Head of Christ

Rembrandt lived on the edge of Amsterdam's Jewish quarter, and around 1648 he did something almost no painter had dared. He painted Christ from a living model, a young Jewish man from his own neighbourhood. For centuries Christ had been shown as an idealised, often fair-haired figure. Here he is quiet, dark, and ordinary, a real face caught in soft light and looking slightly downward. An inventory of Rembrandt's house from 1656 lists a head of Christ done from life, which is why scholars think his neighbours sat for this and a small group of related studies. We do not know the young man's name. The paint stays thin and unfinished toward the edges, as if Rembrandt stopped the moment the face was there.