The Man with the Golden Helmet

The Man with the Golden Helmet

Artist	Circle of Rembrandt
Year	c. 1650
Dimensions	67.5 cm × 50.7 cm (26.6 in × 20.0 in)
Location	Gemäldegalerie, Berlin, Berlin

The Man with the Golden Helmet (c. 1650) is an oil on canvas painting formerly attributed to the Dutch painter Rembrandt and today considered to be a work by someone in his circle. It is an example of Dutch Golden Age painting and is now in the collection of the Gemäldegalerie, Berlin.

This painting was documented by Hofstede de Groot in 1915, who wrote:^[1]

"261. AN ELDERLY MAN WITH A GILT HELMET. B.-HdG. 356. He is turned a little to the right ; his eyes are cast down. He wears a dark coat with purplish-red sleeves. On his head is a richly wrought gilt helmet with ear-pieces and a plume of short white and red feathers. Dark background. Strong light falls from the left at top on tin helmet and, touching the face as it passes, on the breast. Life size, half-length. The sitter is identified as Rembrandt's brother Adriaen. But as Adriaen was a poor shoemaker in Leyden while Rembrandt lived in Amsterdam, and as moreover Adriaen van Rijn died in 1652 while this model occurs in pictures of the year 1654, the identification is not very probable. Painted about 1650. See the notes to 384 and 442 ; cf. 420, 423.

Canvas, 26 1/2 inches by 20 1/2 inches.

Exhibited at Amsterdam, 1898, No. 75.

Mentioned by Bode, Oud Holland, 1891, p. 4 ; by Dr. Laban, Zeitschrift für bildende Kunst, 1898, pp. 73, etc.

Acquired from the De Bockart collection, Fribourg, Switzerland, by the London dealers P. and D. Colnaghi ; bought from them in 1897 by the Kaiser Friedrich Museumverein, Berlin, and since exhibited--

In the Kaiser Friedrich Museum, Berlin, 1911 catalogue, No. 8llA."

References

1. Entry 261 for ''The Man with the Golden Helmet in Hofstede de Groot, 1915

• The Man with the Golden Helmet in the RKD
• The Man with the Golden Helmet, in the Rembrandt Research Project