Head of Saint Matthew

Historical Context

This Head of Saint Matthew, attributed to the Rembrandt Workshop and dated to the early 1660s, belongs to the series of apostle studies that the Rembrandt circle produced in some numbers during the late period — faces of weathered, spiritually intense old men that blurred the boundary between character study, devotional image, and pure exercise in depicting aged physiognomy. The Rembrandt Workshop in this period was a fluid entity: the master himself, his pupils, and close followers produced works in a shared manner that scholarship has spent generations attempting to disentangle. Regardless of the exact attribution, the Head of Saint Matthew participates in the Rembrandtian project of finding spiritual depth in the physical details of old age — the lined face, the clouded eye, the rough texture of skin that has weathered decades of life.

Technical Analysis

The face emerges from a deep amber-brown shadow through a warm light source from the upper left — a characteristic Rembrandt workshop lighting that models the aged flesh with strongly raked highlights on brow and cheekbone. The paint is applied in thick, directional strokes in the lighted areas and thin transparent glazes in the shadows.

Provenance

Alfred Buckley, New Hall, England, by 1882.[1] Rodolphe Kann [1845-1905], Paris, probably after 1893 but by 1900;[2] purchased 1907 with the entire Kann collection by (Duveen Brothers, Inc., London, New York, and Paris);[3] sold to (F. Kleinberger & Co., Paris);[4] by exchange to (Leo Nardus [1868-1955], Suresnes, France, and New York); by exchange early 1909 to Peter A.B. Widener, Lynnewood Hall, Elkins Park, Pennsylvania;[5] inheritance from Estate of Peter A.B. Widener by gift through power of appointment of Joseph E. Widener, Elkins Park; gift 1942 to NGA. [1] Buckley lent the painting to the 1882 Winter Exhibition at the Royal Academy in London. [2] Émile Michel, _Rembrandt: sa vie, son oeuvre et son temps_, Paris, 1893: 432-433, lists the picture as still in Buckley's possession. It was catalogued with the Kann collection by Wilhelm von Bode, _Gemälde-Sammlung des Herrn Rudolf Kann in Paris_, Vienna, 1900: no. 7, repro. [3] Duveen Brothers Records, accession number 960015, Research Library, Getty Research Institute, Los Angeles: reels 38 and 39, boxes 115-118, Stock books, Paris Ledger, and Sales Book for the Kann Collection. [4] Duveen Brothers Records, accession number 960015, Research Library, Getty Research Institute, Los Angeles: reel 39, box 117, Paris Ledger, no. 1, Kann Collection. [5] Nardus received this painting and NGA’s _Head of an Aged Woman_ (1942.9.64) from Kleinberger in exchange for a portrait of a lady by Hans Memling. The same two paintings, along with ten others, were sent to Widener in early 1909, as replacements for a dozen paintings Nardus had sold to and then took back from the collector, after they were deemed by art historians of the day to be modern copies of “Old Masters.” These two transactions involving Nardus are revealed in correspondence between Widener, his lawyer, John G. Johnson, Nardus, and Nardus’ assistant, Michel van Gelder, now in the John G. Johnson Collection Archives at the Philadelphia Museum of Art (box 5, folders 5 and 6, especially a letter, Michel van Gelder to John G. Johnson, 29 January 1909). The correspondence was found, transcribed, and kindly shared with the NGA by Jonathan Lopez (letter, sent with transcriptions, 24 April 2006, to Arthur K. Wheelock, Jr., in NGA curatorial files). See also Jonathan Lopez, “‘Gross False Pretenses’: The Misdeeds of Art Dealer Leo Nardus,”_ Apollo_, ser. 2, vol. 166, no. 548 (December 2007): 80–81, fig. 8.

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National Gallery of Art

Washington, D.C., United States

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