Rembrandt Harmensz. van Rijn's Portrait of a Girl Wearing a Gold-Trimmed Cloak is on temporary view at the J. Paul Getty Museum at the Getty Center. The work, which has not been on public view since the 1970s, is on loan from a private collection in New York.
The sitter, an unknown woman, is richly dressed in the fanciful costume Rembrandt favored for biblical and mythological paintings. He scratched in the thick, wet paint to create the pleats of the subject's white shirt, and rendered gold embroidery on her black gown with almost an abstract series of daubs. Light from the painting's upper left creates atmosphere behind the sitter and strongly illuminates one side of her rounded face, along with the strand of pearls in her hair and one of her large pearl earrings.
Portrait of a Girl Wearing a Gold-Trimmed Cloak inspired the facial types of many of Rembrandt's heroines in the early 1630s, including the princess and her attendant seen in profile in in The Abduction of Europa, which is part of the Museum's permanent collection.
Three other paintings by Rembrandt from the Getty Museum's permanent collection are also on view in the Getty Center's East Pavilion: An Old Man in Military Costume, Daniel and Cyrus Before the Idol Bel, and Saint Bartholomew. Joining them through March 2010 are Rembrandt's Portrait of a Rabbi from a New York private collection and Saint Bavo from Göteborgs konstmuseum, Sweden.
Portrait of a Girl Wearing a Gold-Trimmed Cloak, Rembrandt Harmensz. van Rijn, 1632
