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Shown from the hips up, a young man with pale skin and wearing black clothing sits with his body angled to our right as he turns to look at us in this vertical portrait painting. He looks out with green eyes under hooded lids. Light falls across his face from the upper left so his bumped nose casts a shadow on his high cheekbone. He has a wispy mustache over full, pink lips, which are slightly parted. His hair falls to his shoulders in auburn-brown curls, framing his slender face. Two silvery tassels hang on cords from a tall, wide, flat, bright white collar, which contrasts with the velvety black of his voluminous, long-sleeved jacket. His left hand, farther from us, rests on his knee and the other hand is curled so the back of his knuckles press against his right hip, closer to us. A patch of crimson red near that hand could be a pillow on his chair. His hat rests, presumably on a table, just beyond his legs. The hat has a tall, tapering, conical crown with a flat top. The shadowy wall behind him is mottled with slate gray and caramel brown, with a slightly darker panel to suggest a shallow niche.
Read the visual description

Shown from the hips up, a young man with pale skin and wearing black clothing sits with his body angled to our right as he turns to look at us in this vertical portrait painting. He looks out with green eyes under hooded lids. Light falls across his face from the upper left so his bumped nose casts a shadow on his high cheekbone. He has a wispy mustache over full, pink lips, which are slightly parted. His hair falls to his shoulders in auburn-brown curls, framing his slender face. Two silvery tassels hang on cords from a tall, wide, flat, bright white collar, which contrasts with the velvety black of his voluminous, long-sleeved jacket. His left hand, farther from us, rests on his knee and the other hand is curled so the back of his knuckles press against his right hip, closer to us. A patch of crimson red near that hand could be a pillow on his chair. His hat rests, presumably on a table, just beyond his legs. The hat has a tall, tapering, conical crown with a flat top. The shadowy wall behind him is mottled with slate gray and caramel brown, with a slightly darker panel to suggest a shallow niche.

National Gallery of Art · Painting

A Young Man Seated at a Table (possibly Govaert Flinck)

Rembrandt van Rijn

Date
c. 1660
Medium
oil on canvas
Dimensions
overall: 109.9 x 89.5 cm (43 1/4 x 35 1/4 in.) framed: 149.2 x 131.1 x 17.8 cm (58 3/4 x 51 5/8 x 7 in.)
Classification
Painting
Accession number
1937.1.77
Credit line
Andrew W. Mellon Collection
Time span
1651 to 1700
Department
CNE-B
Original NGA record Wikidata

Subjects and terms

  • painted surface
  • Baroque
  • Dutch
  • male
  • portrait
  • Dutch Paintings of the Seventeenth Century (NGA Online Editions)
Provenance

Possibly acquired between 1768 and 1772 by Gustaf Adolf Sparre [1746-1794], Sahlgren-Sparre Palace, Göteborg, and, after 1775, Kulla Gunnarstorp Castle, near Helsingborg, Sweden; by inheritance to his wife, Elisabet Sofia Amalia Beata Sparre [née Ramel, 1753-1830], Kulla Gunnarstorp Castle; by inheritance to her grandson, Gustaf Adolf Frederik De la Gardie [1800-1833], Kulla Gunnarstorp Castle; by inheritance to his father, Jacob Gustaf De la Gardie [1768-1842], Kulla Gunnarstorp Castle; sold a few years after 1837 [when De Geer had purchased Kulla Gunnarstorp Castle] with the entire Sparre collection to Carl De Geer of Leustra [1781-1861]; placed 1855 into a family trust under care of his granddaughter, Elizabeth Wachtmeister [1834-1918, née von Platen], Castle Wanås, near Kristianstad, Sweden;[1] sold 1926 by the Wachtmeister Trust to (Duveen Brothers, Inc., London, New York, and Paris); sold December 1926 to Andrew W. Mellon, Pittsburgh and Washington; deeded 28 December 1934 to The A.W. Mellon Educational and Charitable Trust, Pittsburgh; gift 1937 to NGA. [1] This possible provenance and the preceding chain of ownership are outlined in Ben P. J. Broos et al., _Great Dutch Paintings from America_, The Hague and Zwolle, 1990: 387, 390. For information about the Sparre collection, see Ingmar Hasselgren, Konstsamlaren Gustaf Adolf Sparre, 1746-1794: hans studieresa, va°ning och konstsamling i Go¨teborg. Ph.D. diss., University of Göteborg, 1974. The painting was first published in 1884, when it was “discovered” in the Wachtmeister collection by Olof Granberg; see his article: "Drei unbekannte Gemälde von Rembrandt," _Zeitschrift für Bildende Kunst_ 19 (1884): 30-32.

Inscription

center right: Rembrandt 166[?]

NGA object ID 84. Collection metadata is reproduced under CC0. This work is included because its NGA published-image record is marked open access; visitors should recheck the source record before substantial reuse.