REMBRANDT Harmenszoon van Rijn
(b. 1606, Leiden, d. 1669, Amsterdam)

An Old Woman: The Artist's Mother

c. 1629
Oil on panel, 61 x 47 cm
Royal Collection, Windsor

Catalogue number: Bredius 70.

This portrait, together with two other Dutch pictures, was apparently given to Charles I by Sir Robert Kerr (1578-1654), presumably before 1633 when he was created Earl of Ancrum. It is possible that Kerr obtained the paintings while in Amsterdam on a diplomatic mission to express the king's condolences to the King and Queen of Bohemia on the death of their eldest son, Frederick Henry, who drowned in January 1629.

Technical examination of the present work has revealed that Rembrandt reused a panel on which he had previously made a study of an old man, posed the other way up. This may have been intended as an evangelist with an attribute placed in the lower right (currently upper left) corner. The positioning of the head in the finished portrait is asymmetrical, which suggests that the panel has been cut down unevenly.

The same sitter appears in a number of early paintings by Rembrandt as well as in several etchings and a drawing, none of which is dated. In most of these the figure wears a hood. There is, however, no firm corroborative evidence for an identification with the artist's mother, Neeltge Willemsdr. van Suytbrouck (1568-1640). She was the daughter of a baker and married Harmen Gerritsz. van Rijn, a miller, in 1589. Of the eight children from the marriage Rembrandt was the seventh.

Possibly the figure in this and the related works is too elderly to be a true depiction of the artist's mother, then aged sixty. Consequently, it has been argued that it is not so much a traditional portrait as a specific subject, such as a prophetess in the biblical sense. Significantly, the same figure is depicted by Gerrit Dou, who joined Rembrandt's studio as a pupil in 1628. On stylistic grounds, notably the small neat brushstrokes depicting the wrinkled skin and the even tonality, the date implied by its acquisition in Amsterdam by Sir Robert Kerr in 1629 is acceptable. Some writers, however, ignore that sequence of events, suggesting a date of around 1630/1, in which case the provenance has to be rethought. Yet others prefer an attribution to Rembrandt's studio companion, Lievens.