Rembrandt and his circle

de Michiel Plomp

"Treasured throughout Europe since the seventeenth century, Dutch artist Rembrandt van Rijns prints were objects of esteem during his lifetime (16061669). Artists, writers, and collectors at the time admired Rembrandt's work, and already in 1641, when the artist was in his mid-thirties, he was praised in a German publication as one of the most noteworthy printmakers of the era. In 1995, The Metropolitan Museum of Art presented "Rembrandt/ Not Rembrandt," an exhibition that displayed the artists paintings, drawings, and prints, but concentrated on his connoisseurship. Although much of the information contained in this volume depends heavily on the 1995 exhibition, the focus here is different. In this manuscript, more attention is paid to Rembrandt's pupils and to other artists from his immediate circle. In part because of his fame, Rembrandt was a sought after teacher. The exact number of his pupils is unknown but may have numbered about forty or fifty. Some of them, such as Ferdinand Bol, Govaert Flinck, and Nicolaes Maes, would become important artists in their own right. The pupils closely imitated Rembrandt's style and technique, creating works that are sometimes hard to distinguish from those of the master. Apart from their beauty and sheer quality, the pupils works on paper have undergone serious investigation only in recent decades, resulting in quite a number of repercussions and changes of attribution in the master's oeuvrea process that continues today. This volume and the exhibition it accompanies celebrate Rembrandt's 400th birthday."--The Metropolitan Museum of Art web site.