Rembrandt

Early life and education

Rembrandt Harmenszoon (abbr. Harmensz.) van Rijn was born on 15 July 1606 in Leiden, in the Dutch Republic, now the Netherlands. He was the ninth child born to Harmen Gerritszoon van Rijn and Neeltgen Willemsdochter van Zuijtbrouck. His family was quite well-to-do; his father was a miller and his mother was a baker's daughter. His mother was Catholic, and his father belonged to the Dutch Reformed Church. Religion is a central theme in Rembrandt's works and the religiously fraught period in which he lived makes his faith a matter of interest.

As a boy, he attended a Latin school. In 1620, he was enrolled at Leiden University, although he had a greater inclination towards painting and was soon apprenticed to Jacob van Swanenburg, with whom he spent three years. After a brief but important apprenticeship of six months with the history painter Pieter Lastman in Amsterdam, Rembrandt stayed a few months with Jacob Pynas in 1625, though Simon van Leeuwen claimed that Rembrandt was taught by Joris van Schooten and then started his own workshop.

Career

In 1625, Rembrandt opened a studio in Leiden, which he shared with friend and colleague Jan Lievens. In 1627, Rembrandt began to accept students, among them Gerrit Dou and Isaac de Jouderville. Joan Huydecoper is mentioned as the first buyer of a Rembrandt painting in 1628. In 1629, Rembrandt was discovered by the statesman Constantijn Huygens who procured for Rembrandt important commissions from the court of The Hague. As a result of this connection, Prince Frederik Hendrik continued to purchase paintings from Rembrandt.

At the end of 1631, Rembrandt moved to Amsterdam, a city rapidly expanding as the business and trade capital. He began to practice as a professional portraitist for the first time, with great success. He initially stayed with an art dealer, Hendrick van Uylenburgh, and in 1634, married Hendrick's cousin, Saskia van Uylenburgh. Saskia came from a respected family: her father Rombertus was a lawyer and had been burgomaster (mayor) of Leeuwarden. The couple married in the local church of St. Annaparochie without the presence of Rembrandt's relatives. In the same year, Rembrandt became a citizen of Amsterdam and a member of the local guild of painters. He also acquired a number of students, among them Ferdinand Bol and Govert Flinck.

In 1635, Rembrandt and Saskia rented a fashionable lodging with a view of the river Amstel. In 1637, Rembrandt moved upriver to Vlooienburg, in a building on the previous site of the current Stopera. In May 1639 they moved to a recently modernised house in the upscale 'Breestraat' with artists and art dealers; Nicolaes Pickenoy, a portrait painter, was his neighbour. The mortgage to finance the 13,000 guilder purchase would be a cause for later financial difficulties. The neighborhood sheltered many immigrants and was becoming the Jewish quarter. It was there that Rembrandt frequently sought his Jewish neighbours to model for his Hebrew Bible scenes.

One of the great patrons at the early stages of his career was Amsterdam statesman Andries de Graeff.

Although they were by now affluent, the couple suffered several personal setbacks; three children died within weeks of their births. Only their fourth child, Titus, who was born in 1641, survived into adulthood. Saskia died in 1642, probably from tuberculosis. Rembrandt's drawings of her on her sick and death bed are among his most moving works. After Saskia's illness, the widow Geertje Dircx was hired as Titus's caretaker and dry nurse; at some time, she also became Rembrandt's lover. In May 1649 she left and charged Rembrandt with breach of promise and asked to be awarded alimony. Rembrandt tried to settle the matter amicably, but to pay her lawyer she pawned the diamond ring he had given her that once belonged to Saskia. On 14 October they came to an agreement; the court particularly stated that Rembrandt had to pay a yearly maintenance allowance, provided that Titus remained her only heir and she sold none of Rembrandt's possessions. As Dircx broke her promise, Rembrandt and members of Dircx's own family had her committed to a women's house of correction at Gouda in August 1650. Rembrandt also took measures to ensure she stayed in the house of correction for as long as possible. Rembrandt paid for the costs.

Insolvency

Rembrandt, despite his artistic success, found himself in financial turmoil. His penchant for acquiring art, prints, and rare items led him to live beyond his means. In January 1653 the sale of the property formally was finalised but Rembrandt still had to cover half of the remaining mortgage. Creditors began pressing for instalments but Rembrandt, facing financial strain, sought a postponement. The house required repairs, prompting Rembrandt to borrow money from friends, among them Jan Six.

In November 1655, amid a year overshadowed by plague and the drafting of wills, Rembrandt's 14-year-old son Titus took a significant step by drafting a will that designated his father as the sole heir, effectively sidelining his mother's family. In December Rembrandt orchestrated a sale of his paintings, yet the earnings failed to meet expectations. This tumultuous period deeply impacted the art industry, prompting Rembrandt to seek a high court arrangement known as cessio bonorum. Despite his financial difficulties, Rembrandt's bankruptcy was not forced. In July 1656, he declared his insolvency, taking stock and willingly surrendered his assets. Notably, he had already transferred the house to his son. Both the authorities and his creditors showed leniency, granting him ample time to settle his debts. Jacob J. Hinlopen allegedly played a role.

In November 1657 another auction was held to sell his paintings, as well as a substantial number of etching plates and drawings, some of the latter by famous artists, including Raphael, Mantegna and Giorgione. Remarkably, Rembrandt was permitted to retain his tools as a means of generating income. Rembrandt lost the guardianship of his son and thus control over his actions. A new guardian, Louis Crayers, claimed the house in settlement of Titus's debt.

The sale list comprising 363 items offers insight into Rembrandt's diverse collections, which encompassed Old Master paintings, drawings, busts of Roman emperors, statues of Greek philosophers, books (including a bible), two globes, bonnets, armour, and various objects from Asia (porcelain), as well as a collections of natural history specimens (two lion skins, a bird-of-paradise, corals and minerals). However, the sale prices were disappointing.

By February 1658, Rembrandt' house had been sold at a foreclosure auction, and the family moved to more modest lodgings at Rozengracht. In 1660, he finished Ahasuerus and Haman at the feast of Esther, which he sold to Jan J. Hinlopen. In early December 1660, the sale of the house was finalised but the proceeds went directly to Titus's guardian.

Works

Overview

In a letter to Huygens, Rembrandt offered the only surviving explanation of what he sought to achieve through his art, writing that, "the greatest and most natural movement", translated from de meeste en de natuurlijkste beweegelijkheid. The word "beweegelijkheid" translates to "emotion" or "motive". Whether this refers to objectives, material, or something else, is not known but critics have drawn particular attention to the way Rembrandt seamlessly melded the earthly and spiritual.

As connoisseurship developed in the 19th and 20th centuries, Rembrandt's oeuvre increased in size. By the early 20th century, connoisseurs thought Rembrandt had produced well over 600 paintings, nearly 400 etchings and 2,000 drawings. More recent scholarship, from the 1960s to the present day (led by the Rembrandt Research Project), often controversially, has winnowed his oeuvre to nearer 300 paintings. His prints, traditionally all called etchings, although many are produced in whole or part by engraving and sometimes drypoint, have a much more stable total of slightly under 300. It is likely Rembrandt made many more drawings in his lifetime than 2,000 but those extant are rarer than presumed. Two experts claim that the number of drawings whose autograph status can be regarded as effectively "certain" is no higher than about 75, although this is disputed. The list was to be unveiled at a scholarly meeting in February 2010.

At one time, approximately 90 paintings were counted as Rembrandt self-portraits but it is now known that he had his students copy his own self-portraits as part of their training. Modern scholarship has reduced the autograph count to over forty paintings, as well as a few drawings and thirty-one etchings, which include many of the most remarkable images of the group. Some show him posing in quasi-historical fancy dress, or pulling faces at himself. His oil paintings trace the progress from an uncertain young man, through the dapper and very successful portrait-painter of the 1630s, to the troubled but massively powerful portraits of his old age. Together they give a remarkably clear picture of the man, his appearance and his psychological make-up, as revealed by his richly weathered face.

In his portraits and self-portraits, he angles the sitter's face in such a way that the ridge of the nose nearly always forms the line of demarcation between brightly illuminated and shadowy areas. A Rembrandt face is a face partially eclipsed; and the nose, bright and obvious, thrusting into the riddle of halftones, serves to focus the viewer's attention upon, and to dramatise, the division between a flood of light—an overwhelming clarity—and a brooding duskiness.

Periods, subjects and styles

Throughout his career, Rembrandt took as his most common subjects portraits, narrative or "history paintings", mostly biblical, and landscapes. He was especially praised by his contemporaries for his biblical subjects, for his skill in representing emotions, and attention to detail. Stylistically, his paintings progressed from the early "smooth" manner, characterised by fine technique in the portrayal of illusionistic form, to the late "rough" treatment of richly variegated paint surfaces, which allowed for an illusionism of form suggested by the tactile quality of the paint itself. Rembrandt must have realised that if he kept the paint deliberately loose and "paint-like" on some parts of the canvas, the perception of space became much greater.

A parallel development may be seen in Rembrandt's skill as a printmaker. In the etchings of his maturity, particularly from the late 1640s onward, the freedom and breadth of his drawings and paintings found expression in the print medium as well. The works encompass a wide range of subject matter and technique, sometimes leaving large areas of white paper to suggest space, at other times employing complex webs of line to produce rich dark tones.

Lastman's influence on Rembrandt was most prominent during his period in Leiden from 1625 to 1631. Paintings were rather small but rich in details (for example, in costumes and jewelry). Religious and allegorical subjects were favoured, as were tronies. In 1626 Rembrandt produced his first etchings, the wide dissemination of which would largely account for his international fame. In 1629, he completed Judas Repentant, Returning the Pieces of Silver and The Artist in His Studio, works that evidence his interest in the handling of light and variety of paint application and constitute the first major progress in his development as a painter.

During his early years in Amsterdam (1632–1636), Rembrandt began to paint dramatic biblical and mythological scenes in high contrast and of large format (The Blinding of Samson, 1636, Belshazzar's Feast, c. 1635 Danaë, 1636 but reworked later), seeking to emulate the baroque style of Rubens. With the occasional help of assistants in Uylenburgh's workshop, he painted numerous portrait commissions both small (Jacob de Gheyn III) and large (Portrait of the Shipbuilder Jan Rijcksen and his Wife, 1633, Anatomy Lesson of Dr. Nicolaes Tulp, 1632).

Graphic works

Rembrandt produced etchings for most of his career, from 1626 to 1660, when he was forced to sell his printing-press and practically abandoned etching. Only the troubled year of 1649 produced no dated work. He took easily to etching and, though he learned to use a burin and partly engraved many plates, the freedom of etching technique was fundamental to his work. He was very closely involved in the whole process of printmaking, and must have printed at least early examples of his etchings himself. At first he used a style based on drawing but soon moved to one based on painting, using a mass of lines and numerous bitings with the acid to achieve different strengths of line. Towards the end of the 1630s, he reacted against this manner and moved to a simpler style, with fewer bitings.

He worked on the so-called Hundred Guilder Print in stages throughout the 1640s, and it was the "critical work in the middle of his career", from which his final etching style began to emerge. Although the print only survives in two states, the first very rare, evidence of much reworking can be seen underneath the final print and many drawings survive for elements of it.

In the mature works of the 1650s, Rembrandt was more ready to improvise on the plate and large prints typically survive in several states, up to eleven, often radically changed. He now used hatching to create his dark areas, which often take up much of the plate. He also experimented with the effects of printing on different kinds of paper, including Japanese paper, which he used frequently, and on vellum. He began to use "surface tone", leaving a thin film of ink on parts of the plate instead of wiping it completely clean to print each impression. He made more use of drypoint, exploiting, especially in landscapes, the rich fuzzy burr that this technique gives to the first few impressions.

His prints have similar subjects to his paintings, although the 27 self-portraits are relatively more common, and portraits of other people less so. The landscapes, mostly small, largely set the course for the graphic treatment of landscape until the end of the 19th century. Of the many hundreds of drawings Rembrandt made, only about two hundred have a landscape motif as their subject, and of the approximately three hundred etchings, about thirty show a landscape. As for his painted landscapes, one does not even get beyond eight works. One third of his etchings are of religious subjects, many treated with a homely simplicity, whilst others are his most monumental prints. A few erotic, or just obscene, compositions have no equivalent in his paintings. Rembrandt owned, until forced to sell it, a magnificent collection of works by other artists. He was influenced by artists including Caravaggio with his chiaroscuro lighting. Borrowings and influences in his work can be traced to artists as diverse as Andrea Mantegna (with his Entombment), Anthony van Dyck, Raphael, Titian, Peter Paul Rubens, Hercules Seghers, and Giovanni Benedetto Castiglione.

Asian inspiration

Rembrandt was interested in Mughal miniatures, especially around the 1650s. He drew versions of some 23 Mughal paintings and may have owned an album of them. These miniatures include paintings of Shah Jahan, Akbar, Jahangir and Dara Shikoh and may have influenced the costumes and other aspects of his works.

The Night Watch

Rembrandt painted The Militia Company of Captain Frans Banninck Cocq, known as The Night Watch, between 1640 and 1642, and it became his most famous work. The piece was commissioned for the new hall of the Kloveniersdoelen, the musketeer branch of the civic militia. Rembrandt departed from convention on both narrative painting and portraits, which ordered that such genre pieces should be stately and formal. Instead, he created a complex layering of figures in a dramatic depiction of an action, the firing of a musket, affecting some of the characters but not others. The painting is not set at night, its darkness being caused by ageing; and it is not of a watch or patrol, but a ceremony.

The painting has received many interpretations; if as Joseph Manca suggests it was meant to function at multiple levels, many of the interpretations may be correct. Thus, unlike in a conventional narrative painting, the people depicted are represented in lifelike individual portraits. The style seems to show a real event in a real place, but its complex structure appears contrived or theatrical, while the street setting is invented. It can be seen as a picture of a militia charged with keeping order, but it equally looks like a disorderly scene. It alludes to serious works like The School of Athens by Raphael, and has been seen as humorous or parodic. Manca suggests that the calmness of the two officers in the foreground, continuing to carry out their duty despite the disturbance behind them, indicates their "moral excellence"; certainly, their status is clearly indicated, even flattered.

Expert assessments

In 1968, the Rembrandt Research Project began under the sponsorship of the Netherlands Organisation for the Advancement of Scientific Research; it was initially expected to last a highly optimistic ten years. Art historians teamed up with experts from other fields to reassess the authenticity of works attributed to Rembrandt, using all methods available, including state-of-the-art technical diagnostics, and to compile a complete new catalogue raisonné of his paintings. As a result of their findings, many paintings that were previously attributed to Rembrandt have been removed from their list, although others have been added back.

One example of activity is The Polish Rider, now in the Frick Collection in New York. Rembrandt's authorship had been questioned by at least one scholar, Alfred von Wurzbach, at the beginning of the twentieth century but for many decades later most scholars, including the foremost authority writing in English, Julius S. Held, agreed that it was indeed by the master. In the 1980s, however, Dr Josua Bruyn of the Foundation Rembrandt Research Project cautiously and tentatively attributed the painting to one of Rembrandt's closest and most talented pupils, Willem Drost, about whom little is known. But Bruyn's remained a minority opinion, the suggestion of Drost's authorship is now generally rejected, and the Frick itself never changed its own attribution, the label still reading "Rembrandt" and not "attributed to" or "school of". More recent opinion has shifted even more decisively in favour of the Frick; In his 1999 book Rembrandt's Eyes, Simon Schama and the Rembrandt Project scholar Ernst van de Wetering (Melbourne Symposium, 1997) both argued for attribution to the master. Those few scholars who still question Rembrandt's authorship feel that the execution is uneven and favour different attributions for different parts of the work.

A similar issue was raised by Schama concerning the verification of titles associated with the subject matter depicted in Rembrandt's works. For example, the exact subject being portrayed in Aristotle with a Bust of Homer, recently retitled by curators at the Metropolitan Museum, has been directly challenged by Schama applying the scholarship of Paul Crenshaw. Schama presents a substantial argument that it was the famous ancient Greek painter Apelles who is depicted in contemplation by Rembrandt and not Aristotle.

Another painting, Pilate Washing His Hands, is also of questionable attribution. Critical opinion of this picture has varied since 1905, when Wilhelm von Bode described it as "a somewhat abnormal work" by Rembrandt. "Most scholars since the 1940s have dated the painting to the 1660s and assigned it to an anonymous pupil," possibly Aert de Gelder. The composition bears superficial resemblance to mature works by Rembrandt but lacks the master's command of illumination and modelling.

Painting materials

Technical investigation of Rembrandt's paintings in the possession of the Gemäldegalerie Alte Meister and in the Gemäldegalerie Alte Meister (Kassel) was conducted by Hermann Kühn in 1977. The pigment analyses of some thirty paintings have shown that Rembrandt's palette consisted of the following pigments: lead white, various ochres, van Dyke brown, bone black, charcoal black, lamp black, vermilion, madder lake, azurite, ultramarine, yellow lake and lead-tin-yellow. Synthetic orpiment was shown in the shadows of the sleeve of the jewish groom. This toxic arsenic yellow was rarely used in oil painting. One painting (Saskia van Uylenburgh as Flora) reportedly contains gamboge. Rembrandt very rarely used pure blue or green colours, the most pronounced exception being Belshazzar's Feast in the National Gallery in London.

The book by Bomford describes more recent technical investigations and pigment analyses of Rembrandt's paintings predominantly in the National Gallery in London. The entire array of pigments employed by Rembrandt can be found at ColourLex. The best source for technical information on Rembrandt's paintings on the web is the Rembrandt Database containing all works of Rembrandt with detailed investigative reports, infrared and radiography images and other scientific details.

Name and signature

"Rembrandt" is a modification of the spelling of the artist's first name that he introduced in 1633. The patronymic "Harmenszoon" indicates that his father's name is Harmen. "van Rijn" indicates that his family lived near the Rhine.

Rembrandt's earliest signatures (c. 1625) consisted of an initial "R", or the monogram "RH" (for Rembrant Harmenszoon), and starting in 1629, "RHL" (the "L" stood, presumably, for Leiden). In 1632, he used this monogram early in the year, then added his family name to it, "RHL-van Rijn" but replaced this form in that same year and began using his first name alone with its original spelling, "Rembrant". In 1633 he added a "d", and maintained this form consistently from then on, proving that this minor change had a meaning for him (whatever it might have been). This change is purely visual; it does not change the way his name is pronounced. Despite the large number of paintings and etchings signed with this modified first name, most of the documents that mentioned him during his lifetime retained the original "Rembrant" spelling. (Note: the rough chronology of signature forms above applies to the paintings, and to a lesser degree to the etchings; from 1632, presumably, there is only one etching signed "RHL-v. Rijn", the large-format "Raising of Lazarus", B 73).

His practice of signing his work with his first name, later followed by Vincent van Gogh, was probably inspired by Raphael, Leonardo da Vinci and Michelangelo who, then as now, were referred to by their first names alone.

Workshop

Rembrandt ran a large workshop and had many pupils. The list of Rembrandt pupils from his period in Leiden as well as his time in Amsterdam is quite long, mostly because his influence on painters around him was so great that it is difficult to tell whether someone worked for him in his studio or just copied his style for patrons eager to acquire a Rembrandt. A partial list should include Ferdinand Bol, Adriaen Brouwer, Gerrit Dou, Willem Drost, Heiman Dullaart, Gerbrand van den Eeckhout, Carel Fabritius, Govert Flinck, Hendrick Fromantiou, Aert de Gelder, Samuel Dirksz van Hoogstraten, Abraham Janssens, Godfrey Kneller, Philip de Koninck, Jacob Levecq, Nicolaes Maes, Jürgen Ovens, Christopher Paudiß, Willem de Poorter, Jan Victors, and Willem van der Vliet.

Museum collections

The United States has the largest number of Rembrandt's paintings, spread over several museums including the Metropolitan Museum of Art (mostly portraits) and the Frick Collection in New York City, the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C., Museum of Fine Arts in Boston, and J. Paul Getty Museum in Los Angeles, in total 86 paintings. Other large groups are in Germany, with 69 paintings, at the Gemäldegalerie in Berlin, Gemäldegalerie Alte Meister in Dresden, and Schloss Wilhelmshöhe in Kassel, and elsewhere. The UK has a total of 51, especially in the National Gallery and Royal Collection. There are 49 in the Netherlands, many in the Rijksmuseum, which has The Night Watch and The Jewish Bride, and the Mauritshuis in The Hague. Others can be found in The Louvre, the Hermitage Museum, and Nationalmuseum, Stockholm. The Royal Castle in Warsaw has two paintings by Rembrandt.

Large collections of Rembrandt's drawings are held in the Rijksmuseum, Louvre, and British Museum. The Rembrandt House Museum holds many of his drawings and "almost all" the etchings, a selection of which are on rotating display in the house.

Apart from a few very rare prints, mostly less important early studies, or "the informal printed scribbles from the artist's early years", most of his prints are not very rare by museum standards, and major print rooms have good collections. Both the Rijksmuseum and the British Museum, who claim to have the best collections, have over 1,000 impressions of the 300-odd prints; most of these can be viewed in great detail online. The degree to which these collections are displayed to the public or can easily be viewed by them in the print room, varies greatly. The Morgan Library & Museum in New York claims to have the best collection in the United States, with "impressions of most of the three hundred or so known etchings by Rembrandt, as well as multiple, often exceedingly rare impressions of various states"; it has "almost 500" images online.

Impressions often continued to be printed by others until at least the 19th-century, with many of the plates reworked as they became worn. In 1986, 79 of Rembrandt's original copper plates still existed.

Selected works

The Entombment of Christ (c. 1624) – Hunterian Museum and Art Gallery, Glasgow

The Stoning of Saint Stephen (1625) – Musée des Beaux-Arts, Lyon

Andromeda Chained to the Rocks (1630) – Mauritshuis, The Hague

Old Man with a Gold Chain (c. 1631) – Art Institute of Chicago

Jacob de Gheyn III (1632) – Dulwich Picture Gallery, London

Philosopher in Meditation (1632) – The Louvre, Paris

The Anatomy Lesson of Dr. Nicolaes Tulp (1632) – Mauritshuis, The Hague

Judith at the Banquet of Holofernes (1634) – Museo del Prado, Madrid

Descent from the Cross (1634) – Hermitage Museum, St. Petersburg.

Belshazzar's Feast (c. 1635-1638) – National Gallery, London

The Prodigal Son in the Tavern (c. 1635) – Gemäldegalerie Alte Meister, Dresden

Danaë (c. 1635, reworked before 1643) – Hermitage Museum, St. Petersburg

The Scholar at the Lectern (1641) – Royal Castle, Warsaw

The Girl in a Picture Frame (1641) – Royal Castle, Warsaw

The Night Watch, formally The Militia Company of Captain Frans Banning Cocq (1642) – Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam

Exhibitions

Sept–Oct 1898: Rembrandt Tentoonstelling (Rembrandt Exhibition), Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam, the Netherlands.

Jan–Feb 1899: Rembrandt Tentoonstelling (Rembrandt Exhibition), Royal Academy, London.

30 January – 1 May 2005: Rembrandt's Religious Etchings, National Gallery of Art

30 January – 1 May 2005: Rembrandt's Late Religious Portraits, National Gallery of Art, traveled to the J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles, 7 June - 28 August 2005 catalogue by Arthur K. Wheelock Jr.

21 April 2011 – 18 July 2011: Rembrandt and the Face of Jesus, Musée du Louvre.

22 February 2012 – 17 June 2012: Where Darkness Meets Light: Rembrandt and His Contemporaries – The Golden Age of Dutch Art, Sakıp Sabancı Museum, Istanbul.

23 February – 20 May 2012: Rembrandt and Degas: Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, Metropolitan Museum of Art.

16 September 2013 – 14 November 2013: Rembrandt: The Consummate Etcher, Syracuse University Art Galleries.

19 May 2014 – 27 June 2014: From Rembrandt to Rosenquist: Works on Paper from the NAC's Permanent Collection, National Arts Club.

19 October 2014 – 4 January 2015: Rembrandt, Rubens, Gainsborough and the Golden Age of Painting in Europe, Jule Collins Smith Museum of Art.

15 October 2014 – 18 January 2015: Rembrandt: The Late Works, The National Gallery, London.

12 February 2015 – 17 May 2015: Late Rembrandt, The Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam.

Paintings

Works about Rembrandt

Literary works (e.g. poetry and fiction)

To the Picture of Rembrandt, a Russian-language poem by Mikhail Lermontov, 1830

Gaspard de la nuit: Fantaisies à la manière de Rembrandt et de Callot, a series of French-language poems by Aloysius Bertrand, 1842

Picture This, a novel by Joseph Heller, 1988

Moi, la Putain de Rembrandt, a French-language novel by Sylvie Matton, 1998

Van Rijn, a novel by Sarah Emily Miano, 2006

I Am Rembrandt's Daughter, a novel by Lynn Cullen, 2007

The Rembrandt Affair, a novel by Daniel Silva, 2011

The Anatomy Lesson, a novel by Nina Siegal, 2014

Rembrandt's Mirror, a novel by Kim Devereux, 2015

Music

The Donna Summer song "Dinner with Gershwin" contain the lyrics "I want to watch Rembrandt sketch."

The Scott Walker song "Duchess" features the lyrics "It's your bicycle bells / and your Rembrandt swells"

The song on the Dreamville album Revenge of the Dreamers III "Rembrand... Run it Back"

Films

The Stolen Rembrandt, a 1914 film directed by Leo D. Maloney and J. P. McGowan

The Tragedy of a Great / Die Tragödie eines Großen, a 1920 film directed by Arthur Günsburg

The Missing Rembrandt, a 1932 film directed by Leslie S. Hiscott

Rembrandt, a 1936 film directed by Alexander Korda and starring Charles Laughton

Rembrandt, a 1940 film

Rembrandt in de schuilkelder / Rembrandt in the Bunker, a 1941 film directed by Gerard Rutten

Rembrandt, a 1942 film directed by Hans Steinhoff

Rembrandt: A Self-Portrait, a 1954 documentary film by Morrie Roizman

Rembrandt, schilder van de mens / Rembrandt, Painter of Man, a 1957 film directed by Bert Haanstra

Rembrandt fecit 1669, a 1977 film directed by Jos Stelling

Rembrandt: The Public Eye and the Private Gaze, a 1992 documentary film by Simon Schama

Rembrandt, a 1999 film directed by Charles Matton

Rembrandt: Fathers & Sons, a 1999 film directed by David Devine

Stealing Rembrandt, a 2003 film directed by Jannik Johansen and Anders Thomas Jensen

Simon Schama's Power of Art: Rembrandt, a 2006 BBC documentary film series by Simon Schama