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- Jacob Adriaensz. Backer (1608 - 1651)
- Portrait of an Elderly Woman
- The Netherlands
- 1632
- P89
- East Galleries I
- Bookmarkable URLTypical of Backer’s restrained style, the present portrait may depict Anna Roefs (1562/3-1639) who lived in Amsterdam from at least 1626 until her death in 1639. A version of the same picture remains in the collection of her descendants today. The sitter is shown dressed in a black silk costume of the type affected by the respectable middle classes of the day. She is seated in an armchair similar to that in which Backer depicts the Dutch merchant Johannes Uyttenbogaert in a portrait dated 1638, which has led historians to propose a similar date for the present picture. The painting was probably acquired by the 3rd Marquess of Hertford. It was listed in the 1870 Hertford House inventory under an attribution to Rembrandt, and was exhibited as such at the Bethnal Green Museum in 1872-5. At the Royal Academy in 1889 it was described as a portrait of Rembrandt’s mother.
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- Ferdinand Bol (1616 - 1680)
- The Toper
- The Netherlands
- c. 1650 - c. 1651
- P74
- Large Drawing Room
- Bookmarkable URLThe Toper (drinker or drunkard) is shown in the costume of an early sixteenth-century knight wearing a gold medallion of Saint George. In the nineteenth century the picture was thought to be by another follower of Rembrandt, Jan Victors, and to depict the imprisoned Arnold, Duke of Guelders (1423-73. The intensity of the facial characterisation has led more recent viewers to speculate that The Toper may be a self-portrait, although the picture does not resemble Bol’s known Self-Portrait (1653; private collection). The Toper is in fact a typical character-piece in the Rembrandt manner and may be compared with other half-length figures leaning from windows by Rembrandt and Bol. Bol used this type of pose for an elaborate series between 1644 and 1653, and the present picture is generally thought to date from this period, c.1650-1.
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- Adriaen Brouwer (1605 - 1638)
- A Boor Asleep
- Belgium
- c. 1630 - c. 1638
- P211
- East Drawing Room
- Bookmarkable URLThe delicate palette and bravura handling of this jewel-like example of Brouwer’s art, painted on a beige ground, are typical of the artist’s maturity and help explain his appeal to contemporaries such as Rubens and Rembrandt. The composition was popular and frequently copied, Brouwer himself producing a number of closely related compositions. When the historian Dr Waagen saw A Boor Asleep in Manchester House in 1854 he described it as ‘by far the finest example of this rare master I know’.
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- Willem Drost (1633 - 1659)
- Young Woman in a Brocade Gown
- The Netherlands
- c.1654
- P61
- East Galleries I
- Bookmarkable URLDating from the same period as Drost’s masterpiece, Bathsheba (1654; Paris, Louvre), the Young Woman in a Brocade Gown displays the same creamy flesh tones and sensuous treatment of drapery. Despite bearing a false Rembrandt signature (removed in 1976) the picture was acquired as a work by Drost by Sir Richard Wallace.
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- Govaert Flinck (1615 - 1660)
- A Young Archer
- The Netherlands
- c. 1639 - c. 1640
- P238
- East Galleries I
- Bookmarkable URLDescribed as ‘The celebrated Negro Archer’ by The Times in 1889, the picture was considered a fine example of Rembrandt’s work in the nineteenth century, and acquired as such by the 4th Marquess of Hertford at the sale of the Duke of Buckingham. The signature was apparently tampered with at an early date and once read: R…. The picture was re-attributed to Rembrandt’s pupil Flinck in 1928, an attribution confirmed by the remains of the artist’s signature, and by the existence of a drawing of the same model attributed to Flinck in a private collection, Paris. The picture was probably painted during Flinck’s early years as an independent master, c.1639-40. It has recently been suggested, however, that the work may represent a specific, but as yet unidentified, literary character.
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- Attributed to Govaert Flinck (1615 - 1660)
- Landscape with a Coach
- The Netherlands
- probably 1637
- P229
- East Galleries I
- Bookmarkable URLA richly dressed seigneur, seen bottom right, surveys a panoramic landscape with a castle (or fortified gate-house), peasants toiling in the fields, travellers on the road and a distant view of a port. Unquestioned as a work by Rembrandt by its previous distinguished owners, including the dealer Jean de Julienne, the duc de Choiseul, the prince de Conti and the comte de Vaudreuil, certain elements of the picture now appear clumsy compared to Rembrandt’s known landscapes of the late 1630s and early 1640s. The signature, too, seems to have been added by another hand. The attribution of the present picture remains problematic. This work was said at the time to be by another artist connected with the Rembrandt studio, Jan Lievens. The technique of the present work, however, remains closer to what is known of Flinck’s landscape style than to that of Lievens.
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- Jean-Honoré Fragonard (1732 - 1806)
- A Young Scholar
- France
- c. 1765 - 1775
- P455
- Study
- Bookmarkable URLReminiscent of Rembrandt in its palette and handling, and of Ter Borch and Metsu in its subject, A Young Scholar belongs to a group of half-length female figures with books painted by Fragonard in the 1760s and 1770s. The figure is comparable to similar works depicting more or less studious children by Greuze, Lépicié (qq.v.) and Chardin. Fragonard, however, invests his subject with none of the moral overtones common in the depiction of children at the period, but rather concentrates on capturing an illusion of childlike spontaneity using vigorous brushstrokes. In its freedom of execution, the picture may be compared to his earlier figures of fantasy, such as the Portrait of a Singer (c.1769; Paris, Louvre). Dateable to the mid 1770s, A Young Scholar appeared in sales in 1789 and 1872 with a similar pendant now in a private coillection.
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- Attributed to Aert de Gelder (1645 - 1727)
- Portrait of a Young Woman
- The Netherlands
- c.1680-1700
- P78
- East Galleries I
- Bookmarkable URLPreviously compared to the work of Bol, Flinck (qq.v.) and Pieter Verelst (1618-c.1678), this picture recalls some of the tronies, or figures in Oriental costume, popularized by Rembrandt (q.v.) and his followers. The soft modelling of the facial features, distinctively rimmed eyes and rough impasto of the costume are highly reminiscent of De Gelder’s female subjects of the 1680s and 1690s.
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- Jean-Baptiste Greuze (1725 - 1805)
- The Listening Girl
- France
- 1780s
- P402
- Boudoir
- Bookmarkable URLDateable to the 1780s, the pose recalls Rembrandt’s Woman at her Mirror (Saint Petersburg, Hermitage), and has also been compared to Reynolds’s Self-Portrait as a Deaf Man (c.1775; London, Tate Gallery).
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- Rembrandt (1606 - 1669)
- Self-Portrait in a Black Cap
- The Netherlands
- 1637
- P52
- East Galleries I
- Bookmarkable URLAcquired by the 4th Marquess of Hertford as a self-portrait by Rembrandt, this picture was until recently attributed to an unknown pupil of Rembrandt working in his studio. There now, however, seems to be general agreement that it is by Rembrandt himself, and of a piece with his practice in the second half of the 1630s when his style was more vigorous than it had been earlier in the decade. It was probably cut down to its unusual semi-circular shape at the top from a rectangular panel. This was done before 1837, the year of the earliest detailed description of the painting.
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- Rembrandt (1606 - 1669)
- Titus, the Artist's Son
- The Netherlands
- c. 1657
- P29
- Great Gallery
- Bookmarkable URLIn 1656 Rembrandt was declared bankrupt and at about the time this portrait was painted his sixteen-year old son, Titus van Rijn (1641-68), and Titus’s stepmother, Hendrickje Stoffels, were forced to administer the production of his etchings and the sale, in 1658, of his pictures. Rembrandt sympathetically captures the young man’s serious gaze while his bravura handling of the paint lends the image an appearance of spontaneity and immediacy. The restricted palette, dominated by brown and dark red, and the sharp contrasts of light and shade accentuate this feeling of intimacy, further adding to the illusion of psychological connection between viewer and sitter. Of the twelve Rembrandts listed in the Wallace Collection when it was bequeathed to the nation in 1897, this is the only work to retain its full attribution to Rembrandt unchallenged.
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- Rembrandt (1606 - 1669)
- Jean Pellicorne with his son Caspar
- The Netherlands
- c. 1632
- P82
- Great Gallery
- Bookmarkable URLPendant to P90. Jean Pellicorne, a wealthy Amsterdam merchant, married Susanna van Collen in 1626, and their children, Anna and Caspar, were born in December 1626 and June 1628 respectively. The portrait shows Caspar bringing his father a bag of money, symbolising his duty as heir to act as future protector and provider for his family. This image of social responsibility and piety is further emphasised by the picture (barely discernible) on the wall behind the sitters, which shows the young Samuel being dedicated to the Lord (Samuel I, I, 27-8).
