Head of Christ

The Head of Christ is being featured today thanks to The Rembrandt House Museum, where from December 1st until February 12th Rembrandt's earliest known paintings “The Four Senses” will be on view. Find out more info on the museum's website and enjoy today's masterpiece:

A young man, bust length, leaning forward a little and turned to the left, hands folded in prayer, is captured in swift, assured brushstrokes. Only the head has been worked up, with white highlights on the nose and below the eye. The long, centre-parted, dark brown hair, the short beard and the simple cloak are typical characteristics of figures of Jesus.

This is a sketch in oils, painted on a small oak panel. The little painting was probably never intended for sale as a work of art in its own right; it was more likely a study, possibly made as preparation for a painting or a print of a narrative scene. In this case it could be the episode in the Bible when Christ, in mortal fear, prays to God the Father in the Garden of Gethsemane.

There are six other panels like this, portraying Christ in a particular pose and specific lighting. They are in museum collections around the world. Rembrandt’s hand can be identified in this work from a private collection and in a panel in the collection of the Gemäldegalerie in Berlin. A thorough restoration in 2011 meant that the work could finally be studied in detail. 

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