Jan Lievens

Jan Lievens Self-portrait in the mirror Oil on wood. 47 x 33.4 cm. Expertise Report of the dendrochronological examination: Prof. Dr. Peter Klein, University of Hamburg, 16.11.2016. Provenance Asscher, Koetser and Welker, London, 1926 - Koninklijke Kunstzaal Kleykamp, The Hague, 1928 - Kunsthandel Mettes, The Hague, ca. 1929 - Colin Agnew, London/New York, 1930 - Coll. Consul lvar Hellberg, Stockholm, 1938 - Auction Bukowski's, Stockholm, 8.11.1961, lot 218 - Auction Koller, Zurich, 18.9.2013, lot 6511 (as successor to Rembrandt). - German private collection. Exhibitions Tentoonstelling van schilderijen door oud Hollandsche en Vlaamsche meesters, Koninklijke Kunstzaal Kleykamp, The Hague, 1928, no. 32 (as Rembrandt). - The 13th Loan Exhibition of Old Masters; Paintings by Rembrandt, Detroit Institute of Arts, 1930, no. 4 - Exposition de cent tableaux des maîtres anciens de cinq siècles, Cvijeta Zuzoric Art Pavilion, Belgrade, 1932, catalog G. Glück, no. 98 - Kung! Akademien for de fria konsterna, Mitt basta konstverk: en konsthistorisk oversit Ji-an utstallningen, Stockholm, 1941/2, no. 60 (as Rembrandt). Literature W. R. Valentiner: The Thirteenth Loan Exhibition of Old Masters: Paintings by Rembrandt, Detroit 1930, no. 4 - A. Bredius: Rembrandt, Schilderijen, Utrecht 1935, no. 14 - M. J. Friedlander and C. G. Laurin: Alte Gemälde aus der Sammlung lvar Hellberg Stockholm/Malmö 1938, n. p., with illus. (a work by Rembrandt). - B. G. Wennberg and G. Engwall: Mitt basta konstverk: konst ur stockholmshem, Stockholm, 1941/42, no. 60 - J. Rosenberg: Rembrandt, Life and Work, Cambridge 1948, p. 371, (dubious work by Rembrandt). - J. Rosenberg: Rembrandt, Life and Work, 2nd ed., London 1964, p. 371 (non-authentic work by Rembrandt). - K. Bauch: Rembrandt, Gemälde, Berlin 1966, p. 47 (possibly a copy after a lost original by Rembrandt). - A. Bredius and H. Gerson: Rembrandt, The Complete Edition of the Paintings, London, 1969, no. 14, with illus. p. 535 (not by Rembrandt). - P. Lecaldano: The Complete Paintings of Rembrandt, London, 1973, p. 133 (under "Other Rembrantesque works"). - J. Bruyn et. al: A Corpus of Rembrandt Paintings, vol. I, Dordrecht/Boston/Lancaster 1982, pp. 658-661, no. C 40 (imitation probably of the 17th century). - B. Schnackenburg: Jan Lievens, Friend and Rival of the Young Rembrandt, Petersburg 2016, pp. 75, 78, 79, 97, 137, pp. 249-251, no. 69, ill. p. 250 (as Jan Lievens). There was no doubt in Constantijn Huygens' mind that Jan Lievens and Rembrandt represented the glorious future of Dutch painting. In his memoirs, the extremely knowledgeable secretary to the governor in The Hague praised the "two outstanding young men from Leiden" to the skies and saw them competing with the great masters such as Rubens and Titian at a young age. Jan Lievens and Rembrandt, almost the same age, were talented, inquisitive and full of ambition. They shared a workshop, tried their hand at the same pictorial themes and inspired each other. This went so far that even their contemporaries confused their works (Rembrandt's "The Rape of Proserpina" was listed in the inventory of the court in The Hague as a work by Jan Lievens). Art historical research was to fare no better a few hundred years later, as the numerous corrections of attributions show. This panel, a self-portrait by Jan Lievens from 1628 (Schnackenburg, op. cit., passim), is a testimony to this unique artistic friendship, but also to the changeable fate of many works by the two artists. The artist looks at the viewer with an intense gaze, a dark hood covering his head. His mouth is slightly open, as if he is speaking to us, or as if he is astonished by something. A narrow moustache adorns his face. His face is lit from the left, as is usual in self-portraits by right-handed artists, while the right half of his face is correspondingly shadowed. The painterly execution of the face is "grainy, dense and naturalistic in the rendering of the skin surface" (Schnackenburg), while the shoulder area is only indicated with broad, dry brushstrokes. When the painting was rediscovered, it was initially attributed to Rembrandt (Bredius, op. cit.). Another self-portrait by Rembrandt from 1628, which is comparable in terms of the head position and the slightly open mouth, served as an example for comparison (fig. 1; Indianapolis Museum of Art, inv. no. 2023.4). However, doubts about the attribution soon arose. Rosenberg, Gerson and Bauch relegated the painting to Rembrandt's dubious and copied works in their catalogs raisonnés. For the Rembrandt Research Project, it was merely the work of a later successor (which was confirmed by the