Two Africans

Catalogue number: Bredius 310.

Rembrandt's long-standing interest in the peoples and costumes of the Near East was extended in the 1650s to embrace the still more exotic regions of Asia and North Africa. His inventory of 1656 contained a reference to a set of Indian Mogul miniatures, now thought to be those which were later taken to Austria and incorporated in the decoration of the Schönbrunn Palace outside Vienna. Rembrandt made about thirty pen-and-wash copies of these miniatures and, while his exact purpose in doing this is unknown, the fact that they are so numerous suggests that he wanted the copies for reference rather than that he was simply practicing. Although the direct influence of these miniatures on his work was very slight, they represented to some extent a parallel approach to his own style in the 1660s.

Something of this can be seen in the angular shapes, flattened forms and seemingly casual composition of the Two Africans. Hitherto, Africans had appeared in European art almost exclusively in the scene of the Adoration of the Kings, one of the kings traditionally being black, but a few other portraits of Africans, including two oil sketches by Van Dyck, are known from the seventeenth century. Rembrandt's painting, however, is the most penetrating and realistic. He succeeded in rendering the African physiognomy with perfect sympathy and fidelity.