Focus on this artwork and analyze the Subject.
The idealised, inscrutable character has encouraged various theories about its subject, if the picture is a portrait. Candidates have included Marcjan Aleksander Ogiński from the Polish-Lithuanian Ogiński family, as asserted by the 18th-century owners of the painting; and Jonasz Szlichtyng, Polish Protestant theologian. Others believe that the outfit of the rider, the weapons and even the breed of horse are all Polish. Dutch equestrian portraits were infrequent in the 17th century and traditionally showed a fashionably dressed rider on a well-bred, spirited horse, as in Rembrandt's Frederick Rihel.
Historical characters have also been suggested, ranging from Old Testament David to the Prodigal Son and the Mongolian warrior Tamerlane, or the Dutch medieval hero, Gijsbrecht IV of Amstel.  A “soldier of Christ”, an idealistic representation of a mounted soldier defending Eastern Europe against the Turks, or simply a foreign soldier have been suggested. The young rider appears to many people to face nameless danger in a bare mountainous landscape that contains a mysterious building, dark water and in the distance evidence of a fire.In a 1793 letter to King Stanislaus Augustus of the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth, the painting's owner Michał Kazimierz Ogiński identified the rider as "a Cossack on horseback", and the king recognized the subject as a member of the irregular military unit known as Lisowczyk. In 1883, Wilhelm Bode, an expert in Dutch painting, described the rider as a Polish magnate in the national costume. In 1944, the American Rembrandt scholar Julius S. Held contested the claim that the subject was Polish and suggested the rider's costume could be Hungarian. Two Polish scholars suggested in 1912 that the model for the portrait was Rembrandt's son Titus.
Old Testament David Prodigal Son Mongol Titus Dutch Lisowczyk Polish-Lithuanian Hungarian Michał Kazimierz Ogiński Rembrandt David Jonasz Szlichtyng Gijsbrecht IV of Amstel Tamerlane Turks Julius S. Held Cossack King Stanislaus Augustus Marcjan Aleksander Ogiński Ogiński family Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth