Old Man with a Gold Chain

Throughout his career, Rembrandt painted masterful studies of single figures, conveying character through dramatic costume and lighting. Here the craggy features of the old man, a model who appears frequently in Rembrandt’s early work, contrast poignantly with his worldly trappings: a gold chain, steel gorget, and plumed beret. The ambitious young artist conveyed a sense of arrested movement in this powerful figure, which was probably painted in 1631, just after he left his native Leiden to make his name in the thriving commercial center of Amsterdam.