Rembrandt’s Mother Seated at a Table

Unknown artist

c. 1631

ets

Rijksmuseum

An elderly woman with a head covering and fur shawl sits in a chair, looking to the right. Her hands are clasped in her lap. Rembrandt’s mother most certainly modelled here, yet not for the usual facial studies, but rather for larger, tronie-like interpretations. At left, she sits like an ‘oude Persiaanse vrou’ (old Persian woman) in an imaginary, Oriental-looking headdress. At right, she wears a mid-16th-century shirt, so contemporaries would immediately have understood that she was garbed ‘op zijn antieks’ (à l’antique).