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Follow the few thick strokes of the reed pen that outline her legs and the stool, then the broad brown washes of the room behind her.
Rembrandt valued honest looking and sure line over the idealized nudes of classical art, and only four drawings of the female nude are firmly given to him. This late study of about 1660 to 1662 combines the blunt reed pen of his last years with a brush. The pen sets down the solid body while the brush washes in the shadowy room, and her lowered head gives her a quiet, inward presence.
Pen and brown ink and brush and brown wash, with subtractive highlights (scraping) and touches of opaque white watercolor corrections, on ivory laid paper, laid down on cream laid card · Primary/secondary supports: 21.2 × 17.5 cm · Art Institute of Chicago · Dutch Golden Age
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Details and source
- Museum title
- Seated Female Nude
- Artist
- Rembrandt van Rijn
- Date
- 1660/62
- Medium
- Pen and brown ink and brush and brown wash, with subtractive highlights (scraping) and touches of opaque white watercolor corrections, on ivory laid paper, laid down on cream laid card
- Dimensions
- Primary/secondary supports: 21.2 × 17.5 cm (8 3/8 × 6 15/16 in.)
- Credit line
- Clarence Buckingham Collection
- Image license
- CC0 1.0 · Public domain
- Museum record
- Art Institute of Chicago
Artist’s life 1606–1669
View in the AtlasGaller’s rooms and hanging scale are imagined. The image is the museum’s original digital reproduction.