Portrait of a gentleman, half-length, in a black velvet cloak and white lace collar and cuffs

Rembrandt painted this Portrait of a Gentleman in 1635, during the most commercially successful phase of his Amsterdam career, when aristocratic and upper-bourgeois commissions flowed through his studio in considerable volume. The painting belongs to the Six Collection in Amsterdam — one of the most historically significant private collections in the Netherlands, assembled by the Jan Six family across four centuries and still partially maintained intact. Jan Six himself was one of Rembrandt's closest friends; Rembrandt painted his celebrated portrait in 1654 and made several etchings of him. The collection also contains the Portrait of Jan Six, making the Six family the most comprehensively represented single family in Rembrandt's portrait production. The gentleman depicted in this 1635 canvas is unidentified, but his fashionable black velvet and white lace collar reflects the formal portrait conventions of the Dutch upper classes during the Republic's most prosperous decade.

The sitter's black velvet cloak and white lace collar are rendered with Rembrandt's characteristic material sensitivity, the textures of different fabrics distinguished through varied brushwork against the warm, dark background.