A Bearded Man Wearing a Hat (c. 1655–60): Art, History and Details

A Bearded Man Wearing a Hat (c. 1655–60) is in the Cleveland Museum of Art collection. The museum's creator attribution is Rembrandt van Rijn (Dutch, 1606–1669).

The work and its context

The museum's open-access catalogue describes the work:

Amsterdam of the early 1600s was a religiously tolerant city, attracting many Jewish settlers of both Sephardic (Spanish and Portuguese) origin and Ashkenazic (Eastern European) descent. Rembrandt lived among both denominations and found inspiration in the manner and dress of the Ashkenazim, who maintained traditional comportment and attire and were less affluent than their Sephardim counterparts. As a result, many of the unidentified portraits from Rembrandt's late period once carried Jewish associations, but because of a lack of sufficient evidence, those assignations have since been reconsidered. Such is the case with Portrait of a Man, which was once considered a portrait of the Dutch Jewish philosopher Baruch Spinoza (1632–1677) as well as a representation of a Jewish student. Rembrandt's authorship of the painting has also undergone reassessment. The broad and thinly painted cloak and hat suggests the painting is likely a workshop product and while it does display Rembrandt's characteristic interest in a sitter's introspection, the figure's thoughtfulness remains comparatively superficial.

Object facts

• Title: A Bearded Man Wearing a Hat
• Date: c. 1655–60
• Creator attribution: Rembrandt van Rijn (Dutch, 1606–1669)
• Culture: Netherlands
• Type: Painting
• Technique: oil on canvas
• Dimensions: Framed: 119.4 x 104.1 x 14.6 cm (47 x 41 x 5 3/4 in.); Unframed: 84.5 x 69.2 cm (33 1/4 x 27 1/4 in.)
• Collection: P - Netherlandish-Dutch
• Department: European Painting and Sculpture
• Accession number: 1950.252

Collection credit

Gift of the Hanna Fund

Further reading listed by the museum

• Francis, Henry. "Rembrandt's 'Portrait of a Young Student.'" The Bulletin of the Cleveland Museum of Art 37, no. 9 (November 1950): 191-193.
• The Cleveland Museum of Art. The Cleveland Museum of Art Handbook. Cleveland, OH: The Cleveland Museum of Art, 1958.
• The Cleveland Museum of Art. Handbook of the Cleveland Museum of Art/1966. Cleveland, OH: The Cleveland Museum of Art, 1966.

View the collection record

See the museum's photographs and full catalogue entry. Catalogue text is reproduced from the Cleveland Museum of Art's open-access data, with HTML formatting removed. This object and its supplied image are designated CC0.