Thomas Haaringh (Old Haaringh)

Rembrandt (Rembrandt van Rijn)

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

Late in his career, Rembrandt printed a handful of poignant portraits of friends and close contacts. Thomas Haaringh was concierge of the Amsterdam Town Hall, in which role he organized the forced sale of Rembrandt’s possessions that followed artist’s bankruptcy, between 1656 and 1658. The work is a masterful study of subtle light effects, which distinguish the folds in the curtain and in the sitter’s ample cloak. The artist rendered the world outside only as a faint shadow visible through the window, which glows with late-day light.

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