DOI Seite / Zitierlink:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.68073#0234
2OS
OLD WORLD MASTERS
nected with the artist and his bride. The husband, whose features
are regular, almost handsome, and who has a slight moustache wears a
steel gorget and a small gaily-colored neck cloth over his finely plaited
silk shirt, a greenish blue cloak hangs from his right shoulder, and his
gloved hand rests on the hilt of his sword.
“Portraits of the artist himself and of his relations and friends, are
nearly all executed with as much care as the numerous portraits of
other persons painted to order at this time. Some few may have
been presents to friends and relations; but the majority produced at
this period (1633-1635), and that immediately following it were very
probably commissions from friends and patrons of the master, the
most renowned artist in Holland whose name was soon to be associated
with those of the greatest painters in Europe. These pictures had a
special attraction over and above their interest as portraits, by virtue
of the highly individual costume and conception which add so much
to their picturesque effect.”
Dr. W. R. Valentiner, also believing this to be a likeness of Saskia’s
brother-in-law, says:
“The portrait of a cavalier, possibly Frangois Copal, is one of the
most imposing and impressive of the portraits which Rembrandt
painted in the middle of the thirties, at the time when he was ap-
proaching the height of his fame as a portrait-painter at Amsterdam.
Among the considerable number of portraits which the artist painted
to order during these years, the present one (and a companion piece
in the Liechtenstein Gallery, Vienna) stand out through the vivid,
passionate expression and the personal touch which undoubtedly
reflects the artist’s own mood. At no time Rembrandt expresses so
much of a youthful, almost wild, temperament in his compositions,
at no time he endeavors to give to them such an overpowering force
and such an intense, almost sensuous feeling of life, as in these stormy
years of his first successes at Amsterdam, which were accompanied
by a happy marriage, by social connections, by acquiring riches and
almost luxury.
“ Something of young Samson, of whom the artist was so fond in
these years, we feel also in the portrait of a handsome cavalier. We
OLD WORLD MASTERS
nected with the artist and his bride. The husband, whose features
are regular, almost handsome, and who has a slight moustache wears a
steel gorget and a small gaily-colored neck cloth over his finely plaited
silk shirt, a greenish blue cloak hangs from his right shoulder, and his
gloved hand rests on the hilt of his sword.
“Portraits of the artist himself and of his relations and friends, are
nearly all executed with as much care as the numerous portraits of
other persons painted to order at this time. Some few may have
been presents to friends and relations; but the majority produced at
this period (1633-1635), and that immediately following it were very
probably commissions from friends and patrons of the master, the
most renowned artist in Holland whose name was soon to be associated
with those of the greatest painters in Europe. These pictures had a
special attraction over and above their interest as portraits, by virtue
of the highly individual costume and conception which add so much
to their picturesque effect.”
Dr. W. R. Valentiner, also believing this to be a likeness of Saskia’s
brother-in-law, says:
“The portrait of a cavalier, possibly Frangois Copal, is one of the
most imposing and impressive of the portraits which Rembrandt
painted in the middle of the thirties, at the time when he was ap-
proaching the height of his fame as a portrait-painter at Amsterdam.
Among the considerable number of portraits which the artist painted
to order during these years, the present one (and a companion piece
in the Liechtenstein Gallery, Vienna) stand out through the vivid,
passionate expression and the personal touch which undoubtedly
reflects the artist’s own mood. At no time Rembrandt expresses so
much of a youthful, almost wild, temperament in his compositions,
at no time he endeavors to give to them such an overpowering force
and such an intense, almost sensuous feeling of life, as in these stormy
years of his first successes at Amsterdam, which were accompanied
by a happy marriage, by social connections, by acquiring riches and
almost luxury.
“ Something of young Samson, of whom the artist was so fond in
these years, we feel also in the portrait of a handsome cavalier. We