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Shown from about the waist up, a light-skinned man with sagging jowls and a double chin wears a fur garment and hat, a large teardrop pearl earring, and gold chains in this vertical painting. In front of a cracked gray stone wall, the man's body is angled to our right but he turns his face to look at us with brown eyes under a furrowed brow. He has a bulbous nose, and his lips are slightly parted under a wide, wispy mustache. His brown hair is mostly hidden under the tall dark brown fur hat, which is wrapped with a gold chain with a gold medallion at the front. The chestnut-brown fur coat looks especially fuzzy along the neckline, which is also encircled with a thick gold chain. A gold, crown-shaped pendant with a black brush hangs over his right shoulder, closer to us. He holds a gold-tipped cane with his right hand, his thumb extended along the cane. The artist signed and dated the work in the upper right corner, "Rembrandt f: 1637."
Read the visual description

Shown from about the waist up, a light-skinned man with sagging jowls and a double chin wears a fur garment and hat, a large teardrop pearl earring, and gold chains in this vertical painting. In front of a cracked gray stone wall, the man's body is angled to our right but he turns his face to look at us with brown eyes under a furrowed brow. He has a bulbous nose, and his lips are slightly parted under a wide, wispy mustache. His brown hair is mostly hidden under the tall dark brown fur hat, which is wrapped with a gold chain with a gold medallion at the front. The chestnut-brown fur coat looks especially fuzzy along the neckline, which is also encircled with a thick gold chain. A gold, crown-shaped pendant with a black brush hangs over his right shoulder, closer to us. He holds a gold-tipped cane with his right hand, his thumb extended along the cane. The artist signed and dated the work in the upper right corner, "Rembrandt f: 1637."

National Gallery of Art · Painting

A Polish Nobleman

Rembrandt van Rijn

Date
1637
Medium
oil on panel
Dimensions
overall: 96.8 x 66 cm (38 1/8 x 26 in.)
Classification
Painting
Accession number
1937.1.78
Credit line
Andrew W. Mellon Collection
Time span
1601 to 1650
Department
CNE-B
Original NGA record Wikidata Print information

Subjects and terms

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

Possibly Harman van Swol; possibly (his sale, Jan Pietersz. Zomer, Amsterdam, 20 April 1707, no. 15).[1] Acquired 1765 in Rotterdam by (Philippus Florentinus Vergeloo, Antwerp) for Count Johan Carl Philipp Cobenzl [1712-1770]; sold 1768 to Catherine II, empress of Russia [1729-1796], Saint Petersburg;[2] Imperial Hermitage Gallery, Saint Petersburg; sold February 1931 through (Matthiesen Gallery, Berlin; P. & D. Colnaghi & Co., London; and M. Knoedler & Co., New York) to Andrew W. Mellon, Pittsburgh and Washington; deeded 30 March 1932 to The A. W. Mellon Educational and Charitable Trust, Pittsburgh; gift 1937 to NGA. [1] In the 1707 sale in Amsterdam, a painting described as "Een Ambassadeur van Moscovien, van Rembrandt kragtig geschildert" (An Ambassador of Moscow, powerfully depicted by Rembrandt) may have been this work; the association of this painting with _A Polish Nobleman_ was first made in Stichting Foundation Rembrandt Research Project, _A Corpus of Rembrandt Paintings_, vol. 3, _1635–1642_, ed. Josua Bruyn et al., Dordrecht, Boston, and London, 1989: 247. [2] On the identification of Cobenzl as the collector who sold the painting to Catherine II, and of Vergeloo as his source, see Catherine Phillips, "The Provenance of Rembrandt's 'Polish Nobleman' (1637) in the National Gallery of Art, Washington," _The Burlington Magazine_ 151 (February 2009): 84-85. When _A Polish Nobleman_ was first described in the catalogue of Catherine II's collection, compiled between 1773 and 1785, it bore the title "Portrait d'un Turc."

Inscription

upper right: Rembrandt.f:. / 1637

NGA object ID 85. 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.