November 13, 2011–FEBRUARY 5, 2012
Rembrandt in the Nineteenth Century
Rembrandt’s status as an artist had occasionally fluctuated since his death, but in the nineteenth century he gained renewed popularity, particularly in France. His realistic, unidealized approach to subject matter and his remarkable skills as both a painter and printmaker were highly valued in post-revolutionary France, often serving as an alternative model to the idealized, state-sponsored art of the Academy.
By the 1850s the Louvre held more than fifteen paintings by Rembrandt and many of his drawings and prints. A growing number of biographies and systematic catalogues of his work also appeared, as did innumerable copies of his prints. All these factors contributed to Rembrandt’s reputation as one of the greatest artistic geniuses in the history of European art, a belief that developed just as Degas was establishing his own artistic identity.
Cardon was the son of an artist, and at an early age he copied Rembrandt’s 1636 self-portrait etching with his wife, Saskia. He later established himself as a printmaker and publisher in London in the 1790s. Here the framing device suggests that the image was intended as an illustration of the original, rather than a stand-in for it.
VOLUME 59 (2011)/2
This recent volume of The Rijksmuseum Bulletin includes an essay entitled “A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man: Edgar Degas Inspired by Rembrandt,” by Jenny Reynaerts (Senior Curator of eighteenth- and nineteenth-century paintings at the Rijksmuseum and curator of the exhibition in Amsterdam) and Stella Versluis-Van Dongen (Rijksmuseum intern 2010-11, and co-researcher for the Bulletin essay and exhibition in Amsterdam).
The Rijksmuseum Bulletin is the English language academic journal of the Rijksmuseum, published quarterly. It offers scholarly articles contributing to the historical and art-historical research of the collections of the Rijksmuseum to an international audience of curators, scholars, students, art professionals and enthusiasts.
The Rijksmuseum Bulletin is published by the Rijksmuseum Publications Department.
Editors: Jan de Hond, Jenny Reynaerts, Marijn Schapelhouman
Printing: ÈPOS | PRESS, Zwolle