Old man with a beard and beret

In September 1898 Amsterdam inaugurated an 18-year-old queen, Wilhelmina, and to mark it the city filled the Stedelijk Museum with more than 120 paintings by Rembrandt, The Night Watch among them, borrowed from collections across Europe. Number 121 in that catalogue was this old man. The entry calls him simply a grey-haired man in a black fur coat, a life-size bust, signed at the upper right Rembrandt f. 1667. He came from London, lent by the Earl of Northbrook, a former Viceroy of India. Two scholars on the organising committee, Abraham Bredius and Cornelis Hofstede de Groot, later listed the canvas in their catalogues of Rembrandt's paintings as his own work. The sitter has never been named. In the 20th century the picture belonged to Baron Heinrich Thyssen-Bornemisza, and it is still in a private collection.