20 January 2024 until 30 March 2025

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Rembrandts Four Senses – His First Paintings

For the first time together in Leiden

Museum De Lakenhal is celebrating its anniversary! In 2024, the museum will be 150 years old. We are celebrating that milestone with the presentation Rembrandt's Four Senses – His First Paintings. Rembrandt created this series of paintings, comprising his earliest known work, when he was around 18 years old and living in Leiden. In addition to the Spectacles Seller (Allegory of Sight) from our own collection, the presentation features three works from The Leiden Collection, New York: Stone Operation (Allegory of Touch), Three Musicians (Allegory of Hearing) and Unconscious Patient (Allegory of Smell). The four paintings will be on display in the museum till 30 March 2025.

Paragon of experiment

In this series, Rembrandt creates variations on a classical theme in the arts. Particularly since the 16th century, the senses tended to be personified in art by elegant female figures, accompanied by fixed attributes. Rembrandt, however, favoured a different approach by opting for everyday scenes with which anyone could identity.

Master in the making

The works do evince the emergence of precisely those qualities that in time would turn Rembrandt into such an innovative and celebrated painter: among others, his singular use of chiaroscuro, his bold brushwork, and his unique eye for interaction between everyday people through an uncanny ability to capture their typical, characteristic expressions.

For the first time together in Leiden

The reunion of Rembrandt’s Senses in the very city of their creation is a first, both for Leiden and for Museum De Lakenhal. They will be on display at the very heart of the permanent collection, surrounded by other works produced by the young Rembrandt, alongside several paintings by his friend and rival Jan Lievens as well as his star pupil Gerrit Dou.