A distinguished black man kneels on a riverbank before a bearded white man in robes, with the air of a prophet. What could a depiction of this scene be other than the well-known story from chapter 8 of The Acts of the Apostles? No Dutch notary of the seventeenth century hesitated in identifying the subject of a painting with this motif as the baptism by Philip of an Ethiopian official called a moor, a eunuch or a chamberlain. On the road from Jerusalem to Gaza, he becomes convinced of the div...

The earliest painting by Rembrandt whose owner is documented depicts the prophet Balaam, on his way to blessing Israel. The man who bought it was a Sephardi Jew in the service of Cardinal Richelieu of France. The first known buyer of an etching plate by Rembrandt, depicting Abraham Dismissing Hagar and Ishmael, was a Sephardi Jew of Amsterdam. Seen through their eyes, Rembrandt was the creator of images with a special meaning to Jews. They have been followed through the centuries by Jewish c...

Now available in a reduced format edition, here is the ultimate book on Rembrandt’s art and life by one of the world’s best-known writers on Dutch art.

De lotgevallen van de Rembrandt met de rode baret zijn bijna te

bizar om waar te zijn. Het portret werd in 1823 aangekocht door de

Prins van Oranje, de latere koning Willem II, voor zijn kunstcollectie,

die de beste Nederlandse privéverzameling ooit was.

Geteisterd door oorlogsgeweld want door Willem achtergelaten in

Brussel tijdens de Belgische Opstand van 1830, in 1918 kwijtgespeeld

als erfstuk van zijn nazaten na de Eerste Wereldoorlog,

na de Tweede Wereldoorlog in beslag genomen in Dayto...