Focus on this artwork and discuss the Documentation.
This painting was documented by Hofstede de Groot in 1915, who wrote:261. AN ELDERLY MAN WITH A GILT HELMET. B.-HdG. 356. He is turned a little to the right; his eyes are cast down. He wears a dark coat with purplish-red sleeves. On his head is a richly wrought gilt helmet with ear-pieces and a plume of short white and red feathers. Dark background. Strong light falls from the left at top on tin helmet and, touching the face as it passes, on the breast. Life size, half-length. The sitter is identified as Rembrandt's brother Adriaen. But as Adriaen was a poor shoemaker in Leyden while Rembrandt lived in Amsterdam, and as moreover Adriaen van Rijn died in 1652 while this model occurs in pictures of the year 1654, the identification is not very probable. Painted about 1650. See the notes to 384 and 442; cf. 420, 423.
Canvas, 26 1/2 inches by 20 1/2 inches.
Exhibited at Amsterdam, 1898, No. 75.
Mentioned by Bode, Oud Holland, 1891, p. 4; by Dr. Laban, Zeitschrift für bildende Kunst, 1898, pp. 73, etc.
Acquired from the De Boccard collection, Fribourg, Switzerland, by the London dealers P. and D. Colnaghi; bought from them in 1897 by the Kaiser Friedrich Museumverein, Berlin, and since exhibited--
In the Kaiser Friedrich Museum, Berlin, 1911 catalogue, No. 811A.
Hofstede de Groot Berlin Bode Rembrandt