Homem em traje oriental

In 1639 Amsterdam was the richest port in Europe, and its harbours brought in more than spices. Persian silks, Ottoman turbans and fur-trimmed robes turned up in the studios of painters like Rembrandt, who kept a cabinet of such things to dress his models. This old man in his white turban and jewelled clasp is one of those figures, not a portrait of anyone who commissioned him, but an imagined head, a study in costume and character. Who he is has never been settled. He was long called a rabbi, then, because of the mottled patches on his skin, identified as King Uzziah of Judah, the ruler the Bible says was struck with leprosy for overstepping into the temple. Painters in the century that followed could not leave the image alone. Nearly 40 copies and variants of it were made, some as late as the 1900s.