“Rembrandt van Rijn (1606-1669) and Jan Lievens (1607-1674) share a home town, various acquaintances and patrons, and a cultural milieu of Amsterdam. The trajectories of their lives and careers converge at various points. Both were born in Leiden and trained by two foremost artists there, before studying with Pieter Lastman in Amsterdam. As young artists, they associated closely, and critiqued each other’s production in painting and etching. Dutch writers often considered them together, although eventually Rembrandts reputation eclipsed that of Lievens.”
So reads the beginning of an essay on Lievens and Rembrandt by Amy Golahny, due to appear in a next issue of the yearbook The Low Countries.
It is quoted here because Sotheby auctioned a work of Lievens in Londen on the 7th of July: A tronie: study of the head and shoulders of an old bearded man, wearing a cap (oil on oak panel, 58 by 47 cm). The painting was sold for 1,853,600 GBP.
Old age
Long considered to be by Rembrandt, and widely published as such, this picture was first identified as the work of Jan Lievens by Abraham Bredius in 1911. It dates from around 1629, when both Rembrandt and Lievens, together in Leiden, painted numerous such studies of old men and women, of which the subject can be said to be old age itself.
The fame of Lievens is raising ever since the National Gallery of Art in Washington and the Rembrandthuis in Amsterdam dedicated an exhibition to him in 2008: A Dutch Master Rediscovered.
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