Aristotele contempla il busto di Omero

In 1653 a wealthy Sicilian collector, Antonio Ruffo, wrote to Amsterdam asking Rembrandt for a philosopher, and left the choice of subject to him. What came back, shipped across the Mediterranean the next summer, was this. Aristotle stands in a pool of soft light, one hand resting on a marble bust of Homer, the blind poet who lived centuries before him. Around the philosopher's shoulders hangs a heavy gold chain, and on it a medallion showing Alexander the Great, the world-conqueror Aristotle had once tutored. So the picture quietly stacks up three kinds of greatness, the poet, the thinker, the ruler, and lets you wonder which of them the richly dressed Aristotle is really measuring himself against. Ruffo liked it enough to commission more from Rembrandt years later. The gold thread of the sleeve is built up in thick, worked paint you can almost feel.