Grounds in Rembrandt’s workshop and in the paintings by

his contemporaries

Karin Groen

Netherlands Institute for Cultural Heritage

Rembrandt Research Project

‘Self-portrait’ Stuttgart

Research Kühn 1962 to 1965

• 48 painting attributed to Rembrandt

• 10 shop works or contemporary copies

• 38 other Dutch painters from the 17th to 19th century

• By 1965, the grounds of 122 paintings on canvas and panel from various periods ascribed to Rembrandt had been examined.

‘Self-portrait’ Stuttgart

the Night Watch

Cross-sections made in 1975

Bulletin van het Rijksmuseum, 1976

Thin sections of

the Night Watch

Incident and transmitted ligth

Incident and transmitted ligth

Transmitted, polarized light

Clay minerals 0,5-1 m

Kaolinite? Mica?

New sampling necessary for obtaining insight into the occurrence and distribution of the quartz ground!

Criteria for sampling: • Paintings by Rembrandt and those ascribed to him:

As many works on canvas as possible from Bredius (1935)

• Pictures by Amsterdam painters who had nothing to do with Rembrandt

Pictures made between 1640 (Night Watch)and 1669 (Rembrandt’s death)

Results

• 160 canvas paintings investigated• 125 of these made after 1640• 48 on a quartz ground: almost half of the

production• None of the 60 non-Rembrandt paintings

made in Amsterdam 1640-1669 has a quartz ground

• Canvasses with a quartz ground were used exclusively in Rembrandt’s workshop

• These canvasses must have been prepared in Rembrandt’s workshop

This find provides a strong supplementary criterion for attributing paintings:

Every Rembrandtesque painting on a quartz ground derives from Rembrandt’s studio !!

Rembrandtesque ‘Self-portraits’

Staatsgalerie Stuttgart c.1659

Corpus IV17

Fogg Art Museum Cambridge Mass. c.1660

Corpus IV22

National Gallery of Victoria Melbourne c.1660

Corpus IV21

What could have been the reason for Rembrandt using quartz grounds?

Quartz ground is clay with a high proportion of ground up sand

River clay as used by potters and for making bricks, recommended for priming canvases in written sources, abroad.

Clay for bricks and pottery under the microscope

Old sea clay, Makkum

River clay, from quarry for bricks

River clay, from quarry for bricks, Bruggen, near border Germany

Clay along the Old Rhine

Bare ground (darkened) visible in the Night Watch

Br 236

Br 369

Br 390

Br 612

Br 410

Quartz grounds on canvases