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Tuesday, July 16, 2013

Rembrandt's Collars.

  • Undulating like ribbon candy - crisp and white - the collar of Nicolaes Ruts, 1631.
  • Portrait of a Scholar's collar:  The scholar's head rests upon a frou frou frilly wedding-cake-icing collar, piped from a pastry bag.
  • Martin Looten's 1632 broad, flat and white as a Pilgrim's collar.
  • Dr. Tulp - wearing a prim, Judge Judy collar - dissects the arm of a man (wearing only a loin drape) - while Tulp's scholars and peers peculiarly observe, wearing - predominantly - automotive air filter collars, although one man flaunts a frothy toothpaste collar.
  • Joris de Caullery (collar-y) wears a very punk or gothic-like studded metal - and perhaps black leather - collar, rock on.
  •  Maerten van Bilderbeecq is wearing the largest automotive air filter collar.
  • 1633, Rembrandt paints himself wearing a punk-y, chunky, goth vampire collar of draped black velvet edged in fierce gold chain.
  • Portrait of Saskia van Uylenburgh's grey collar as engraved and embossed as an ancient silver doubloon.

And then emerges a period of elaborate lace collars, which must have taken years of arduous embroidery / crochet / weaving and assembly - and nearly as long to reproduce in paint (unless, do you think RVR might have painted actual lace and created a print image of it by pressing the painted lace against the canvas?)

  • Oh, Maurits Huygens, I like your collar very much!  The perfect combination of Pilgrim / crochet and Hippie tassels going on - and may I say, you look pleased as punch to be wearing it.
  •   1633, Portrait of a Young Woman with a Fan, and a collar like a Queen Anne's Lace / Bishop's Lace / daucus carota flower.  And cuffs too!
  • Portrait of a Young Woman - is it the same collar and the same young woman?  It seems one would have to visit first the Metropolitan Museum of Art and the Museum of Fine Arts Houston for closer examination, but there are similarities - including a superb ribbon cockade belt.
  • Oh, Maerten Soolmans - you magnificent 1634 fancy pants - you are the fanciest of us all and to behold you is soothing salve for the eyes!  The Queen Anne's Lace collar, ribbon cockade, lacy jabots at the knee (!), clocked hosiery, and Queen Anne's Lace shoe ruffs.  Later, Gainsborough's The Blue Boy's top-notch finery might compare, but Rembrandt's Soolmans (with collar and stuff) is a sartorial must-see.
  • Ah, Maria Trip - you are Maerten Soolman's sartorial equivalent - with your organdy collar, edged in delicate lace at shoulder and wrist... with jewelry and a sword - and you are possibly the same Young Woman - with Fan and without, and belted in ribbon cockade.

Rembrandt's great collar climax seems to occur around 1639, with another automotive air filter and the organdy of Maria Trip.