Chasing Rembrandt Through New York City.

My quest to see every Rembrandt still in existence, takes me to The Big Apple - New York, where there’s more to see than 17th century masterpieces.

A Portrait of Rembrandt on the facade of The Met, one of six, depicting the artists Bramante, Michelangelo, Raphael, Dṻrer, Velázquez and Rembrandt.

Enjoying the famous ‘street meat’ outside The MET, at 1000 Fifth Avenue.

To celebrate Mira’s birthday in August, we travelled to New York. I couldn’t miss an opportunity to visit some of Rembrandt’s most beloved paintings, and a lot of other incredible artwork along the way.

First stop, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, or just THE MET for short. Housing over 2 million artworks and artifacts, It’s the kind of place where time can slip away quickly as you are immersed in some of mankind’s greatest creative expressions.

We skipped the American Wing during this visit, including the full length Sargents, and went straight away to the European Painting on the 2nd floor, working our way down to the Robert Lehman Collection on the 1st and Ground Floor, where the Dutch masterpieces are exhibited, including - the Rembrandts.

Along the way, we found a unique exhibit called Tree & Serpent, featuring more than 125 objects from early buddhist art in India (200-400BCE). The ancient Indian artifacts are displayed in a dramatic setting, with religious relics from structures known as stupas. Original relics of the Buddha are at the heart of this exhibition, which culminates with the Buddha image itself.

There was another special exhibit going on for Van Gogh’s cypresses, which was not surprisingly, very popular. However, we weren’t in an impressionistic mood, so we opted to skip that as well. One must navigate The great MET with purpose, or risk getting side-tracked.

Below are 10 oil paintings that stood out for me at The MET’s European Collection:

Jules Bastien-Lepage - Joan of Arc (1879)

Bastien-Lepage, a native of Lorraine, depicts the moment when Saints Michael, Margaret, and Catherine appear to the peasant girl in her parents’ garden, rousing her to fight the English invaders in the Hundred Years War.

Van Gogh - Self-Portrait with Straw Hat (obverse: The Potato Peeler)

Van Gogh produced more than twenty self-portraits during his Parisian sojourn (1886–88). This picture, which shows the artist's awareness of Neo-Impressionist technique and color theory, is one of several that are painted on the reverse of an earlier peasant study.

Martin Rico y Ortega - On The Seine (1869)

In 1862, having been awarded a prize by Madrid’s Royal Academy of Fine Arts, Rico traveled to Paris to develop his talent for landscape painting.

John Singer Sargent - A Male Model Standing before a Stove (ca. 1875-1880)

An early Sargent oil painting, this may have been executed while studying as a student in the atelier of Carolus-Duran.

Adrien Dauzats - The Great Pyramid, Giza (1830 or later)

Dauzats traveled to Egypt with a French diplomatic mission in 1830 and painted this striking view of the Great Pyramid soon after he returned to Paris.

Xavier Mellery - Les Portes (1900)

Mellery created a visual and spatial conundrum for the viewer: do we see two doors opening in opposite directions, or a mirrored reflection? Small discrepancies, such as the partially raised blind on the door in the foreground, suggest an answer. 

Gustav Klimt - Mada Primavesi (1912-1913)

Mäda Primavesi’s expression and posture convey a remarkable degree of confidence for a nine-year-old girl, even one who was, by her own account, willful and a tomboy.

Henri Matisee - Odalisque with Gray Trousers (1927)

Notwithstanding their kinship with earlier works by Ingres and Delacroix, the harem pictures Matisse made in Nice, such as this odalisque of 1927, had a more practical basis. As Matisse explained: "I paint odalisques in order to paint the nude. Otherwise, how is the nude to be painted without being artificial? But also, I know they exist. I was in Morocco. I saw them."

Claude Monet - Rouen Cathedral: The Portal (Sunlight) (1894)

Monet painted more than thirty views of Rouen Cathedral in 1892–93. Moving from one canvas to another as each day progressed, he painted the facade with highly textured brushstrokes that convey the aspect of sculpted stone and make the atmosphere and light palpable. 

Pablo Picasso - Reading at a Table (1934)

In this painting of his lover Marie-Thérèse Walter reading a book, Picasso returns to a favored subject: a woman seated alone.

Finally, we made it to “In Praise of Painting - Dutch Masterpieces at The Met”, where I spent quite a bit of time admiring paintings by Johannes Vermeer, Frans Hals, Pieter Claesz, Jan Van Goyen, Pieter de Hooch, Jan Steen and of course Rembrandt van Rijn. This exhibition brings together some of the Museum's greatest paintings to present this remarkable chapter of art history in a new light. Through sixty-seven works of art organized thematically, the exhibit orients visitors to key issues in 17th century Dutch life and culture.

Rembrandt - The Standard Bearer (1654)

The flag, the plume in the hat, and the tooled leather baldric (sword-belt) indicate that the figure is an ensign in one of Amsterdam's civic guard companies. He is almost certainly Floris Soop, a wealthy bachelor whose estate included 140 paintings. Rembrandt conveys a strong sense of character and reveals extraordinary skill in the vigorously modeled face, the thick hair, and costume details. The impressions of volume in the figure and space in the background have been diminished by abrasion and darkening with age.

Rembrandt - Hendrickje Stoffels (mid 1650s)

Hendrickje Stoffels, the daughter of a soldier, worked as Rembrandt’s housekeeper, eventually becoming his common-law wife and mother of his daughter, Cornelia. While no formal portraits of Stoffels survive, she is believed to have modeled for a number of Rembrandt’s paintings, including this work, perhaps intended as a generic image of a courtesan. The figure’s intimate gesture of holding her robe closed with one hand echoes the close observations Rembrandt made of the women in his household in many surviving drawings.

Rembrandt - Man In a Turban (1632)

Compared with Rembrandt's formal portraits of the same year, this picture is remarkable for its brilliant brushwork and dramatic illumination. He probably painted this work shortly after he moved from his native Leiden to Amsterdam, and intended it to appeal to the city's sophisticated collectors. Pictures of imaginary Persian or Ottoman princes were popular at the time, in part because of new trade contacts between the Dutch Republic and the Middle East, which brought international visitors to Amsterdam. However, the model for Rembrandt's painting may well have been a Dutchman who appears in other paintings by Rembrandt and by artists in his circle.

Rembrandt - Portrait of Gerard de Lairesse ( 1665-67)

Gerard de Lairesse (1641–1711) was, in his day, a well-known painter, etcher, and art theorist. He suffered from congenital syphilis, which caused him to go blind about 1690; he subsequently focused his energies on art theory. By the time this portrait was painted, in 1665, the ravaging effects of the disease were visible in his swollen features and bulbous nose. Recording his unfortunate appearance with an uncompromising directness, Rembrandt invested his subject with an air of quiet dignity. Although the sitter's theories on the ideal in painting were antithetical to Rembrandt's style, which Lairesse disparagingly likened to "liquid mud on the canvas," the portrayal is a sympathetic one.

Rembrandt - Herman Doomer (1640)

Herman Doomer was a successful cabinetmaker who worked with the imported ebony fashionable in seventeenth-century Amsterdam. The exceptional care Rembrandt took with this likeness may indicate his esteem for a fellow master artisan. At roughly the same time Rembrandt painted the portrait of Doomer and a companion piece of his wife (State Hermitage Museum, St. Petersburg), the couple’s son Lambert was an apprentice in the artist’s studio.

Rembrandt - Self-Portrait (1660)

Rembrandt was a dedicated self-portraitist all his life, and roughly forty self-portraits by him survive today. In this example, painted when Rembrandt was fifty-four, the artist was unsparing in depicting the signs of aging in his own face, building up the paint in high relief to convey his furrowed brow, the heavy pouches beneath his eyes, and his double chin. The recent removal of a synthetic varnish has revealed more of Rembrandt’s working method, showing for example how he flipped the brush to incise with its butt end the rough curls spilling out of his cap.

Pastrami Queen - 1125 Lexington Ave # 2, New York, NY 10075

We walked over to Pastrami Queen, where we got some seriously good smoked meat and a Dr. Brown soda.

We flagged a yellow taxi to Chelsea, so I could finally check out the famous Kremer Pigmente artist supply store on W 29th St.

This one-of-a-kind shop offers raw materials for artists and art conservation, historic and rare pigments, oils, mediums, brushes, tools, linen, books and much more. They have very friendly and knowledgeable staff, who helped me find a few things to bring back to the studio.

At Kremer Pigmente

The Tote Bag

The Pigment Haul

I purchased a 100g container of Cremnitz White (PW 1.77597), which is made of lead carbonate (PbCO3) and is basically another name for a particular type of lead white - much loved of the old masters, it does not include zinc oxide (as flake white does) and helps it to dry quickly.

The pigment is a warm yellowish white and it’s a particular version of pure lead white that gives it a stringy consistency. It's called Cremnitz White because originally it was made in a town called Cremnitz, located in modern day Czech Republic, formerly known as Kormeriz.

The pigments actual performance and drying time depends on the oil it is mixed with, so I also purchased 100ml bottle of refined walnut oil, which I will be using to grind with the Cremnitz white pigment. Walnut oil was used in the 15th and 16th century by artists such as Van Eyck and Da Vinci, with white and light coloured pigments, because its reputation is that it yellows slightly less than refined linseed oil.

I couldn’t resist picking up a few other essential pigments to try back in the studio, including a Bismuth Vanadate Yellow Light (PY 184.771740), Ultramarine Blue, Reddish (PB 29.77007), Cadmium Orange No. 2, Vermilion (PR 108.77202, 77196), Burnt Umber, Dark Brown (PBr 7) Along with my purchase, they gave me a cool Kremer branded tote bag that I carried with pride through the streets of NYC.

Cosme - 35 E 21st St, New York, NY 10010

We enjoyed dinner at Cosme, a cool and casual, modern Mexican restaurant by Chef Enrique Olvera of Pujol in Mexico City, who you may recognize from Season 2, Episode 3 of Chef’s Table on Netflix.

Our next stop was a short walk along Madison. The Frick Collection on Madison features masterpieces from the Renaissance to early 20th century, including 3 oil paintings by Rembrandt, 2 by Titian and a Velázquez. The collection was very impressive and I enjoyed the edited selection.

We weren’t allowed to take photos in the exhibit space, but we were able to sneak one blurry image in front of Rembrandt’s famous self-portrait from 1658.

Below are the 3 Rembrandt paintings being shown at the Madison exhibition. The Frick Collection owns at least 1 other Rembrandt painting - Portrait of a Young Artist, that was not on display, and a number of original etchings and drawings.

Rembrandt - The Polish Rider (ca. 1655)

This compelling picture has stimulated extensive discussion about its meaning and attribution. In the late 18th century, the painting was in the collection of Stanislaw August Poniatowski, the last King of Poland.

Rembrandt - Self-Portrait (1658)

Of the more than sixty self-portraits painted by Rembrandt, this vision of himself is one of the most moving and impressive for its combination of psychological penetration and monumental design.

Rembrandt - Portrait of Nicolaes Ruts (1631)

A merchant who traded with Russia is the subject of this superb early work, possibly Rembrandt’s first Amsterdam portrait commission.

During our last evening in New York, we enjoyed dinner at The Grill, a restaurant by Major Food Group with major mid-century vibes, set in the iconic Seagrams Building - 99 E 52nd St - the posh steakhouse was recently featured in season 4, episode 2 of the HBO series, Succession.

In the lower lobby area, there is a series of 6 Andy Warhol screen prints of some famous 1970’s socialites. I can’t name any of them, but it added another dimension to this quintessentially New York dining experience.

The Lower Lobby

Portraits by Warhol

Jerry Hall by Andy Warhol

Portrait of Willy Brand (1976)

Andy Warhol

Succession Scene