Focus on this artwork and explore the Companion painting: Philosopher with an Open Book.
The explanation for the long-standing misinterpretation of the Philosopher in Meditation lies in the fact that, in the second half of the 18th century, it was sold and collected together with a panel of identical size (28 x 33.5 cm) that presented similar motifs—in particular a spiral staircase—and was also attributed to Rembrandt. The paintings were exhibited together and titled interchangeably Philosophe en méditation and Philosophe en contemplation, or referred to simply as the Philosophes. The companion painting shows an old man in a vaulted interior seated in front of a table at a window on which we can see books, a globe, and a crucifix. These accessories and his solitary condition make him a more plausible candidate for philosophical pursuits than the old man in the so-called Philosopher in Meditation, who occupies a space shared by at least one other person, and maybe even two. In spite of the obvious differences in the composition and execution, its attribution to Rembrandt was never called into question. The exception is the American art historian John C. Van Dyke, who whittled Rembrandt's oeuvre down to less than fifty paintings and made short shrift of the Louvre's Philosophers: "Small pictures over which, in the past, there has been much spilling of good printer's ink with no marked results. The pictures are not wonderful...". With that, he attributed the paintings to Salomon Koninck, though one, today's Rembrandt, only tentatively. In 1955, examinations with X-rays and infrared photography at the laboratory of the Louvre revealed notable differences in treatment and caused the attribution to Rembrandt finally to be dropped.Jacques Foucart (1982), Curator for Dutch and Fleming Painting at the Louvre, like Horst Gerson (1968) and Werner Sumowski (1983), attributes this work to Salomon Koninck (1609–1656), a Rembrandt imitator, dating it to around 1645 and titling it Philosopher with an Open Book. The subject matter and details of the Koninck picture seem to have been directly inspired by a Rembrandt etching dated 1642 that represents St. Jerome in a dark chamber (Bartsch 105), which is the only other known work by Rembrandt that features a complete helical staircase. The traditional iconography of the Doctors of the Church and St. Jerome provided the attributes for 17th-century representations of scholars in their study, which included books, a globe, and often a human skull. The identical format might well be a product of chance (standard supply) and it was long believed that the "pendant" had been enlarged by 2 cm at the top, but an examination of the panel by Clarke and Foucart in 1988 revealed that it was of one piece. Any further speculation on the relationship between the two paintings must take into account manuscript notes from around 1750 written by their first French owner, the marquis de Voyer d'Argenson, who states that the two pictures were brought together "by chance." The provenance of the former companion piece previous to the late 1740s remains unknown: a wax seal on the back has not yet been identified.
Bartsch Louvre Rembrandt John C. Van Dyke Salomon Koninck