Concise, critical reviews of books, exhibitions, and projects in all areas and periods of art history and visual studies
July 26, 2007
Stephanie S. Dickey Reflections on the Rembrandt Year College Art Association.
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Rembrandt, The Rape of Ganymede (1635). Oil on canvas. 177 x 129 cm. Staatliche Kustsammlungen, Gemäldegalerie, Alte Meister. Dresden.

By most accounts, Rembrandt Harmensz van Rijn was born in Leiden on July 15, 1606, as stated by the Leiden chronicler Jan Jansz Orlers in 1641. Recently, a few close reviews of the documentation have suggested that the date should be moved to 1607, but this revelation failed to stop the juggernaut already set in motion by museums eager to celebrate the four-hundredth anniversary of the artist’s birth. The “Rembrandt Year” of 2006 witnessed the staging of dozens of exhibitions across the world, both major loan shows and focused opportunities for museums to showcase their holdings of works by Rembrandt and his circle. (For an extensive list, see: http://www.codart.nl/214/special_features/rembrandt_2006/.) Several mini-exhibitions shed new light on individual works, such as the charmingly incontinent Ganymede (1635) in Dresden and the mysterious, late Family Portrait (ca. 1667) in Braunschweig. A variety of museums bravely brought out their near-Rembrandts and paintings by his school, either to trace the history of the collection (Kassel) or to address the persistent challenge of distinguishing works by the master from the many adaptations and copies by his followers (Copenhagen, Moscow). The one major overview of Rembrandt’s career (Rembrandt: Quest of a Genius, Berlin/Amsterdam) juxtaposed well-loved masterpieces with new discoveries and several stretches of the connoisseurial imagination. (More typically comprehensive, in its way, was the display of reproductions of “All the Paintings of Rembrandt” in the Beurs van Berlage, Amsterdam, a commercial endeavor but also a unique opportunity to experience, if only by proxy, the full scope of Rembrandt’s painterly output.)

Thematic shows investigated Rembrandt’s early depictions of two elderly models often thought to be his mother and father (Leiden), his landscapes in all media (Kassel/Leiden), his connections with his Jewish contemporaries (Joods Museum, Amsterdam, and another in Paris in 2007), his impact on later artists and movements (English printmakers, Bedberg-Hau/Amsterdam; Morandi, Bologna; Van Gogh, Van Gogh Museum, Amsterdam), his contribution to the art business of Hendrick Uylenburgh (Dulwich/Amsterdam), and his artistic affinity with his Italian predecessor Caravaggio (Van Gogh Museum, Amsterdam). Rarely shown collections of drawings were displayed (Amsterdam, Berlin, Braunschweig, New York, Paris, Rotterdam, and elsewhere), several accompanied by new catalogues tackling attribution issues even thornier than those posed by paintings; and the important collections of prints amassed by Frits Lugt (Paris/Leiden), Eberhard Kornfeld (Basel), and Dmitri Rovinski (Saint Petersburg) were seen in full. Indeed, most common worldwide were surveys of Rembrandt’s etchings, sometimes together with drawings or the works of other printmakers. This is not surprising, since prints are conveniently available in multiples so that, in an uncanny demonstration of the power of what William Ivins called “the exactly repeatable visual statement,” Rembrandt’s genius, at least as a graphic artist, could be seen in venues from Moscow to Miami to Melbourne.

Even outside the traditional Eurocentric orbit, Rembrandt’s anniversary caused a stir. The collection of drawings from Rotterdam was exhibited in Istanbul. Educational events included a display of reproductions of Rembrandt’s work at the National Library of the Islamic Republic of Iran in Tehran and lectures by Gary Schwartz (surely the most globetrotting of Rembrandt experts this year, with a new book published in six languages and over fifty talks to his credit) in Seoul, Hanoi, Malta, and even the wilds of Ketchum, Idaho. Meanwhile, some (but surprisingly few) of the exhibitions prompted symposia. The results of a lively convocation in Berlin will be anthologized in due course; but for other scholarly insights, we will have to wait for journal articles and other publications to follow the variety of books appearing in 2006 (see bibliography below).

The centennial of an artist’s birth or death has become an occasion for celebration in the form of exhibitions, publications, and lectures from which, it is hoped, new insights into the artist’s achievements and significance will be produced. The problem with this tradition is that artists who merit such recognition are usually quite famous already, and their work has been studied intensely even without the excuse of an anniversary. This is certainly the case with Rembrandt, whose status as a beacon of scholarly interest has scarcely waned since the three-hundredth anniversary of his death, in 1969. Since 1991 alone, when an important exhibition in Berlin, Amsterdam, and London surveyed his activities as painter, draughtsman, printmaker, and teacher, a steady stream of exhibitions, with well-researched scholarly catalogues, have investigated his juvenilia (twice), self-portraiture, prints, drawings, landscapes, depictions of women and of saints (two scarcely overlapping categories in his oeuvre), as well as (several times) his impact on the work of artists of his circle. A few of them (his teacher Pieter Lastman and his students Aert de Gelder, Gerrit Dou, and Carel Fabritius) have earned monographic shows of their own. Scholarly books and articles have kept pace, charting, for instance, Rembrandt’s critical fortunes in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, specific elements of his subject matter, the books he read, and the patrons he served.

With all this water under the bridge, curators hoping to make a splash in the Rembrandt Year were faced with significant challenges. Most, however, could console themselves with the knowledge that the general public is blissfully unaware of the buzz of scholarly activity, and that any exhibition bearing the name of an artist as well-known as Rembrandt is sure to attract popular interest. If few of the exhibitions organized for Rembrandt’s four-hundredth birthday broke new ground, it seems likely that most of them were commercially successful. (Purveyors of souvenirs and related merchandise, especially in the Netherlands, also profited, although, surprisingly, the makers of Rembrandt™ toothpaste failed to cash in on the opportunity.)

The largest crowds were attracted by the conjunction of two great names, Rembrandt and Caravaggio, for the exhibition hosted by the Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam. For the Dutch public, this was a rare opportunity to see the work of the notorious Italian master. (Little did they know that some of the paintings here attributed to Caravaggio have caused their own furor of debate among connoisseurs of the Italian Baroque.) Unlike recent joint exhibitions of Picasso and Braque, or Van Gogh and Gauguin, this show did not pair artists who were friends and rivals, but instead juxtaposed Rembrandt, who never left Holland, with an artist who never left Italy and died when Rembrandt was four years old. Nevertheless, the trickle-down effect of Caravaggio’s audacious tenebrism, transmitted through Lastman and other Dutch artists who had spent time in Rome, is as important a factor as any in Rembrandt’s dramatic approach to color and light. Catalogue essays addressed the intercessory role of the Utrecht Caravaggisti (Taco Dibbits); evidence for Rembrandt’s direct knowledge of Caravaggio, praised by Karel van Mander, and versions of his work appearing on the art market (Volker Manuth); and parallels in contemporary appreciation of the two masters (Van Eikema Hommes and Van de Wetering). So far so good. But if the goal is to establish affinities between the two artists, then the pairings that constituted the exhibition itself seem tenuous at best. Boy with a Basket of Fruit (ca. 1594, Rome) was shown with Saskia as Flora (1635, London) to indicate the repeated appearance of familiar models in both artists’ works (here fitted with vaguely similar vegetal attributes), but this conceptual point was overshadowed by the visual dissimilarity in the examples presented. Caravaggio’s famous Omnia Vincit Amor (1602, Berlin) was shown with the Dresden Ganymede to demonstrate a mutual interest in “shocking” the public with anticlassical approaches to mythology. Here again, leaving aside the vexed question of artistic intention, the juxtaposition of Caravaggio’s suave Cupid with Rembrandt’s bawling infant may suggest a shared commitment to naturalism, but one achieved by strikingly divergent means. This, in fact, may be the essential lesson of the show. Ultimately, popular appeal (and box office potential) must have constituted its prevailing rationale. As a tourist attraction, Rembrandt/Caravaggio was the one blockbuster event of the birthday year.

Another crowd-pleaser was Rembrandt’s Mother in Leiden, bringing the citizens of his hometown closer to their young genius in the making. That popular sentiment was a motivating factor in the show’s conception was confirmed to me by the Lakenhal’s director Henriette Bolten-Rempt in an informal conversation last summer. Noting the record-breaking attendance, she sensibly observed that “after all, everybody has a mother.” Meanwhile, for specialists, an intriguing feature of the show was the inclusion of paintings of the same models by his followers, some of which, such as Jan Lievens’s Head of an Old Woman in Profile (ca. 1630, Kingston, ON), nearly eclipsed his own. Issues of identity and authenticity are thoughtfully addressed in the catalogue.

It should be noted that throughout the year exhibitions devoted to other Dutch masters (Ruisdael, Van Mieris, Van der Heyden, Verspronck) offered reminders of the rich context in which Rembrandt plied his trade. But with Rembrandt’s work becoming almost too familiar, it is surprising that few of his pupils and associates have become the focus of major scholarly attention. In 2006, Rembrandt’s teacher Pieter Lastman received his second monographic treatment (the first was in 1991) at the Hamburg Kunsthalle, but other related artists such as Dou, Lievens, Bol, Flinck, Maes, and De Gelder were bit players in surveys of Rembrandt’s career. Lievens, at least, will soon be the focus of an exhibition organized by the National Gallery of Art in Washington. More projects such as this would help to shed light on attribution issues by developing a better understanding of these artists in their own right.

As noted by Christopher Brown (Burlington Magazine 149 [February 2007]: 104), an essential prelude to the Rembrandt Year was the appearance in 2005 of the long-awaited fourth volume of the Corpus of Rembrandt Paintings begun by the Rembrandt Research Project several decades ago (the first volume was published in 1982). Ernst van de Wetering is now indisputably in charge of the team and has refocused the corpus from a chronological to a thematic survey, with the fourth volume being devoted to self-portraits (for a summary of its contents, see www.rembrandtresearchproject.org). This afforded the opportunity for changes of heart about several paintings published in earlier volumes, and the results exemplify a recent softening of the rigorous approach to attribution that characterized the earlier phase of the project. This more inclusive attitude is also evident in the Berlin/Amsterdam exhibition, Rembrandt: Quest of a Genius, organized by Van de Wetering, Bernhard Schnackenburg, and others. Some of the paintings exhibited, such as Girl in a Picture Frame (1641, Warsaw), stand an intriguing chance of expanding Rembrandt’s oeuvre, while others are clearly out of place. (The Student with a Pipe 1632 from Lille is still by Pieter Codde.) Gary Schwartz opens his new monograph with a graph showing the dramatic fluctuation in the number of “authentic” Rembrandts in oeuvre catalogues published between 1836 and 1992 (The Rembrandt Book, 14–15). The curve, which reached its greatest height with Valentiner in 1923 (714) and its low with Christian Tümpel in 1986 (265; the book was republished this year in a revised edition), seems again to be on an upward swing, providing continuing fuel for discussion in anticipation of the final Corpus volumes. At least one more volume is scheduled for publication in 2009. Its focus will be small-scale history, genre, and landscape paintings dating from 1642 to 1669. Whether the Corpus project will yet produce a complete catalogue raisonné of Rembrandt’s work remains an open question.

Several of the books accompanying exhibitions were designed to function as independent texts, even omitting the standard entries on individual works shown. Least closely focused on Rembrandt, but by far the most original contribution of the year is Uylenburgh and Son, written to accompany the exhibition at the Rembrandthuis, Amsterdam, and the Dulwich Picture Gallery, London. Based on extensive new archival research in Holland, Poland, and elsewhere, Jaap van der Veen and Friso Lammertse trace the fortunes of Hendrick Uylenburgh, his family, and the art dealership he founded in Amsterdam in 1625. Rembrandt belonged to the first of several generations of artists who worked in the Uylenburgh “stable” under Hendrick and his son Gerrit, who ran the business from around 1660 until he moved to England in the late 1670s. Here, one might say that the show accompanied the book rather than the reverse, and the assemblage of works brought together to illustrate the Uylenburghs’ evolving stock might never have seen the light of an exhibition gallery without Rembrandt’s contribution. (For me, his portrait of Agatha Bas [British Royal Collection], whose husband Nicolaes van Bambeeck invested with Uylenburgh, blew everything else out of sight.) Yet the end result clearly showed both the dramatic shift in taste from one generation of collectors to the next and the significant impact of the Uylenburgh firm as tastemakers on the Amsterdam art market, with ties to Antwerp, Danzig, London, and elsewhere. The story of the controversy that followed Gerrit’s attempt to sell a group of inferior Italian paintings to the Elector of Brandenburg in 1671, thoroughly researched and vividly recounted in all its juicy detail, reads like a who’s who of Dutch artists and connoisseurs of the later seventeenth century.

For Rembrandt: Quest of a Genius, only the German edition contains the actual catalogue of works shown, as well as two more essays than the English version. Most important, however, are the essays by Ernst van de Wetering appearing in both editions. Here, Van de Wetering presents his new theory that Rembrandt was a “searching artist,” whose mid-life crisis in the 1640s was occasioned less by the complications of his personal life than by the realization that with The Night Watch (1642) his quest for dramatic light and expressive movement had hit a dead end. By the 1650s, he had settled into a new style, with broader strokes of paint, richer light and color, and more subdued poses and emotions. Interestingly, the term “searching” also appears in Eric Jan Sluijter’s important study of Rembrandt and the female nude. There are striking parallels between the approaches of these two seasoned scholars. Both find revealing details in works that have largely been overlooked (common focal points include The Abduction of Proserpina 1631 and Susanna and the Elders 1647, both in Berlin). Each emphasizes Rembrandt’s thoughtful response to pictorial tradition and his absolute commitment to lifelikeness, reviled by later critics, as well as his evolving approach to the representation of emotion. But while Van de Wetering continues to read Rembrandt as, in many ways, unique, Sluijter embeds his work in the visual culture of his time. He does this both by providing numerous comparative illustrations of nudes by other artists, and by exploring literary, religious, and societal attitudes to nudity and its representation. It is clear by now that Rembrandt not only surpassed his Dutch contemporaries in inventiveness and fame, but did so deliberately, audaciously, and so successfully that the study of his work tends to become an end in itself. But, at this stage of scholarship, the best approach to Rembrandt studies may be to learn more about the artists around him, so that solid contextual evidence can clarify the nature of his achievements.

Other independent books in 2006 focused on salient aspects of Rembrandt’s career, including his years in Leiden (Van Straten), his imaginative use of costume (De Winkel), his bankruptcy (Crenshaw), and his group portraits (Schwartz, Kettering, and, in a sure-to-be-controversial literary reading, Harry Berger). (Many of these books are being reviewed individually in caa.reviews, the Art Bulletin, and elsewhere.) The award for most prolific author must go to Michiel Roscam Abbing, who co-edited (with Roel van Straten) an important new volume of Rembrandt documents, accompanied by a volume of essays by various authors, while also producing several books with more popular appeal. Roscam Abbing’s The Treasures of Rembrandt is a sumptuous and remarkably affordable introduction to the delights of archival research, with photographic reproductions of letters and other documents from Rembrandt’s life, some of which can be slipped out of the book and held in the hand. Rembrandt’s Elephant: The Story of Hansken is not, contrary to appearances, a children’s book, but a well-researched and documented case study of Rembrandt’s encounter with the distinctive creature he portrayed in several chalk drawings of the mid-1630s. And then there is Rembrandt voor Dummies, entertaining but also surprisingly sensible and packed with reliable fact and interpretation (alas, in Dutch only; co-authored with Arthur Graaf). Specialists who can read Dutch have further cause to celebrate in the fact that Bas Dudok van Heel, now retired from a brilliant career at the Gemeentearchief in Amsterdam, at last defended and published his dissertation, an anthology of archival discoveries that offer important insights into Rembrandt’s network of patrons and associates.

And despite what you may be thinking, there is still more to be discovered about Rembrandt. While producing much food for thought, what the Rembrandt Year did not do was to bring about a radical revision in our understanding of the artist, or to resolve the complex issues, especially surrounding the attribution of satellite works, that continue to fuel the fire of interest in his endlessly stimulating oeuvre. The primary reason for this may be that the phenomenon identified by the Dutch Board of Tourism as “Rembrandt 400” was driven not by academic scholarship but by museum exhibitions; and museums, despite (or perhaps because of) their best intentions, are duty bound to please the public. A workshop discussion attended by over twenty curators at the ninth international congress of museum professionals sponsored by the Dutch organization CODART (www.codart.nl) recognized the difficulties of reconciling conflicting goals: presenting beloved masterpieces to a public eager for the famous and the familiar, preserving said masterpieces (and their enormous monetary value) from the wear and tear occasioned by travel and installation, and advancing knowledge and education by engaging with the more difficult and unfamiliar, despite consequences to the bottom line. In Leiden, the curators of Rembrandt’s Mother did not, in the end, definitively discover whether the wizened old lady who appears in so many of Rembrandt’s early works is really his mother, Neeltje van Zuytbroeck. But the exhibition did bring in over 48,000 visitors. The sequence of Rembrandt shows on view at the Lakenhal in 2006 attracted a total of over 128,000 people, more than four times the average annual attendance. While some specialists may be feeling satiated with Rembrandt, clearly the public still loves him, and the many publications of 2006 pose questions that will continue to fuel debate and stimulate discovery. We had better get busy: the three-hundred-fiftieth anniversary of Rembrandt’s death is only twelve years away.

I would like to thank Perry Chapman, Franziska Gottwald, Walter Liedtke, Sebastian Schütze, Gary Schwartz, Larry Silver, and Ernst van de Wetering for discussions that contributed to this essay.

Some Publications of the Rembrandt Year

bq.exhibitions with catalogues

Alexander, Mirjam, Jasper Hillegers, and Edward van Voolen, eds. De “joodse” Rembrandt (The Jewish Rembrandt). Zwolle: Waanders Publishers and Joods Museum, Amsterdam, 2006 (published in Dutch) (9040083010). Exhibition schedule: Joods Museum, Amsterdam, November 17, 2006–February 4, 2007.

Althaus, Karin. Rembrandt. Die Radierungen aus der Sammlung Eberhard W. Kornfeld (Rembrandt: The Etchings from the Collection of Eberhard W. Kornfeld). Basel: Kunstmuseum (Kupferstichkabinett), 2006 (published in German) (3720401626). Exhibition schedule: Kunstmuseum, Basel, November 26, 2005–February 26, 2006.

Van Berge-Gerbaud, Mària (curator). Rembrandt et la Bible: les eaux-fortes de Rembrandt dans la Collection Frits Lugt (Rembrandt and the Bible: The Rembrandt Etchings in the Frits Lugt Collection). Exhibition schedule: Fondation Custodia (Collection Frits Lugt), Paris, February 16, 2006–February 16, 2007. Accompanying book: see Hinterding (below).

Bevers, Holm. Rembrandt: Die Zeichnungen im Berliner Kupferstichkabinett (Rembrandt: The Drawings from the Berlin-Printroom). Berlin: Hatje Cantz Verlag, 2006 (9783775718172). Exhibition schedule: Staatliche Museen zu Berlin-Kupferstichkabinett, Berlin, August 4–November 5, 2006.

Bevers, Holm, Jasper Kettner, and Gundula Metze. Rembrandt: ein Virtuose der Druckgraphik (Rembrandt: A Virtuoso of Prints). Cologne: Dumont Literatur und Kunst Verlag, 2006 (9783832176969). Exhibition schedule: Museum Höxter-Corvey, Höxter, Germany, April 1–June 25, 2006; Staatliche Museen zu Berlin-Kupferstichkabinett, Berlin, August 4–November 5, 2006.

Bogh Ronberg, Lene and Eva De la Fuente Pedersen, eds. Rembrandt? The Master and his Workshop. Copenhagen: Statens Museum for Kunst, 2006 (8790096517). Exhibition schedule: Statens Museum for Kunst, Copenhagen, February 4–May 14, 2006.

Bull, Duncan, Taco Dibbits, Margriet van Eikema Hommes, Volker Manuth, and Ernst van de Wetering. Rembrandt-Caravaggio. Zwolle: Waanders Publishers and Rijksmuseum Amsterdam, 2006 (published in Dutch, English, French, German, and Italian) (9040091358). Exhibition schedule: Van Gogh Museum (with cooperation of the Rijksmuseum), Amsterdam, February 24–June 18, 2006.

Döring, Thomas, Gisela Bungarten, and Christiane Page. Aus Rembrandts Kreis: die Zeichnungen des Braunschweiger Kupferstichkabinetts (From Rembrandt’s Circle: Drawings from the Brunswick-Printroom). Petersberg: Michael Imhof Verlag, 2006 (3865681883). Exhibition schedule: Herzog Anton Ulrich-Museum, Brunswick, Germany, September 21–December 17, 2006.

Elen, Albert J., ed. Rembrandt in Rotterdam: Tekeningen van Rembrandt en zijn kring / Drawings of Rembrandt and His Circle in the Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen. Rotterdam: Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen, 2006 (published in a Dutch/English petitiën (9069182122). Exhibition schedule: Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen, Rotterdam, December 10, 2005–March 5, 2006; Pera Museum, Istanbul, October 17, 2006–January 7, 2007.

Faietti, Marzia, and Giusi Vecchi. Rembrandt e Morandi: mutevole danzi di segni incisi (Rembrandt and Morandi: Capricious Dances of Etched Marks). Ferrara, Edizioni Edisai, 2006. Exhibition schedule: Museo Morandi, Bologna, November 1, 2006–January 7, 2007.

Garton, Robin, Gerard Volker Grimm, and Gerhard van der Grinten. Rembrandt und die englischen Malerradierer des 19. Jahrhunderts / Rembrandt and the English Painter-Etchers of the 19th Century. Bedburg-Hau: Stiftung Museum Schloss Moyland, 2005 (3935166281). Exhibition schedule: Museum Schloss Moyland, Bedberg-Hau, Germany, March 13–August 14, 2005; and Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam, December 12, 2005–March 12, 2006.

Gatenbröcker, Silke. Familienglück: Rembrandt und sein Braunschweiger Meisterwerk (A Happy Family: Rembrandt’s Masterpiece in Braunschweig). Petersberg: Michael Imhof Verlag, 2006 (9783865681874). Exhibition schedule: Herzog Anton Ulrich-Museum, Brunswick, Germany, September 21–December 17, 2006.

Grigoriev, R.G. (curator). Rembrandt’s Prints from the Collection of Dmitri Rovinsky in the Hermitage. Exhibition schedule: Saint Petersburg: State Hermitage Museum, March 17, 2006–June 11, 2006 (catalogue has not yet appeared).

Hecht, Peter. Van Gogh en Rembrandt. Zwolle: Waanders Publishers and Van Gogh Museum, 2006 (904008239). Exhibition schedule: Van Gogh Museum, Amsterdam, February 24–June 18, 2006.

Lambert, Gisele and Elena Santiago Paez. La lumiere de l’ombre. Paris: Bibliothèque Nationale de France, 2006 (2717723463). Exhibition schedule: Fundació Caixa de España, Barcelona, November, 28, 2005–February 26, 2006; Biblioteca National de España, Madrid, March 22–June 11, 2006; Bibliothèque National de France, Paris, October 11, 2006–January 7, 2007.

Lammertse, Friso and Jaap van der Veen. Uylenburgh & Son: Art and Commerce from Rembrandt to De Lairesse, 1625–1675. Zwolle: Waanders Publishers, 2006 (published in Dutch and English) (940081646). Exhibition schedule: Dulwich Picture Gallery, London, June 7–September 3, 2006; and Museum het Rembrandthuis, Amsterdam, September 16–December 10, 2006.

Markova, Natalya, and Vadim Sadkov (curators). Rembrandt, His Predecessors and Followers. Exhibition schedule: Pushkin Museum, Moscow, September 11–November 12, 2006.

Neidhardt, Uta and Thomas Ketelsen, eds. Rembrandt van Rijn: “Die Entführung des Ganymed” (Rembrandt van Rijn: “The Abduction of Ganymede”). Dresden: Michael Sandstein Verlag (published in German) (9783937602882). Exhibition schedule: Staatliche Kunstsammlungen Dresden-Gemäldegalerie Alte Meister, Dresden, November 17, 2006–February 4, 2007.

Runina, Epco and Ariane van Suchtelen. Rembrandt in the Mauritshuis. Zwolle: Waanders Publishers and Mauritshuis, The Hague, 2006 (published in Dutch and English) (9040082243). Exhibition schedule: Museum Het Mauritshuis, The Hague, June 26–September 18, 2006.

Schatborn, Peter, Carel Van Tuyll van Serooskerken, and Helene Grollemund. Rembrandt dessinateur: chefs-d’oeuvre des collections en France. Paris: Musée du Louvre Editions: Somogy, 2006 (published in French) (2757200208). Exhibition schedule: Musée du Louvre, Paris, October 20, 2006–January 8, 2007.

Sigal-Klagsblad, Laurence, and Alexis Merle du Bourg (curators). Rembrandt et la Nouvelle Jerusalem. Juifs et chrétiens å Amsterdam au siècle d’or (Rembrandt and the New Jerusalem: Jews and Christians in Amsterdam in the Golden Age). Paris: Musée d’art et d’histoire du Judaïsme and Panama Musées (published in French) (2755702435). Exhibition schedule: Musée d’art et d’histoire du Judaïsme, Paris, March 28–July 1, 2007.

Sitt, Martina. Pieter Lastman: in Rembrandts Schatten? (Pieter Lastman: In Rembrandt’s Shadow?). Munich: Hirmer Verlag, 2006 (published in German) (9783777429854). Exhibition schedule: Hamburger Kunsthalle, April 13–July 30, 2006.

Vogelaar, Christiaan and Gerbrand Korevaar, eds., et al. Rembrandt’s Mother: Myth and Reality. Zwolle: Waanders Publishers and Stedelijk Museum de Lakenhal, 2005 (published in Dutch and English) (9040091404). Exhibition schedule: Stedelijk Museum de Lakenhal, Leiden, December 16, 2005–March 19, 2006.

Vogelaar, Christiaan and Gregor J.M. Weber, eds., et al. Rembrandts Landschaften (Rembrandt’s Landscapes) . Munich: Hirmer Verlag, 2006 (published in German and English) (9783777430058). Exhibition schedule: Staatliche Museen-Gemäldegalerie Alte Meister, Kassel, June 23–September 17, 2006; Stedelijk Museum de Lakenhal, Leiden, October 6, 2006–January 7, 2007.

Van de Wetering, Ernst. Rembrandt: The Quest of a Genius. Zwolle: Waanders Publishers and Museum het Rembrandthuis, 2006 (published in Dutch and English) (904009165x; Dutch ed.) (9040081670; English ed.). German ed. (content varies): Rembrandt: ein Genie auf der Suche. Cologne: Dumont Literatur und Kunst Verlag, 2006 (9783832176945). Exhibition schedule: Museum het Rembrandthuis, Amsterdam, April 1–July 2, 2006; Staatliche Museen zu Berlin-Gemäldegalerie, Berlin, August 4–November 5, 2006.

Weber, Gregor J.M., ed., with Thomas Ketelsen, Everhard Korthals Altes, and Julia Gerse. Rembrandt-Bilder: Die historische Sammlung der Kasseler Gemäldegalerie (Pictures by Rembrandt: The Historical Collection of the Picture Gallery in Kassel). Munich: Hirmer Verlag, 2006 (published in German) (3777429953). Exhibition schedule: Staatliche Museen-Gemäldegalerie Alte Meisterm, Kassel, May 20–August 20, 2006.

books

Berger, Harry. Manhood, Marriage and Mischief: Rembrandt’s “Night Watch” and Other Dutch Group Portraits. New York: Fordham University Press, 2006 (0823225577)

Blanc, Jan. Dans l’atelier de Rembrandt. Le maitre et ses eleves. Paris: La Martinière, 2006 (2732434310)

Bomford, David, Jo Kirby, Ashok Roy, Axel Ruger, and Raymond White. Art in the Making: Rembrandt. New Edition. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2006 (1857093569)

Broos, Ben. Het Rembrandt Boek. Zwolle: Waanders Publishers, 2006 (9040091110)

Crenshaw, Paul. Rembrandt’s Bankruptcy. The Artist, His Patrons, and the Art World in Seventeeth-Century Netherlands. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2006 (9780521858250)

Dickey, Stephanie S. Rembrandt Face to Face. Indianapolis: Indianapolis Museum of Art, 2006 (0936260831)

Dudok van Heel, S.A.C. De jonge Rembrandt onder tijdgenoten: godsdienst en schilderkunst in Leiden en Amsterdam (The Young Rembrandt Among his Contemporaries: Religion and Painting in Leiden and Amsterdam). Rotterdam: Veenman Publishers, 2006 (9086900003)

Graaff, Arthur and Michiel Roscam Abbing. Rembrandt voor Dummies (Rembrandt for Dummies). Amsterdam: Pearson Education Benelux, 2006 (9043012807)

Hinterding, Erik. Rembrandt as an Etcher. 3 vols. Ouderkerk aan den Ijssel: Sound & Vision Publishers, 2006 (9077551395)

Kettering, Alison. Rembrandt’s Group Portraits. Zwolle: Waanders Publishers and Mauritshuis, Rijksmuseum and Amsterdams Historisch Museum, 2006 (9040091463)

Meijer, Bert W. Rembrandt. Milano: Saggi di Stefano Zuffi, 2006 (8837041268)

Roscam Abbing, Michiel, ed. Rembrandt 2006: Essays/New Rembrandt Documents. 2 vols. Leiden: Foleor Publishers, 2006 (9075035233)

Roscam Abbing, Michiel. Rembrandt’s Elephant: The Story of Hansken. Amsterdam: Leporello, 2006 (9080874566)

Roscam Abbing, Michiel. The Treasures of Rembrandt. Carlton Publishing Group, 2006 (1844422380)

Schapelhouman, Marijn. Rembrandt en de kunst van het tekenen (Rijksmuseum-Dossiers). Zwolle: Waanders Publishers, 2006 (9040091498)

Schwartz, Gary. Rembrandt’s Universe: His Art, His Life, His World. London: Thames and Hudson, 2006 (0500093318)

Schwartz, Gary. The Rembrandt Book. New York: Harry N. Abrams, 2006 (published in Dutch, French, English, German, Spanish, and Russian) (9061536529)

Schwartz, Gary. The Night Watch (Rijksmuseum-Dossiers). Zwolle: Waanders Publishers, 2006 (9040095558)

Sluijter, Eric Jan. Rembrandt and the Female Nude. Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press, 2006 (9053568379)

Van Straten, Roelof. Young Rembrandt: The Leiden Years, 1606–1632. Leiden: Foleor Publishers, 2005 (published in Dutch, English, and German) (9075035225)

Tümpel, Christian and Astrid. Rembrandt: Images and Metaphors. London: Haus Publishing, 2006 (1904950922)

De Winkel, Marieke. Fashion and Fancy: Dress and Meaning in Rembrandt’s Paintings. Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press, 2006 (9789053569177)

Stephanie S. Dickey
Professor of Art History and Bader Chair in Northern Baroque Art, Department of Art History and Art Conservation, Queen’s University