Christ aux bras croisés

By the late 1650s Rembrandt had lost almost everything. He was declared insolvent in 1656, and his Amsterdam house and his great collection were being sold off room by room. Around this time he painted a small group of studies of Christ's head, and this is one of them. Instead of the golden, idealized Saviour that centuries of painting had settled on, he worked from a living young man, most likely one of his Jewish neighbours in the district around his old house. What you get is a quiet, downward-looking face, arms folded, more thought than glory. The picture was bought for the collection here in Glens Falls in 1933, one of the first works its founders acquired.