Sheet with Two Studies: A Tree and the Upper Part of a Head of Rembrandt Wearing a Velvet Cap

Rembrandt (Rembrandt van Rijn)

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

At first glance, this image looks like a small man contemplating a large tree with a mysterious dark pattern to its right. When the print is viewed sideways, it becomes clear that this area is actually the beginning of a self-portrait that Rembrandt never finished. The combination of fragmentary elements on this sheet reveals how spontaneous Rembrandt's prints could be. He moved from studying how light plays across his velvet cap and eyes, to the structure of the tree, and finished by experimenting with hatched lines in the space beside the tree and across its trunk. Significantly, the cap studied here is worn by Rembrandt in many of his self-portraits, including the Museum's painted version of 1660.

Drawings and Prints

An exhibit at Metropolitan Museum of Art

The Department’s vast collection of works on paper comprises approximately 21,000 drawings, 1.2 million prints, and 12,000 illustrated books created in Europe and the Americas from about 1400 to the present day. Since its foundation in 1916, the Department has been committed to collecting a wide range of works on paper, which includes both pieces that are incredibly rare and lauded for their aesthetic appeal, as well as material that is more popular, functional, and ephemeral. The broad scope of the department’s collecting encourages questions of connoisseurship as well as those pertaining to function and context, and demonstrates the vital role that prints, drawings, and illustrated books have played throughout history.

Metropolitan Museum of Art