Rembrandt

It pleases me greatly to have received several enthousiast reactions on my blog of two weeks ago, announcing the publication of my new book ‘Rembrandt’s Money’. The legal and financial life of an artist-entrepreneur in 17th century Holland, forthcoming in November 2021. See https://bobwessels.nl/blog/2021-07-doc6-rembrandts-money-forthcoming/. Let me now give you a peek on what the book covers and what it does not.… Read More »2021-07-doc10 Rembrandt’s Money (forthcoming) – wysiwyg (and opposite)

The idea. Over three years ago I announced my intention to write about the legal and financial problems that the famous Dutch artist Rembrandt (1606-1669) encountered during his life. See https://bobwessels.nl/blog/2017-11-05-rembrandt/. Since the early 1980s I have written book, but this one promised to be very special, a legal-historic case study into a time so different than ours. Legal rules… Read More »2021-07-doc6 Rembrandt’s Money (forthcoming)

It took some 150 years before, gradually, the 19th century experienced Rembrandt becoming the subject of more serious scholarship. Research began with the recording of anecdotes about his life, but increasingly a more factual approach on his work was adopted. As early as 1810 the first catalogue raisonné of Rembrandt’s etchings was published by William Esdaile. A first catalogue of… Read More »2020-04-doc5 Do we know what a Rembrandt painting looks like?

Early this year I reported the transmission on English TV of the documentary ‘Looking for Rembrandt‘. It contains a programma, with three separate films of 60 minutes, see blog/2019-03-doc13-looking-for-rembrandt. The third programme contains some lines of an interview I gave (in September 2018) regarding Rembrandt’s financial troubles. Simply because it only came to my attention just a few days ago,… Read More »2019-12-doc2 Looking for Rembrandt on Dutch TV

All aspects of the life and work of Rembrandt (1606-1669) have been celebrated this year. At least twenty exhibitions have been organised in the Netherlands as well as in many other museums and galleries in the world. It was a golden year for new books and TV programmes, such as ‘Looking for Rembrandt’ (BBC 4, April 2019; blog/2019-03-doc13-looking-for-rembrandt) and September/October… Read More »2019-10-doc2 R.I.P. Rembrandt – 4 October 1669

Yesterday, Thursday 27 June 2019, ‘Operation Night Watch’ kicked off in the Amsterdam Rijksmuseum. The painting will undergo a major cleaning-up and restoration. It’s last restauration was over 40 years ago, following an attack on the painting with a knife in 1975. During the Rijksmuseum’s continued monitoring program, it has been discovered that parts the Night Watch have changed over… Read More »2019-06-doc4 The Night Watch in the Dutch courts?

‘I doubt you will find any new document on Rembrandt, as all written documents, all notarial deeds, all registrations, all shreds of evidence on any aspct of his life is known and docemented’, an American art historian and Rembrandt specialist told me a year and a half ago. In science you never can predict: this week (on 4 June 2019)… Read More »2019-06-doc2 Rembrandt studied in Leiden in 1620. But also in 1622?

In September last year I reported about my research into the bankruptcy (cessio bonorum) of Rembrandt. In the Netherlands, Rembrandt is hot as this year it is 350 years that he passed away. Also abroad there is interest and I was interviewed last year for a BBC programme. See blog/2018-09-doc3-the-bankruptcy-of-rembrandt-interview-bbc. Rembrandt (1606-1669) lived from 1606 till around 1631 in Leiden… Read More »2019-03-doc13 Looking for Rembrandt