I was watching a programme on Rembrandt the other day.The voice over was talking about his mother and a picture flashed up of an old woman sitting sort of sideways,facing left reading a book.She was completly dressed in black and I think she had a white collar.I thought it was beautiful!!
When I went to look for it on google I typed in 'Rembrandts mother' but the only picture that came up was of an old woman,facing right,reading a book wearing a red/green outfit.
Does anybody know the name of the painting of the lady in black?
Clare - rembrandt seems to have painted and drawn his mother several times- I know the one of her in the red/green dress reading, sometimes known as 'Rembrandt's Mother as the Prophetess Hanna'. I can't find a picture of her reading in a black dress with white collar. Are you sure it wasn't the same picture badly reproduced with the colours not showing up so the dress looked black? If, as I suspect, you saw the same picture,the fact that the picture on TV showed her facing left and the other with her facing right is not surprising as you sometimes get this switching of sides when a painting is photographed. The other possibility is that you saw a portrait of another woman - he painted quite a lot, many of them in white ruffled or lace collars. I'll have a look through my books on rembrandt to see if there really are two portraits of his mother reading. I've just come back from Amsterdam, where I saw some paintings of his including several portraits of women young and old with those beautiful white collars- wonderful! One I specially liked was the portrait of Maria Trip with her lovely lace collar. If you find an answer to the mystery, let us know!
I understand what you mean but they were different. The one you know is lighter and has more in the background whereas the one Im looking for is mainly black and alot of the canvas is taken up with the subject,no background. I know pictures can be made bigger and smaller but they were definately different in composition.
Saw the painting of Maria Trip.Gorgeous outfit, I love historical clothes.
