France: Rembrandt and Botticini at the Musée Jacquemart-André

The show Rembrandt intime [Rembrandt behind the scenes] at the Musée Jacquemart-André in Paris features approximately twenty paintings and thirty drawings of the17th-century master of Dutch art. Rembrandt van Rijn (1606 – 1669) dominated his era in three domains: painting, engraving, and drawing. He experimented ceaselessly with different techniques to transmit his vision of man and the world around him.

Supper at Emmaus, Rembrandt (1629).

To the three works of Rembrandt that Edouard André and his wife Nélie née Jacquemart had acquired—the Pilgrims of Emmaus (1629), the Portrait de la princesse Amélie de Solms (1632), and the Portrait du Docteur Arnold Tholinx (1656)—have been added works lent, exceptionally, from the New York Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Hermitage Museum of St. Petersburg, the National Gallery of London, the Rijksmuseum of Amsterdam, the Louvre, and the Kunsthistoriches Museum of Vienna.

Each of these three works illustrates a different and fundamental period in Rembrandt’s creativity: his beginnings in Leyden, his first years of brilliant success in Amsterdam and his years of artistic maturity. The exhibitors wished to set these paintings among other contemporary works of the artist—paintings, engravings, drawings—to retrace his artistic development.

The museum is also displaying once again the painting of The Virgin with the body of Christ at the foot of the Cross by Francesco Botticini (1446 – 1497), kept in the Florentine room and sent for restoration since July 2015. The painting was acquired in 1887 by Edouard and Nélie André on a trip to Florence to complete their collection of Italian paintings. The Pieta of Botticini is a masterpiece of the Florentine Quattrocento, a large (196 x 156 cm) altarpiece painted in oil on wood panels.

Rembrandt intime, on display until January 23, 2017.

Musée Jacquemart-André, 158 boulevard Haussmann, 75008 Paris. Open every day from 10 am to 6 pm, and Monday evening until 8:30 pm. Regular entry: 13.5 €
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(Source: Musée Jacquemart-André – DICI no. 345, November dated 25 2016)