abduction of Europa (1632) from November 20, 2007 through the year 2008.
Rembrandt Harmensz. van Rijn
The son of a miller and baker's daughter, Rembrandt van Rijn was born in Leiden (1606), Holland. There he began his artistic training. While in Amsterdam, an apprenticeship with Pieter Lastman (ca. 1583-1633), a painter and draftsman who studied in Italy for five years and made Biblical, mythological and Roman historical narratives his specialties, greatly influenced Rembrandt's predilection for allegorical and religious subjects. While south of the Alps, Lastman learned about chiaroscuro (the balance of light and dark in a composition to achieve dramatic effect through strong contrasts) by exposure to the works of Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio (1571-1610). Rembrandt's appreciation for this technique came from his mentor's lessons. Yet the student's consummate ability to portray profound human emotion in his paintings thoroughly remained his own invention.
The popularity of Rembrandt's deeply introspective works was eclipsed around 1642 when the extravagant type of painting by Flemish artist Anthony van Dyck (1599-1641) was introduced to Amsterdam by Dutch painter Bartholomeus van der Helst (1613-1670). Rembrandt's adamant refusal to give himself over to this ostentatious style led to his near-bankruptcy. He eventually died poor and alone in an impoverished section of the city in 1669.
Portrait of a Girl Wearing a Gold-Trimmed Cloak: Its Provenance and Description
Prince Johannes II of Liechtenstein (r. 1858-1929) once owned Portrait of a Girl... In the year of the monarch's death, it was purchased by Robert Treat Paine II whose ancestor signed the Declaration of Independence. On loan to the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston for many decades, the composition was stolen at gunpoint by two men during a daring daytime heist in April 1975. State and federal authorities recovered the stolen oil on panel work during a clandestine meeting nine months later. Art thief Myles Connor subsequently asserted that he masterminded both the precious painting's purloining and its return. The portrait was eventually sold by Paine's heirs to an anonymous collector at a 1986 auction for $10.3 million (US) and has not been exhibited publicly in many years.
In Portrait of a Girl..., scratches made by the artist in the thick wet paint of the subject's white shirt created her garment's pleats. The panel's upper left-hand source of light provides atmospheric effect in the background while illuminating the young female's face, strand of miniscule pearls adorning her hair and a large earring from one side.
The Rape of Europa
Rembrandt came to regard history painting as his career's most important activity; he also depicted themes from classical mythology. The Abduction of Europa, taken from the Metamorphoses of Roman poet Ovid (43 B.C.-17 A.D.), shows the mighty god Jupiter in the guise of a white bull. In an attempt to seduce Europa, the princess of Tyre, he carries her off on his back across the sea to a faraway continent that would be known by her name. Scholars have noted that the facial features of the princess and her handmaiden are strikingly similar to those of the unidentified sitter, richly attired, in Portrait of a Girl... Both works were executed in the same year. These two masterpieces by Rembrandt van Rijn might be more closely related to each another than previously surmised.
Sources:
- Gilboa, Anat. Images of the Feminine in Rembrandt's Work. Delft: Eboron Publishers, 2004.
- Williams, Julia Lloyd (ed.), et al. Rembrandt's Women (exh. cat.). London: Prestel Publishing, Ltd., 2001.
