Portrait of a Young Woman with a Fan (1633)

Rembrandt (1606-1669)

Portrait of a Young Woman with a Fan
1633
Oil on canvas, 125.7 x 101 cm
Metropolitan Museum of ArtNew York

This animated portrait has a pendant showing the sitter’s husband rising from a chair (Taft Museum, Cincinnati). When seen together, husband and wife seem to respond to each other, making these among Rembrandt‘s most inventive compositions of the early 1630s. Rembrandt‘s early experience as a painter of dramatic history scenes and his close study of physiognomy and character during the time he spent in Leiden prepared him to be the most original and successful portraitist in Amsterdam, where he arrived in the winter of 163132. (MET)