基督头像

Around 1650 in Amsterdam, someone in Rembrandt's circle did something unusual with the face of Christ. Instead of the fair, idealised figure of tradition, this head was painted from a living model, most likely a young man from the city's Jewish quarter, not far from Rembrandt's own house. The point was to show Christ as a Jewish man of his own time might really have looked, the head turned slightly down and lit softly, with no halo and no gold. Rembrandt kept several such heads; the inventory of his belongings drawn up in 1656 lists one done from life. Whether this panel is from his own hand or a gifted pupil's has never been settled, which is why it hangs here under no firm name.