Imitation Game: A Rembrandt and Its Workshop Copy

It reported that, after a thorough removal of the varnish, a newly discovered painting on wood panel was revealed to be “an unqualified original, with Rembrandt’s monogram ‘R.H.L.’ in unmistakable clearness.” Two years after this article was published, the painting on panel was acquired by Evalyne Cove (Mrs. W. W. Kimball), wife of the founder of the Kimball Piano Company, in Chicago. She bequeathed the captivating painting to the Art Institute upon her death in 1921, and ever since, Old Man with a Gold Chain has been foundational to the museum’s collection of 17th-century Dutch painting.

That same 1912 New York Times article also reported that a long-standing attribution of another painting, this one on canvas but of the very same subject, had likewise been revised.

This work had previously been considered an original by Rembrandt, but as the article reported, after carefully evaluating both paintings—the one now in the Art Institute’s collection and this painting on canvas—the connoisseur Dr. Wilhelm Bode believed the work on canvas to be “a clever reproduction by one of the artist’s talented pupils.” Recent technical research suggests that Bode’s assessment was spot-on: the painting on canvas, now in a private collection, appears to have been made in the workshop of the young Rembrandt around 1632. 

The Art Institute recently brought these two paintings together for the first time in four centuries, thanks to the generosity of the copy’s owner and to art historian Gary Schwartz. This reunion has given our curators and conservators the chance to study them side by side and discuss the question of attribution: How can we be sure about which is the original and which is the copy, and how do we know the latter was produced in Rembrandt’s workshop?

The Paintings Compared in the Conservation Studio

When the canvas painting arrived at the Art Institute and was set next to the museum’s Rembrandt, it was undeniable that the two works are closely related.

Despite the paintings’ slightly different dimensions and cropping, the figures themselves are quite similar in size. They are close enough, in fact, that some of the initial contours for the figure’s face were likely transferred from the panel to the canvas using a tracing of the original. 

And very fine details are reproduced in the canvas version—something that could only have been achieved with the original close at hand in the studio. For instance, the old man’s right eyelid has three light-colored upper eyelashes in each work.

But even though so many of the details appear the same, close examination of the two works under the microscope reveals that these details weren’t always made in precisely the same way. The eyelashes in the canvas painting were made using tiny brushstrokes of light-colored paint, whereas the eyelashes on the Art Institute’s panel painting were made by scratching through dark paint while it was still wet to reveal light paint below. 

Similarly, the artist of the canvas painting made the pearl earring shine and shimmer using many small, precise brushstrokes, while Rembrandt accomplished the same effect in the Art Institute’s painting with just three or four confident strokes of the brush, a remarkably economical feat by the master.

Using X-ray and infrared imaging, we were also able to see that in the original work, Rembrandt made several adjustments to the old man’s costume—changing and re-changing contours—as he figured out what exactly the man’s silhouette would be. 

This type of revision suggests an artist thinking through possibilities as he worked. The canvas version has none of these, indicating that its author was not thinking through the composition but instead copying what had already been determined. 

Additionally, our colleague Giovanni Verri, one of the museum’s conservation scientists, scanned our Rembrandt using a highly sophisticated type of X-ray fluorescence spectrometer. This instrument makes maps of elements commonly found in pigments—such as lead, iron, mercury, calcium, and copper—across the painting’s surface, helping us understand which of these pigments Rembrandt used and how he used them.

In an initial comparison of our scan with a scan of the canvas copy made at the Hamilton Kerr Institute in England, we can see, for instance, that copper-containing blue pigment azurite was used in both paintings, but while Rembrandt used it mostly in the costume, the other artist additionally used it in the figure’s hair, face, and eyes. The remarkably similar palette employed across the two paintings was first noted by Christine Kimbriel and Louis Newman in their 2024 article in the Hamilton Kerr Institute Bulletin. Our analysis confirms this while also recognizing that the pigments were applied in two distinct manners, further evidence that the painting on canvas was made in close proximity to the painting on panel but by a different hand.

Copies in Rembrandt’s Workshop

Rembrandt set up his workshop in Leiden around 1625, after completing his second apprenticeship in Amsterdam. He started with at least two students and a number of collaborators, whom he trained for a period of two to five years in the fine skills of painting, such as composition building, creating figural variety, and capturing reflections. His students had learned the foundations of painting from other masters and achieved a certain level of artistic skill before coming to him, so by the time they entered Rembrandt’s tutelage, they were ready to take on the challenge of making copies in his style. Rembrandt began to work in the Amsterdam studio of dealer Hendrick van Uylenburgh around 1631, and while no documents about his pupils are known, it is likely that he had some assistance in this period. In 1636, he would establish his own Amsterdam workshop with the same system of apprenticeship he employed in Leiden.

The copies made in Rembrandt’s workshops took a variety of forms across the artist’s career, as technical art historian Michiel Franken has shown. In some instances, such as with our Old Man with a Gold Chain, the replicas were quite exacting. In others, such as the Self-Portrait with a Poodle, a pupil copied an earlier iteration of the composition, namely, the standing portrait of the artist before Rembrandt had added the shaggy poodle at his feet.

Later in Rembrandt’s career, he had his pupils produce variants of his works, such as his Christ at Emmaus, resulting in singular paintings at a remove from Rembrandt’s inventive compositions.

The conversation about the purpose and authorship of these copies continues to evolve, with some scholars arguing that they could be by the hand of Rembrandt himself. As thinking adapts to growing evidence, further first-hand comparisons of copies with their Rembrandt sources are crucial.

Rembrandt’s Old Man with a Gold Chain, which is an expressive character study (tronie in Dutch) rather than a commissioned portrait, was likely considered worthy of imitation due to its sophisticated and varied visual vocabulary. The bold light, the dynamic pose of the body with one arm akimbo, and the subtle reflections upon the metal gorget and gold chain mark the pinnacle of Rembrandt’s achievements by 1631. It would have posed a striking challenge to a young painter, particularly one who was seeking growth in the skills of portraiture, while also producing a highly desirable product for the market.

Not only does Bode seems to have been correct in placing the copy on canvas within Rembrandt’s workshop, but his description of it as “a clever reproduction”—or “good copy” in today’s parlance—is, in fact, a testament to its high quality and precise mimicking of Rembrandt’s signature effects.

Beginning December 17 and running through late spring, we will present Rembrandt’s Old Man with a Gold Chain alongside its workshop copy in Gallery 213, offering a rare moment to consider the nature of creativity in Rembrandt’s time and to appreciate not only the revered Dutch master’s talents as both painter and teacher but also those of his highly skilled student.

—Jacquelyn N. Coutré, Eleanor Wood Prince Curator, Painting and Sculpture of Europe, and Gerrit Albertson, associate paintings conservator, Conservation and Science

Topics

• Conservation
• Collection
• From the Curator
• European Painting and Sculpture