Portrait of Jeremias de Decker

The 1666 portrait of Jeremias de Decker occupies a special place among Rembrandt's late portraits because it was almost certainly a gift rather than a commercial commission. De Decker was a Dutch poet of genuine distinction who had written an admiring poem about Rembrandt's earlier painting of Christ — a poem that praised the painter for achieving what no words could express. The portrait may have been Rembrandt's painted response, a demonstration that the admiration was mutual. By 1666 Rembrandt was no longer Amsterdam's fashionable portraitist — that role had passed to younger, more classically oriented painters like Ferdinand Bol and Govert Flinck, both his former pupils — and his portrait commissions came increasingly from intellectuals, friends, and patrons willing to accept his increasingly unconventional late style. The Hermitage acquired the work as part of Catherine the Great's systematic acquisition of Northern European art, bringing this intimate document of artistic friendship into the imperial collection in St. Petersburg.

Rembrandt's late portrait technique concentrates all attention on the illuminated face emerging from a dark, undefined background. The rough, almost sculptural application of paint creates an extraordinary sense of living presence and psychological depth.