Young Woman in Fantasy Costume

In June 1633 Rembrandt, then 27 and newly settled in Amsterdam, became engaged to Saskia van Uylenburgh, a cousin of the art dealer in whose house he lived and worked. Three days after the betrothal he drew her in silverpoint and noted on the sheet that she was 21. This panel carries the same year beside his signature, and for a long time it was catalogued as a portrait of Saskia. The Rijksmuseum now calls it a tronie, a head painted as a character rather than a likeness. The clothes are the clue. The veil, the gold-edged gown and the plume in her hair belong to no fashion of the 1630s. The face, with its high rounded forehead and firm chin, turns up again in the goddesses and heroines Rembrandt painted in those years, so Saskia may well have sat for it even if it was never meant as her portrait. The panel later belonged to the Earls of Elgin, was sold in 1926 through the dealer Joseph Duveen, and came to the Rijksmuseum by bequest in 1961.