Portrait of a Man Wearing a Red Doublet

Portrait of a Man Wearing a Red Doublet from 1633, in the Leiden Collection, dates from Rembrandt's first full years in Amsterdam when his portrait practice was generating commissions faster than any previous period of his career. The red doublet — a garment more typical of the previous generation's fashion than of the severe black favored by Dutch Reformed society in the 1630s — suggests a sitter slightly removed from the mainstream of Amsterdam commercial culture, perhaps a foreigner, an artist, or a man with deliberately archaic taste. The Leiden Collection, assembled by American collector Thomas Kaplan as a dedicated Rembrandt holding, acquired this work alongside other early portraits that together document the range of his Amsterdam clientele. The collection takes its name from Rembrandt's birthplace and is housed in New York, representing the transatlantic dispersal of Dutch masterworks that characterized the twentieth-century art market.

Rembrandt renders the red doublet with rich, saturated color that provides a striking contrast to the more subdued treatment of the face, demonstrating his early mastery of color and fabric painting.