Lady with a Fan (after Rembrandt)

Reynolds painted this study of Rembrandt's compositional vocabulary in 1746, when he was barely twenty-three and had not yet made his Italian journey. The young Devonshire painter was already studying the Old Masters obsessively in the London collections, and Rembrandt's use of deep shadow, warm candlelight tones, and psychological suggestion in portraiture fascinated him. Copying or adapting after Rembrandt was a recognized academic exercise, but Reynolds's version reveals his own emerging preoccupations: the dignity of the sitter, the rhetoric of costume, the interplay of light and character. When he returned from Rome in 1752 he would synthesize these northern influences with Italian grandeur into the 'Grand Manner' that made him Britain's dominant portraitist.

Rembrandt's influence is evident in the warm brownish ground with concentrated light on the face and hands. Reynolds preserves the enveloping shadow and the rich texture of the fur, though his brushwork is tighter than Rembrandt's loaded impasto, reflecting his still-developing technique.