Isaac de Jouderville

With Jacques Goudstikker, Amsterdam, 1924 (as Rembrandt);

With Bottenwieser, by 1927;

From whom acquired by an English private collection, Spring 1928 (according to an annotation in the 1924 Goudstikker exhibition catalogue);

Harold Harmsworth, 1st Viscount Rothermere (1868–1940);

By whose Executors sold ('By Order of the Executors of the late The Rt. Hon. Viscount Rothermere'), London, Christie's, 19 December 1941, lot 94, to Rumbold (as Rembrandt van Rijn);

Anonymous sale, London, Sotheby's, 16 February 1983, lot 27 (as circle of Rembrandt);

Anonymous sale, Amsterdam, Christie's, 10 November 1997, lot 140 (as Isaac de Jouderville).

W. Sumowski, Gemälde der Rembrandt Schüler, Landau 1983, vol. II, pp. 1434 and 1438, no. 950, reproduced (as Isaac de Jouderville);

W. Sumowski, Gemälde der Rembrandt Schüler, Landau 1983, vol. VI, p. 3618 (as Isaac de Jouderville);

J. Bruyn, 'Reviewed works: Gemälde der Rembrandt-Schüler by G. van den Eeckhout, I. de Joudreville and W. Sumowski', in Oud Holland, 101, no. 3, 1987, pp. 232 and 234 n. 61 (as by a Leiden follower of Gerrit Dou).

The Hague, Gallery Goudstikker, November 1924, no. 100 (as school of Rembrandt).

Isaac de Jouderville was one of Rembrandt's earliest pupils and was apprenticed to him from 1629 to 1631. After working in Leiden, he accompanied his teacher in 1631 to Amsterdam, where he was active until about 1636. Jouderville’s youthful apprenticeship in Leiden with Rembrandt coincided with that of Gerrit Dou’s, and the present composition can be closely compared to an early painting attributed to Dou in the Szépmüvészeti Múzeum, Budapest.¹ Although both works feature similarly composed scenes and still-lifes, the figure of the man in the present example more closely aligns in pose and costume with Rembrandt’s Self Portrait in Oriental Costume, with a Poodle at his Feet of 1631 in the Musée du Petit Palais, Paris.² A similarly posed figure appears in Ferdinand Bol’s Portrait of a Young Man With a Sword of circa 1635-40 in the Dayton Art Institute.³

Since this painting last appeared on the market, it has undergone some restoration, and retouching is noticeable particularly in the face of the figure.

¹ Inv. no. 62.10, oil on oak panel, 66 x 51 cm.

² Inv. no. 925, oil on panel, 66.5 x 52 cm.

³ Inv. no. 1962.18, oil on canvas, 205.7 x 130.8 cm.