El hombre del sombrero rojo

By 1660 Rembrandt had lost his house, his collection and most of his furniture to his creditors. That December his partner Hendrickje and his son Titus registered as art dealers with him formally on their payroll, so that what he earned could not be seized. The painting of these years is loose and thickly worked, and this head in a red cap sits inside the long argument about where that handling ends and a pupil's begins. The museum moved it out of Rembrandt's own work in 1988 on grounds of style, and the name most often put forward since is Aert de Gelder, the last of his pupils, who went on painting in the master's late manner long after it was out of fashion. Other specialists still give it to Rembrandt. Paint samples have turned up a quartz ground and cobalt glass in the dark layers, two habits of that workshop, and the newest technical examination has yet to be published.