{ "@context": "https://schema.org", "@type": "Dataset", "@id": "https://theplatemark.com/api/v1/dataset#dataset", "name": "The Plate Mark — complete public dataset", "description": "The complete research record for one impression of Rembrandt's 1638 etched self-portrait: the object record, every claim with its evidence, the census of located impressions, the open research questions, the provenance timeline including its gaps, the state atlas, the bibliography, the glossary and the changelog. One row per assertion, each with the source it came from.", "url": "https://theplatemark.com/api/v1/dataset", "version": "0.9", "datePublished": "2026-08-12", "license": "https://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/", "isAccessibleForFree": true, "creator": { "@type": "Organization", "@id": "https://theplatemark.com/#org", "name": "The Plate Mark", "url": "https://theplatemark.com" }, "dataset_version": "0.9", "dataset_date": "2026-08-12", "data_model_version": "1.0.0", "generated_note": "Assembled from dossier version 0.9, released 2026-08-12. This response carries no generation timestamp on purpose: the build is deterministic, so the same release always produces the same bytes and a checksum of this file is meaningful. To find out whether anything has changed, compare dataset_version, or read the changelog.", "licence": { "metadata": "CC0 1.0 Universal (Public Domain Dedication)", "spdx": "CC0-1.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/", "note": "Descriptive metadata and the census are dedicated to the public domain. Reuse them for anything, including commercially, without asking and without attribution — though a citation helps other people find the source. Written prose on the site is CC BY 4.0. Comparator photographs belong to the institutions that made them and carry the terms stated on each comparator record." }, "counts": { "claims": 18, "active_claims": 18, "evidence": 8, "census": 27, "census_institutions": 20, "questions": 12, "open_questions": 7, "provenance_events": 9, "provenance_gaps": 1, "bibliography": 13, "bibliography_verified": 3, "states": 4, "state_divisions": 5, "changelog": 1, "glossary": 28, "comparators": 8 }, "object": { "id": "np-rmb-001", "accession": "NP-RMB-001", "title": "Self-Portrait in a Velvet Cap with Plume", "title_alternates": [ "Self-portrait in a velvet cap with plume", "Self-portrait with plumed cap and lowered sabre", "Zelfportret met fluwelen baret en geveerde muts" ], "artist": "Rembrandt Harmenszoon van Rijn", "artist_dates": "1606–1669", "date": "1638", "medium": "Drypoint etching", "support": "Laid paper", "catalogue_references": [ { "system": "Bartsch", "number": "20", "note": "Verified against the catalogue entry for no. 170, which the project now holds in photographic form.", "confidence": "confirmed" }, { "system": "New Hollstein", "number": "170", "note": "Verified against the catalogue entry for no. 170, which the project now holds in photographic form.", "confidence": "confirmed" } ], "collection": "Private collection", "location_public": "Private collection, Dubai, United Arab Emirates", "summary": "One impression of Rembrandt's 1638 etched self-portrait, held in a private collection and published here as an open research record. It was bought at auction in New York in 2023 and is catalogued as New Hollstein 170, state III of IV — a state the catalogue describes as rebitten and reworked by a hand that was not Rembrandt's. It has still not been examined by a conservator or by a specialist in Old Master prints. This page states what is known, what is reported, and what is unknown, and marks each with its evidence.", "identifiers": [ { "scheme": "ULAN", "id": "500011051", "url": "http://vocab.getty.edu/ulan/500011051", "label": "Rembrandt van Rijn", "applies_to": "artist", "verified": true }, { "scheme": "Wikidata", "id": "Q5598", "url": "http://www.wikidata.org/entity/Q5598", "label": "Rembrandt van Rijn", "applies_to": "artist", "verified": true }, { "scheme": "RKDartists", "id": "66219", "url": "https://data.rkd.nl/artists/66219", "label": "Rembrandt van Rijn", "applies_to": "artist", "verified": true }, { "scheme": "LCNAF", "id": "n79142935", "url": "https://id.loc.gov/authorities/names/n79142935", "label": "Rembrandt Harmenszoon van Rijn, 1606–1669", "applies_to": "artist", "verified": true }, { "scheme": "ISNI", "id": "0000000121363802", "url": "https://isni.org/isni/0000000121363802", "label": "Rembrandt van Rijn", "applies_to": "artist", "verified": false }, { "scheme": "GND", "id": "11859964X", "url": "https://d-nb.info/gnd/11859964X", "label": "Rembrandt van Rijn", "applies_to": "artist", "verified": false }, { "scheme": "Wikidata", "id": "Q65024742", "url": "http://www.wikidata.org/entity/Q65024742", "label": "Self-Portrait in a Velvet Cap with Plume", "applies_to": "work_concept", "verified": true }, { "scheme": "AAT", "id": "300041365", "url": "http://vocab.getty.edu/aat/300041365", "label": "etchings (prints) — the object type", "applies_to": "technique", "verified": true }, { "scheme": "AAT", "id": "300053241", "url": "http://vocab.getty.edu/aat/300053241", "label": "etching (printing process)", "applies_to": "technique", "verified": true }, { "scheme": "AAT", "id": "300053228", "url": "http://vocab.getty.edu/aat/300053228", "label": "drypoint (printing process)", "applies_to": "technique", "verified": true }, { "scheme": "AAT", "id": "300014184", "url": "http://vocab.getty.edu/aat/300014184", "label": "laid paper", "applies_to": "material", "verified": true }, { "scheme": "AAT", "id": "300124534", "url": "http://vocab.getty.edu/aat/300124534", "label": "self-portraits", "applies_to": "work_concept", "verified": true } ], "images": [ { "id": "IMG-RECTO", "view": "recto", "label": "Recto", "description": "Colour-managed recto photograph with scale and colour target, to be made under conservator supervision.", "src": null, "width": null, "height": null, "iiif_service": null, "creator": null, "date": null, "rights": "Not yet created", "rights_url": null, "master_checksum": null, "status": "pending_capture", "status_note": "Imaging is sequenced after conservator review of the current housing. The project does not publish a stand-in image of the sheet.", "exif_stripped": true }, { "id": "IMG-VERSO", "view": "verso", "label": "Verso", "description": "Full verso photograph under identical documentation discipline. Carries collector marks, inscriptions and mounting traces, if any are present.", "src": null, "width": null, "height": null, "iiif_service": null, "creator": null, "date": null, "rights": "Not yet created", "rights_url": null, "master_checksum": null, "status": "pending_capture", "status_note": "Verso imaging requires the sheet to be handled; it is scheduled with the conservator visit, not before.", "exif_stripped": true }, { "id": "IMG-TRANSMITTED", "view": "transmitted_light", "label": "Transmitted light", "description": "Transmitted-light capture to record chain lines, laid lines and any watermark fragment. This is the single image most likely to move the open questions forward.", "src": null, "width": null, "height": null, "iiif_service": null, "creator": null, "date": null, "rights": "Not yet created", "rights_url": null, "master_checksum": null, "status": "pending_capture", "status_note": "Only by a method a paper conservator approves in writing. See the conservation page for the methods under consideration and their risks.", "exif_stripped": true } ], "rights_metadata": "CC0 1.0 Universal", "rights_metadata_url": "https://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/", "rights_images": "No images of this impression have been published yet. When they are, the underlying work is in the public domain; the photographs will carry their own stated licence.", "first_published": "2026-08-12" }, "claims": [ { "id": "CL-ARTIST", "subject": "np-rmb-001", "category": "identification", "field": "Artist", "value": "Rembrandt Harmenszoon van Rijn (1606–1669)", "confidence": "strongly_supported", "evidence_ids": [ "EV-NH-170", "EV-LOT-182", "EV-ACQ-INVOICE" ], "stated_by": "Bonhams, as cataloguer, citing New Hollstein 170", "reviewed_by": null, "added": "2026-08-12", "last_verified": "2026-08-12", "supersedes": [], "status": "active", "what_would_change_it": "An examination by a specialist in Old Master prints concluding that the sheet is a later restrike from Rembrandt's plate, a reproduction after the composition, or a copy by another hand. Any of these would keep the composition and change the object.", "note": "The composition is securely Rembrandt's: the catalogue raisonné entry for no. 170 is in hand. What that does not settle is who did the work visible in this particular impression — see the state claim below, where the catalogue is explicit that the third state is not Rembrandt's work.", "evidence": [ { "id": "EV-NH-170", "tier": "institutional_record", "kind": "publication", "title": "New Hollstein Dutch & Flemish, Rembrandt, no. 170, pp. 31–32 and plates 84–87", "author": "Erik Hinterding and Jaco Rutgers", "date": "2013", "url": null, "excerpt": "Probably rebitten; many lines stronger and broader than in early impressions. Work on the cap strengthened, for instance, cross-hatching added at the base of the feather and along the brim of the cap above the eyes. … Not by Rembrandt.", "bibliography_id": "new-hollstein-rembrandt", "access": "on_request", "access_note": "The project holds photographs of the catalogue entry and its plates, supplied with the auction house's condition report. The volumes themselves are not held; a scholar wanting the entry should consult the published catalogue.", "rights": "Text quoted for scholarly purposes; copyright the publisher.", "added": "2026-08-12", "notes": "The standard catalogue entry for this plate, and the source this record spent its first day working without. It supplies the four state descriptions in the catalogue's own words, the impressions listed in each state, the watermark editions, the copperplate's provenance, and reproductions of each state — which is how the state III attribution for this sheet becomes checkable rather than merely asserted." }, { "id": "EV-LOT-182", "tier": "auction_catalogue", "kind": "catalogue_record", "title": "Bonhams, Fine Books and Manuscripts, sale 28358, lot 182, New York, 24 April – 4 May 2023", "author": "Bonhams & Butterfields Auctioneers Corp.", "date": "2023-05", "url": "https://www.bonhams.com/auction/28358/lot/182/rembrandt-self-portrait-in-a-velvet-cap-with-plume-van-rijn-rembrandt-harmenszoon-1606-1669-drypoint-etching-137-x-104-mm-unsigned-and-undated-but-1638-on-laid-paper/", "excerpt": "Drypoint etching, 137 x 104 mm, unsigned and undated (but 1638), on laid paper. Left margin roughly trimmed, some wrinkling, dampstaining to lower left corner, including part of image. Unmounted. Bartsch 20; New Hollstein 170, state III (of IV, without signature, diagonal scratch in plate at upper left only slightly visible).", "bibliography_id": null, "access": "public", "access_note": null, "rights": null, "added": "2026-08-12", "notes": "The catalogue entry the sheet was sold under, and the source of every phrase in the owner's working record. It is a cataloguer's determination made under time pressure rather than a scholarly one, and it is weighted accordingly — but it is specific, it names its diagnostic features, and it can now be checked against the catalogue it cites. Note that the page is publicly reachable at the URL above; the house's own site search does not return it, which is why an earlier search of this archive recorded a false negative." }, { "id": "EV-ACQ-INVOICE", "tier": "primary_document", "kind": "document", "title": "Bonhams payment receipt, 17 May 2023, transaction 1246701, sale 28358 lot 182", "author": "Bonhams & Butterfields Auctioneers Corp.", "date": "2023-05-17", "url": null, "excerpt": "REMBRANDT: SELF PORTRAIT IN A VELVET CAP WITH PLUME. VAN RIJN, REMBRANDT HARMENSZOON. 1606-1669. Drypoint etching, 137 x 104 mm, unsigned and undated (but 1638), on laid paper.", "bibliography_id": null, "access": "on_request", "access_note": "The receipt carries the buyer's name, address, contact details, client and payment numbers, and the sum paid. None of that is published or held in this database. The sale number, lot number and date have been transcribed from it into the record; a copy redacted to those fields can be supplied to a scholar or institution.", "rights": null, "added": "2026-08-12", "notes": "Transcribed 12 August 2026. It fixes the acquisition to a named sale and lot, which is what closed the search recorded under RQ-08." } ] }, { "id": "CL-TITLE", "subject": "np-rmb-001", "category": "identification", "field": "Title", "value": "Self-Portrait in a Velvet Cap with Plume", "confidence": "confirmed", "evidence_ids": [ "EV-NH-170" ], "stated_by": "New Hollstein 170", "reviewed_by": null, "added": "2026-08-12", "last_verified": "2026-08-12", "supersedes": [], "status": "active", "what_would_change_it": null, "note": "The title used by the catalogue raisonné, and by the Rijksmuseum, the Met, the National Gallery of Art and the Art Institute. The census still records each institution's own wording verbatim.", "evidence": [ { "id": "EV-NH-170", "tier": "institutional_record", "kind": "publication", "title": "New Hollstein Dutch & Flemish, Rembrandt, no. 170, pp. 31–32 and plates 84–87", "author": "Erik Hinterding and Jaco Rutgers", "date": "2013", "url": null, "excerpt": "Probably rebitten; many lines stronger and broader than in early impressions. Work on the cap strengthened, for instance, cross-hatching added at the base of the feather and along the brim of the cap above the eyes. … Not by Rembrandt.", "bibliography_id": "new-hollstein-rembrandt", "access": "on_request", "access_note": "The project holds photographs of the catalogue entry and its plates, supplied with the auction house's condition report. The volumes themselves are not held; a scholar wanting the entry should consult the published catalogue.", "rights": "Text quoted for scholarly purposes; copyright the publisher.", "added": "2026-08-12", "notes": "The standard catalogue entry for this plate, and the source this record spent its first day working without. It supplies the four state descriptions in the catalogue's own words, the impressions listed in each state, the watermark editions, the copperplate's provenance, and reproductions of each state — which is how the state III attribution for this sheet becomes checkable rather than merely asserted." } ] }, { "id": "CL-DATE", "subject": "np-rmb-001", "category": "identification", "field": "Date of the plate", "value": "1638", "confidence": "confirmed", "evidence_ids": [ "EV-NH-170" ], "stated_by": "New Hollstein 170", "reviewed_by": null, "added": "2026-08-12", "last_verified": "2026-08-12", "supersedes": [], "status": "active", "what_would_change_it": null, "note": "New Hollstein dates the plate 1638 and records it signed and dated in the plate, upper left: Rembrandt f 1638. This is the date Rembrandt worked the copper. It is not the date this sheet was printed, and the two are now known to be far apart.", "evidence": [ { "id": "EV-NH-170", "tier": "institutional_record", "kind": "publication", "title": "New Hollstein Dutch & Flemish, Rembrandt, no. 170, pp. 31–32 and plates 84–87", "author": "Erik Hinterding and Jaco Rutgers", "date": "2013", "url": null, "excerpt": "Probably rebitten; many lines stronger and broader than in early impressions. Work on the cap strengthened, for instance, cross-hatching added at the base of the feather and along the brim of the cap above the eyes. … Not by Rembrandt.", "bibliography_id": "new-hollstein-rembrandt", "access": "on_request", "access_note": "The project holds photographs of the catalogue entry and its plates, supplied with the auction house's condition report. The volumes themselves are not held; a scholar wanting the entry should consult the published catalogue.", "rights": "Text quoted for scholarly purposes; copyright the publisher.", "added": "2026-08-12", "notes": "The standard catalogue entry for this plate, and the source this record spent its first day working without. It supplies the four state descriptions in the catalogue's own words, the impressions listed in each state, the watermark editions, the copperplate's provenance, and reproductions of each state — which is how the state III attribution for this sheet becomes checkable rather than merely asserted." } ] }, { "id": "CL-PRINTING-DATE", "subject": "np-rmb-001", "category": "identification", "field": "Date of printing of this sheet", "value": "Unknown. Later than Rembrandt's lifetime only if the state III attribution holds", "confidence": "unknown", "evidence_ids": [ "EV-NH-170", "EV-LOT-182", "EV-NO-CONSERVATOR" ], "stated_by": null, "reviewed_by": null, "added": "2026-08-12", "last_verified": "2026-08-12", "supersedes": [], "status": "active", "what_would_change_it": "A specialist's state determination. If state II, the sheet is from the plate as Rembrandt left it. If state III, it is a later pull from a reworked plate.", "note": "No date is asserted. The catalogue establishes that the work visible in state III is not Rembrandt's, so an impression in that state was pulled after the plate had been reworked — but it does not establish that this sheet is in state III, and a conditional does not become a date. The copper plate's own descent, which is documented, bounds where a later impression could have been printed; that is on the provenance timeline.", "evidence": [ { "id": "EV-NH-170", "tier": "institutional_record", "kind": "publication", "title": "New Hollstein Dutch & Flemish, Rembrandt, no. 170, pp. 31–32 and plates 84–87", "author": "Erik Hinterding and Jaco Rutgers", "date": "2013", "url": null, "excerpt": "Probably rebitten; many lines stronger and broader than in early impressions. Work on the cap strengthened, for instance, cross-hatching added at the base of the feather and along the brim of the cap above the eyes. … Not by Rembrandt.", "bibliography_id": "new-hollstein-rembrandt", "access": "on_request", "access_note": "The project holds photographs of the catalogue entry and its plates, supplied with the auction house's condition report. The volumes themselves are not held; a scholar wanting the entry should consult the published catalogue.", "rights": "Text quoted for scholarly purposes; copyright the publisher.", "added": "2026-08-12", "notes": "The standard catalogue entry for this plate, and the source this record spent its first day working without. It supplies the four state descriptions in the catalogue's own words, the impressions listed in each state, the watermark editions, the copperplate's provenance, and reproductions of each state — which is how the state III attribution for this sheet becomes checkable rather than merely asserted." }, { "id": "EV-LOT-182", "tier": "auction_catalogue", "kind": "catalogue_record", "title": "Bonhams, Fine Books and Manuscripts, sale 28358, lot 182, New York, 24 April – 4 May 2023", "author": "Bonhams & Butterfields Auctioneers Corp.", "date": "2023-05", "url": "https://www.bonhams.com/auction/28358/lot/182/rembrandt-self-portrait-in-a-velvet-cap-with-plume-van-rijn-rembrandt-harmenszoon-1606-1669-drypoint-etching-137-x-104-mm-unsigned-and-undated-but-1638-on-laid-paper/", "excerpt": "Drypoint etching, 137 x 104 mm, unsigned and undated (but 1638), on laid paper. Left margin roughly trimmed, some wrinkling, dampstaining to lower left corner, including part of image. Unmounted. Bartsch 20; New Hollstein 170, state III (of IV, without signature, diagonal scratch in plate at upper left only slightly visible).", "bibliography_id": null, "access": "public", "access_note": null, "rights": null, "added": "2026-08-12", "notes": "The catalogue entry the sheet was sold under, and the source of every phrase in the owner's working record. It is a cataloguer's determination made under time pressure rather than a scholarly one, and it is weighted accordingly — but it is specific, it names its diagnostic features, and it can now be checked against the catalogue it cites. Note that the page is publicly reachable at the URL above; the house's own site search does not return it, which is why an earlier search of this archive recorded a false negative." }, { "id": "EV-NO-CONSERVATOR", "tier": "physical_observation", "kind": "opinion", "title": "No conservator examination has taken place", "author": null, "date": "2026-08-12", "url": null, "excerpt": null, "bibliography_id": null, "access": "public", "access_note": null, "rights": null, "added": "2026-08-12", "notes": "Recorded as an explicit negative so that the absence is visible rather than inferred from silence. No paper conservator has examined the sheet, and no technical imaging — transmitted light, raking light, ultraviolet, magnification — has been carried out. The auction house's condition photographs do not substitute for any of it." } ] }, { "id": "CL-CATREF-BARTSCH", "subject": "np-rmb-001", "category": "identification", "field": "Catalogue reference (Bartsch)", "value": "Bartsch 20", "confidence": "confirmed", "evidence_ids": [ "EV-NH-170", "EV-LOT-182" ], "stated_by": null, "reviewed_by": null, "added": "2026-08-12", "last_verified": "2026-08-12", "supersedes": [], "status": "active", "what_would_change_it": null, "note": "Confirmed against the catalogue's own concordance, which gives B. 20 alongside G. 25, M. 134, H. 156, Mz. 22, BB. 38-B and W-B. 20.", "evidence": [ { "id": "EV-NH-170", "tier": "institutional_record", "kind": "publication", "title": "New Hollstein Dutch & Flemish, Rembrandt, no. 170, pp. 31–32 and plates 84–87", "author": "Erik Hinterding and Jaco Rutgers", "date": "2013", "url": null, "excerpt": "Probably rebitten; many lines stronger and broader than in early impressions. Work on the cap strengthened, for instance, cross-hatching added at the base of the feather and along the brim of the cap above the eyes. … Not by Rembrandt.", "bibliography_id": "new-hollstein-rembrandt", "access": "on_request", "access_note": "The project holds photographs of the catalogue entry and its plates, supplied with the auction house's condition report. The volumes themselves are not held; a scholar wanting the entry should consult the published catalogue.", "rights": "Text quoted for scholarly purposes; copyright the publisher.", "added": "2026-08-12", "notes": "The standard catalogue entry for this plate, and the source this record spent its first day working without. It supplies the four state descriptions in the catalogue's own words, the impressions listed in each state, the watermark editions, the copperplate's provenance, and reproductions of each state — which is how the state III attribution for this sheet becomes checkable rather than merely asserted." }, { "id": "EV-LOT-182", "tier": "auction_catalogue", "kind": "catalogue_record", "title": "Bonhams, Fine Books and Manuscripts, sale 28358, lot 182, New York, 24 April – 4 May 2023", "author": "Bonhams & Butterfields Auctioneers Corp.", "date": "2023-05", "url": "https://www.bonhams.com/auction/28358/lot/182/rembrandt-self-portrait-in-a-velvet-cap-with-plume-van-rijn-rembrandt-harmenszoon-1606-1669-drypoint-etching-137-x-104-mm-unsigned-and-undated-but-1638-on-laid-paper/", "excerpt": "Drypoint etching, 137 x 104 mm, unsigned and undated (but 1638), on laid paper. Left margin roughly trimmed, some wrinkling, dampstaining to lower left corner, including part of image. Unmounted. Bartsch 20; New Hollstein 170, state III (of IV, without signature, diagonal scratch in plate at upper left only slightly visible).", "bibliography_id": null, "access": "public", "access_note": null, "rights": null, "added": "2026-08-12", "notes": "The catalogue entry the sheet was sold under, and the source of every phrase in the owner's working record. It is a cataloguer's determination made under time pressure rather than a scholarly one, and it is weighted accordingly — but it is specific, it names its diagnostic features, and it can now be checked against the catalogue it cites. Note that the page is publicly reachable at the URL above; the house's own site search does not return it, which is why an earlier search of this archive recorded a false negative." } ] }, { "id": "CL-CATREF-NH", "subject": "np-rmb-001", "category": "identification", "field": "Catalogue reference (New Hollstein)", "value": "New Hollstein 170", "confidence": "confirmed", "evidence_ids": [ "EV-NH-170", "EV-LOT-182" ], "stated_by": null, "reviewed_by": null, "added": "2026-08-12", "last_verified": "2026-08-12", "supersedes": [], "status": "active", "what_would_change_it": null, "note": "Verified against the catalogue entry itself, which the project now holds in photographic form.", "evidence": [ { "id": "EV-NH-170", "tier": "institutional_record", "kind": "publication", "title": "New Hollstein Dutch & Flemish, Rembrandt, no. 170, pp. 31–32 and plates 84–87", "author": "Erik Hinterding and Jaco Rutgers", "date": "2013", "url": null, "excerpt": "Probably rebitten; many lines stronger and broader than in early impressions. Work on the cap strengthened, for instance, cross-hatching added at the base of the feather and along the brim of the cap above the eyes. … Not by Rembrandt.", "bibliography_id": "new-hollstein-rembrandt", "access": "on_request", "access_note": "The project holds photographs of the catalogue entry and its plates, supplied with the auction house's condition report. The volumes themselves are not held; a scholar wanting the entry should consult the published catalogue.", "rights": "Text quoted for scholarly purposes; copyright the publisher.", "added": "2026-08-12", "notes": "The standard catalogue entry for this plate, and the source this record spent its first day working without. It supplies the four state descriptions in the catalogue's own words, the impressions listed in each state, the watermark editions, the copperplate's provenance, and reproductions of each state — which is how the state III attribution for this sheet becomes checkable rather than merely asserted." }, { "id": "EV-LOT-182", "tier": "auction_catalogue", "kind": "catalogue_record", "title": "Bonhams, Fine Books and Manuscripts, sale 28358, lot 182, New York, 24 April – 4 May 2023", "author": "Bonhams & Butterfields Auctioneers Corp.", "date": "2023-05", "url": "https://www.bonhams.com/auction/28358/lot/182/rembrandt-self-portrait-in-a-velvet-cap-with-plume-van-rijn-rembrandt-harmenszoon-1606-1669-drypoint-etching-137-x-104-mm-unsigned-and-undated-but-1638-on-laid-paper/", "excerpt": "Drypoint etching, 137 x 104 mm, unsigned and undated (but 1638), on laid paper. Left margin roughly trimmed, some wrinkling, dampstaining to lower left corner, including part of image. Unmounted. Bartsch 20; New Hollstein 170, state III (of IV, without signature, diagonal scratch in plate at upper left only slightly visible).", "bibliography_id": null, "access": "public", "access_note": null, "rights": null, "added": "2026-08-12", "notes": "The catalogue entry the sheet was sold under, and the source of every phrase in the owner's working record. It is a cataloguer's determination made under time pressure rather than a scholarly one, and it is weighted accordingly — but it is specific, it names its diagnostic features, and it can now be checked against the catalogue it cites. Note that the page is publicly reachable at the URL above; the house's own site search does not return it, which is why an earlier search of this archive recorded a false negative." } ] }, { "id": "CL-MEDIUM", "subject": "np-rmb-001", "category": "material_technique", "field": "Medium", "value": "Drypoint etching, on laid paper", "confidence": "strongly_supported", "evidence_ids": [ "EV-NH-170", "EV-LOT-182" ], "stated_by": "New Hollstein 170; Bonhams, as cataloguer", "reviewed_by": null, "added": "2026-08-12", "last_verified": "2026-08-12", "supersedes": [], "status": "active", "what_would_change_it": "Examination under magnification of this impression, to establish whether any drypoint burr survives in it — which is a different question from whether the plate carries drypoint work.", "note": "New Hollstein calls the plate an etching; the auction cataloguer calls this sheet a drypoint etching; the Rijksmuseum records its impressions as etching and drypoint. All three can be true of the same plate. Whether burr survives in this particular impression is untested, and in a late state it is unlikely.", "evidence": [ { "id": "EV-NH-170", "tier": "institutional_record", "kind": "publication", "title": "New Hollstein Dutch & Flemish, Rembrandt, no. 170, pp. 31–32 and plates 84–87", "author": "Erik Hinterding and Jaco Rutgers", "date": "2013", "url": null, "excerpt": "Probably rebitten; many lines stronger and broader than in early impressions. Work on the cap strengthened, for instance, cross-hatching added at the base of the feather and along the brim of the cap above the eyes. … Not by Rembrandt.", "bibliography_id": "new-hollstein-rembrandt", "access": "on_request", "access_note": "The project holds photographs of the catalogue entry and its plates, supplied with the auction house's condition report. The volumes themselves are not held; a scholar wanting the entry should consult the published catalogue.", "rights": "Text quoted for scholarly purposes; copyright the publisher.", "added": "2026-08-12", "notes": "The standard catalogue entry for this plate, and the source this record spent its first day working without. It supplies the four state descriptions in the catalogue's own words, the impressions listed in each state, the watermark editions, the copperplate's provenance, and reproductions of each state — which is how the state III attribution for this sheet becomes checkable rather than merely asserted." }, { "id": "EV-LOT-182", "tier": "auction_catalogue", "kind": "catalogue_record", "title": "Bonhams, Fine Books and Manuscripts, sale 28358, lot 182, New York, 24 April – 4 May 2023", "author": "Bonhams & Butterfields Auctioneers Corp.", "date": "2023-05", "url": "https://www.bonhams.com/auction/28358/lot/182/rembrandt-self-portrait-in-a-velvet-cap-with-plume-van-rijn-rembrandt-harmenszoon-1606-1669-drypoint-etching-137-x-104-mm-unsigned-and-undated-but-1638-on-laid-paper/", "excerpt": "Drypoint etching, 137 x 104 mm, unsigned and undated (but 1638), on laid paper. Left margin roughly trimmed, some wrinkling, dampstaining to lower left corner, including part of image. Unmounted. Bartsch 20; New Hollstein 170, state III (of IV, without signature, diagonal scratch in plate at upper left only slightly visible).", "bibliography_id": null, "access": "public", "access_note": null, "rights": null, "added": "2026-08-12", "notes": "The catalogue entry the sheet was sold under, and the source of every phrase in the owner's working record. It is a cataloguer's determination made under time pressure rather than a scholarly one, and it is weighted accordingly — but it is specific, it names its diagnostic features, and it can now be checked against the catalogue it cites. Note that the page is publicly reachable at the URL above; the house's own site search does not return it, which is why an earlier search of this archive recorded a false negative." } ] }, { "id": "CL-SUPPORT", "subject": "np-rmb-001", "category": "material_technique", "field": "Support", "value": "Laid paper", "confidence": "strongly_supported", "evidence_ids": [ "EV-NH-170", "EV-LOT-182" ], "stated_by": null, "reviewed_by": null, "added": "2026-08-12", "last_verified": "2026-08-12", "supersedes": [], "status": "active", "what_would_change_it": "Transmitted-light examination showing chain and laid lines, which would confirm laid paper and give measurable chain-line spacing.", "note": "Recorded as laid paper by both the catalogue and the auction cataloguer. Transmitted light would confirm it directly and would also give chain-line spacing, which no source supplies.", "evidence": [ { "id": "EV-NH-170", "tier": "institutional_record", "kind": "publication", "title": "New Hollstein Dutch & Flemish, Rembrandt, no. 170, pp. 31–32 and plates 84–87", "author": "Erik Hinterding and Jaco Rutgers", "date": "2013", "url": null, "excerpt": "Probably rebitten; many lines stronger and broader than in early impressions. Work on the cap strengthened, for instance, cross-hatching added at the base of the feather and along the brim of the cap above the eyes. … Not by Rembrandt.", "bibliography_id": "new-hollstein-rembrandt", "access": "on_request", "access_note": "The project holds photographs of the catalogue entry and its plates, supplied with the auction house's condition report. The volumes themselves are not held; a scholar wanting the entry should consult the published catalogue.", "rights": "Text quoted for scholarly purposes; copyright the publisher.", "added": "2026-08-12", "notes": "The standard catalogue entry for this plate, and the source this record spent its first day working without. It supplies the four state descriptions in the catalogue's own words, the impressions listed in each state, the watermark editions, the copperplate's provenance, and reproductions of each state — which is how the state III attribution for this sheet becomes checkable rather than merely asserted." }, { "id": "EV-LOT-182", "tier": "auction_catalogue", "kind": "catalogue_record", "title": "Bonhams, Fine Books and Manuscripts, sale 28358, lot 182, New York, 24 April – 4 May 2023", "author": "Bonhams & Butterfields Auctioneers Corp.", "date": "2023-05", "url": "https://www.bonhams.com/auction/28358/lot/182/rembrandt-self-portrait-in-a-velvet-cap-with-plume-van-rijn-rembrandt-harmenszoon-1606-1669-drypoint-etching-137-x-104-mm-unsigned-and-undated-but-1638-on-laid-paper/", "excerpt": "Drypoint etching, 137 x 104 mm, unsigned and undated (but 1638), on laid paper. Left margin roughly trimmed, some wrinkling, dampstaining to lower left corner, including part of image. Unmounted. Bartsch 20; New Hollstein 170, state III (of IV, without signature, diagonal scratch in plate at upper left only slightly visible).", "bibliography_id": null, "access": "public", "access_note": null, "rights": null, "added": "2026-08-12", "notes": "The catalogue entry the sheet was sold under, and the source of every phrase in the owner's working record. It is a cataloguer's determination made under time pressure rather than a scholarly one, and it is weighted accordingly — but it is specific, it names its diagnostic features, and it can now be checked against the catalogue it cites. Note that the page is publicly reachable at the URL above; the house's own site search does not return it, which is why an earlier search of this archive recorded a false negative." } ] }, { "id": "CL-WATERMARK", "subject": "np-rmb-001", "category": "material_technique", "field": "Watermark", "value": "Not examined; the catalogue records no watermarks for this state", "confidence": "unknown", "evidence_ids": [ "EV-NO-CONSERVATOR", "EV-NH-170" ], "stated_by": null, "reviewed_by": null, "added": "2026-08-12", "last_verified": "2026-08-12", "supersedes": [], "status": "active", "what_would_change_it": "Transmitted-light imaging of the sheet.", "note": "New Hollstein lists watermark editions for states I and II — Strasbourg lily, Arms of Bristol, Arms of Ravensburg, Basel crosier, Basilisk, Foolscap and variants — and lists none at all for states III and IV. So even a clear watermark here would have nothing in the catalogue to be matched against, and would be new information rather than a confirmation.", "evidence": [ { "id": "EV-NO-CONSERVATOR", "tier": "physical_observation", "kind": "opinion", "title": "No conservator examination has taken place", "author": null, "date": "2026-08-12", "url": null, "excerpt": null, "bibliography_id": null, "access": "public", "access_note": null, "rights": null, "added": "2026-08-12", "notes": "Recorded as an explicit negative so that the absence is visible rather than inferred from silence. No paper conservator has examined the sheet, and no technical imaging — transmitted light, raking light, ultraviolet, magnification — has been carried out. The auction house's condition photographs do not substitute for any of it." }, { "id": "EV-NH-170", "tier": "institutional_record", "kind": "publication", "title": "New Hollstein Dutch & Flemish, Rembrandt, no. 170, pp. 31–32 and plates 84–87", "author": "Erik Hinterding and Jaco Rutgers", "date": "2013", "url": null, "excerpt": "Probably rebitten; many lines stronger and broader than in early impressions. Work on the cap strengthened, for instance, cross-hatching added at the base of the feather and along the brim of the cap above the eyes. … Not by Rembrandt.", "bibliography_id": "new-hollstein-rembrandt", "access": "on_request", "access_note": "The project holds photographs of the catalogue entry and its plates, supplied with the auction house's condition report. The volumes themselves are not held; a scholar wanting the entry should consult the published catalogue.", "rights": "Text quoted for scholarly purposes; copyright the publisher.", "added": "2026-08-12", "notes": "The standard catalogue entry for this plate, and the source this record spent its first day working without. It supplies the four state descriptions in the catalogue's own words, the impressions listed in each state, the watermark editions, the copperplate's provenance, and reproductions of each state — which is how the state III attribution for this sheet becomes checkable rather than merely asserted." } ] }, { "id": "CL-STATE", "subject": "np-rmb-001", "category": "state", "field": "State", "value": "Catalogued by the auction house as New Hollstein 170, state III of IV; state II not excluded", "confidence": "possible", "evidence_ids": [ "EV-LOT-182", "EV-NH-170", "EV-CONDITION-PHOTOS" ], "stated_by": "Bonhams, as cataloguer, citing New Hollstein 170", "reviewed_by": null, "added": "2026-08-12", "last_verified": "2026-08-12", "supersedes": [], "status": "active", "what_would_change_it": "A specialist in Old Master prints examining the sheet against the catalogue's diagnostic features for states II and III — the cross-hatching at the base of the feather and along the brim of the cap, the curved lines on the forehead carried over the brim, the horizontal shading on the right ear.", "note": "The cataloguer's determination reads: “New Hollstein 170, state III (of IV, without signature, diagonal scratch in plate at upper left only slightly visible).” Two grounds are given and one of them does not discriminate: the catalogue's reproduction of state II does not show the signature clearly either, so an absent signature narrows the sheet to state II or III and no further. What remains is the scratch and the cataloguer's reading of the line-work, neither of which anyone else has checked. State II is the most numerous state of this plate and the only one White & Boon recognised; it has not been excluded. The record carries the house's determination, attributed to the house, at the confidence a single unreviewed reading supports.", "evidence": [ { "id": "EV-LOT-182", "tier": "auction_catalogue", "kind": "catalogue_record", "title": "Bonhams, Fine Books and Manuscripts, sale 28358, lot 182, New York, 24 April – 4 May 2023", "author": "Bonhams & Butterfields Auctioneers Corp.", "date": "2023-05", "url": "https://www.bonhams.com/auction/28358/lot/182/rembrandt-self-portrait-in-a-velvet-cap-with-plume-van-rijn-rembrandt-harmenszoon-1606-1669-drypoint-etching-137-x-104-mm-unsigned-and-undated-but-1638-on-laid-paper/", "excerpt": "Drypoint etching, 137 x 104 mm, unsigned and undated (but 1638), on laid paper. Left margin roughly trimmed, some wrinkling, dampstaining to lower left corner, including part of image. Unmounted. Bartsch 20; New Hollstein 170, state III (of IV, without signature, diagonal scratch in plate at upper left only slightly visible).", "bibliography_id": null, "access": "public", "access_note": null, "rights": null, "added": "2026-08-12", "notes": "The catalogue entry the sheet was sold under, and the source of every phrase in the owner's working record. It is a cataloguer's determination made under time pressure rather than a scholarly one, and it is weighted accordingly — but it is specific, it names its diagnostic features, and it can now be checked against the catalogue it cites. Note that the page is publicly reachable at the URL above; the house's own site search does not return it, which is why an earlier search of this archive recorded a false negative." }, { "id": "EV-NH-170", "tier": "institutional_record", "kind": "publication", "title": "New Hollstein Dutch & Flemish, Rembrandt, no. 170, pp. 31–32 and plates 84–87", "author": "Erik Hinterding and Jaco Rutgers", "date": "2013", "url": null, "excerpt": "Probably rebitten; many lines stronger and broader than in early impressions. Work on the cap strengthened, for instance, cross-hatching added at the base of the feather and along the brim of the cap above the eyes. … Not by Rembrandt.", "bibliography_id": "new-hollstein-rembrandt", "access": "on_request", "access_note": "The project holds photographs of the catalogue entry and its plates, supplied with the auction house's condition report. The volumes themselves are not held; a scholar wanting the entry should consult the published catalogue.", "rights": "Text quoted for scholarly purposes; copyright the publisher.", "added": "2026-08-12", "notes": "The standard catalogue entry for this plate, and the source this record spent its first day working without. It supplies the four state descriptions in the catalogue's own words, the impressions listed in each state, the watermark editions, the copperplate's provenance, and reproductions of each state — which is how the state III attribution for this sheet becomes checkable rather than merely asserted." }, { "id": "EV-CONDITION-PHOTOS", "tier": "auction_catalogue", "kind": "photograph", "title": "Condition-report photographs of the sheet, recto and verso, supplied by the auction house", "author": "Bonhams", "date": "2023-05-03", "url": null, "excerpt": null, "bibliography_id": null, "access": "on_request", "access_note": "Two photographs of the sheet, recto and verso, made by the auction house for a pre-sale condition request. They are the only images of this impression that exist. Their copyright position has not been established with the house, so they are not published here; they can be shown to a scholar or institution on request.", "rights": "Photographs by the auction house; rights position to be confirmed before publication.", "added": "2026-08-12", "notes": "These are not a conservator's documentation: they are hand-held photographs on a cloth ground, without a scale, a colour target or controlled lighting. They are nevertheless the first direct visual evidence of the sheet the project has held, and they settle several questions the record had open — most usefully that the verso carries no visible collector's mark or inscription." } ] }, { "id": "CL-DIMENSIONS", "subject": "np-rmb-001", "category": "dimensions", "field": "Dimensions", "value": "Sheet approximately 137 × 104 mm; plate 134 × 103 mm", "confidence": "probable", "evidence_ids": [ "EV-NH-170", "EV-LOT-182" ], "stated_by": null, "reviewed_by": null, "added": "2026-08-12", "last_verified": "2026-08-12", "supersedes": [], "status": "active", "what_would_change_it": "Remeasurement under a conservation protocol, recording plate mark and sheet separately and noting which edges retain a plate mark.", "note": "The apparent impossibility in the first version of this record — a trimmed sheet larger than the plate — was an artefact of comparing two different measurements. New Hollstein gives the plate as 13.4 × 10.3 cm. The auction cataloguer measured the sheet, at 137 × 104 mm. A sheet a few millimetres larger than the plate, trimmed hard on one edge and retaining a margin on the others, is exactly what the photographs show.", "evidence": [ { "id": "EV-NH-170", "tier": "institutional_record", "kind": "publication", "title": "New Hollstein Dutch & Flemish, Rembrandt, no. 170, pp. 31–32 and plates 84–87", "author": "Erik Hinterding and Jaco Rutgers", "date": "2013", "url": null, "excerpt": "Probably rebitten; many lines stronger and broader than in early impressions. Work on the cap strengthened, for instance, cross-hatching added at the base of the feather and along the brim of the cap above the eyes. … Not by Rembrandt.", "bibliography_id": "new-hollstein-rembrandt", "access": "on_request", "access_note": "The project holds photographs of the catalogue entry and its plates, supplied with the auction house's condition report. The volumes themselves are not held; a scholar wanting the entry should consult the published catalogue.", "rights": "Text quoted for scholarly purposes; copyright the publisher.", "added": "2026-08-12", "notes": "The standard catalogue entry for this plate, and the source this record spent its first day working without. It supplies the four state descriptions in the catalogue's own words, the impressions listed in each state, the watermark editions, the copperplate's provenance, and reproductions of each state — which is how the state III attribution for this sheet becomes checkable rather than merely asserted." }, { "id": "EV-LOT-182", "tier": "auction_catalogue", "kind": "catalogue_record", "title": "Bonhams, Fine Books and Manuscripts, sale 28358, lot 182, New York, 24 April – 4 May 2023", "author": "Bonhams & Butterfields Auctioneers Corp.", "date": "2023-05", "url": "https://www.bonhams.com/auction/28358/lot/182/rembrandt-self-portrait-in-a-velvet-cap-with-plume-van-rijn-rembrandt-harmenszoon-1606-1669-drypoint-etching-137-x-104-mm-unsigned-and-undated-but-1638-on-laid-paper/", "excerpt": "Drypoint etching, 137 x 104 mm, unsigned and undated (but 1638), on laid paper. Left margin roughly trimmed, some wrinkling, dampstaining to lower left corner, including part of image. Unmounted. Bartsch 20; New Hollstein 170, state III (of IV, without signature, diagonal scratch in plate at upper left only slightly visible).", "bibliography_id": null, "access": "public", "access_note": null, "rights": null, "added": "2026-08-12", "notes": "The catalogue entry the sheet was sold under, and the source of every phrase in the owner's working record. It is a cataloguer's determination made under time pressure rather than a scholarly one, and it is weighted accordingly — but it is specific, it names its diagnostic features, and it can now be checked against the catalogue it cites. Note that the page is publicly reachable at the URL above; the house's own site search does not return it, which is why an earlier search of this archive recorded a false negative." } ] }, { "id": "CL-CONDITION-SUMMARY", "subject": "np-rmb-001", "category": "condition", "field": "Condition summary", "value": "Trimmed at the left margin; wrinkling and dampstaining at lower left, extending partly into the image; unmounted at purchase", "confidence": "strongly_supported", "evidence_ids": [ "EV-LOT-182", "EV-CONDITION-PHOTOS" ], "stated_by": "Bonhams, as cataloguer", "reviewed_by": null, "added": "2026-08-12", "last_verified": "2026-08-12", "supersedes": [], "status": "active", "what_would_change_it": "A condition report by a paper conservator, which would replace this summary field by field and add severity, extent and stability assessments this record cannot make.", "note": "The catalogue's wording, verbatim: “Left margin roughly trimmed, some wrinkling, dampstaining to lower left corner, including part of image. Unmounted.” The photographs corroborate all four observations and add a diagonal tideline across the lower half of the sheet, visible from the verso. It remains a sale description rather than a conservator's report, and it will be superseded by one.", "evidence": [ { "id": "EV-LOT-182", "tier": "auction_catalogue", "kind": "catalogue_record", "title": "Bonhams, Fine Books and Manuscripts, sale 28358, lot 182, New York, 24 April – 4 May 2023", "author": "Bonhams & Butterfields Auctioneers Corp.", "date": "2023-05", "url": "https://www.bonhams.com/auction/28358/lot/182/rembrandt-self-portrait-in-a-velvet-cap-with-plume-van-rijn-rembrandt-harmenszoon-1606-1669-drypoint-etching-137-x-104-mm-unsigned-and-undated-but-1638-on-laid-paper/", "excerpt": "Drypoint etching, 137 x 104 mm, unsigned and undated (but 1638), on laid paper. Left margin roughly trimmed, some wrinkling, dampstaining to lower left corner, including part of image. Unmounted. Bartsch 20; New Hollstein 170, state III (of IV, without signature, diagonal scratch in plate at upper left only slightly visible).", "bibliography_id": null, "access": "public", "access_note": null, "rights": null, "added": "2026-08-12", "notes": "The catalogue entry the sheet was sold under, and the source of every phrase in the owner's working record. It is a cataloguer's determination made under time pressure rather than a scholarly one, and it is weighted accordingly — but it is specific, it names its diagnostic features, and it can now be checked against the catalogue it cites. Note that the page is publicly reachable at the URL above; the house's own site search does not return it, which is why an earlier search of this archive recorded a false negative." }, { "id": "EV-CONDITION-PHOTOS", "tier": "auction_catalogue", "kind": "photograph", "title": "Condition-report photographs of the sheet, recto and verso, supplied by the auction house", "author": "Bonhams", "date": "2023-05-03", "url": null, "excerpt": null, "bibliography_id": null, "access": "on_request", "access_note": "Two photographs of the sheet, recto and verso, made by the auction house for a pre-sale condition request. They are the only images of this impression that exist. Their copyright position has not been established with the house, so they are not published here; they can be shown to a scholar or institution on request.", "rights": "Photographs by the auction house; rights position to be confirmed before publication.", "added": "2026-08-12", "notes": "These are not a conservator's documentation: they are hand-held photographs on a cloth ground, without a scale, a colour target or controlled lighting. They are nevertheless the first direct visual evidence of the sheet the project has held, and they settle several questions the record had open — most usefully that the verso carries no visible collector's mark or inscription." } ] }, { "id": "CL-MARKS", "subject": "np-rmb-001", "category": "inscriptions_marks", "field": "Collector marks and inscriptions", "value": "No collector's mark, stamp or inscription visible on either side", "confidence": "probable", "evidence_ids": [ "EV-CONDITION-PHOTOS" ], "stated_by": null, "reviewed_by": null, "added": "2026-08-12", "last_verified": "2026-08-12", "supersedes": [], "status": "active", "what_would_change_it": "Examination under ultraviolet or raking light, which can reveal a faded stamp or an erased inscription that a hand-held photograph will not show.", "note": "The verso has now been seen. It is blank apart from a diagonal tideline and general handling marks — no stamp, no pencil annotation, no dealer's code, no mount or hinge remnant. That is a genuine negative finding and it closes the most likely route into the sheet's earlier ownership.", "evidence": [ { "id": "EV-CONDITION-PHOTOS", "tier": "auction_catalogue", "kind": "photograph", "title": "Condition-report photographs of the sheet, recto and verso, supplied by the auction house", "author": "Bonhams", "date": "2023-05-03", "url": null, "excerpt": null, "bibliography_id": null, "access": "on_request", "access_note": "Two photographs of the sheet, recto and verso, made by the auction house for a pre-sale condition request. They are the only images of this impression that exist. Their copyright position has not been established with the house, so they are not published here; they can be shown to a scholar or institution on request.", "rights": "Photographs by the auction house; rights position to be confirmed before publication.", "added": "2026-08-12", "notes": "These are not a conservator's documentation: they are hand-held photographs on a cloth ground, without a scale, a colour target or controlled lighting. They are nevertheless the first direct visual evidence of the sheet the project has held, and they settle several questions the record had open — most usefully that the verso carries no visible collector's mark or inscription." } ] }, { "id": "CL-ACQUISITION", "subject": "np-rmb-001", "category": "acquisition", "field": "Acquisition", "value": "Bonhams, Fine Books and Manuscripts, sale 28358, lot 182, New York, 24 April – 4 May 2023", "confidence": "confirmed", "evidence_ids": [ "EV-ACQ-INVOICE", "EV-LOT-182" ], "stated_by": "Owner", "reviewed_by": null, "added": "2026-08-12", "last_verified": "2026-08-12", "supersedes": [], "status": "active", "what_would_change_it": null, "note": "Transcribed from the payment receipt and confirmed against the published lot page. The sale was online only; the department's specialists were Ian Ehling, Darren Sutherland and Tim Tezer. The consignor is not named in the catalogue and is not known to the project.", "evidence": [ { "id": "EV-ACQ-INVOICE", "tier": "primary_document", "kind": "document", "title": "Bonhams payment receipt, 17 May 2023, transaction 1246701, sale 28358 lot 182", "author": "Bonhams & Butterfields Auctioneers Corp.", "date": "2023-05-17", "url": null, "excerpt": "REMBRANDT: SELF PORTRAIT IN A VELVET CAP WITH PLUME. VAN RIJN, REMBRANDT HARMENSZOON. 1606-1669. Drypoint etching, 137 x 104 mm, unsigned and undated (but 1638), on laid paper.", "bibliography_id": null, "access": "on_request", "access_note": "The receipt carries the buyer's name, address, contact details, client and payment numbers, and the sum paid. None of that is published or held in this database. The sale number, lot number and date have been transcribed from it into the record; a copy redacted to those fields can be supplied to a scholar or institution.", "rights": null, "added": "2026-08-12", "notes": "Transcribed 12 August 2026. It fixes the acquisition to a named sale and lot, which is what closed the search recorded under RQ-08." }, { "id": "EV-LOT-182", "tier": "auction_catalogue", "kind": "catalogue_record", "title": "Bonhams, Fine Books and Manuscripts, sale 28358, lot 182, New York, 24 April – 4 May 2023", "author": "Bonhams & Butterfields Auctioneers Corp.", "date": "2023-05", "url": "https://www.bonhams.com/auction/28358/lot/182/rembrandt-self-portrait-in-a-velvet-cap-with-plume-van-rijn-rembrandt-harmenszoon-1606-1669-drypoint-etching-137-x-104-mm-unsigned-and-undated-but-1638-on-laid-paper/", "excerpt": "Drypoint etching, 137 x 104 mm, unsigned and undated (but 1638), on laid paper. Left margin roughly trimmed, some wrinkling, dampstaining to lower left corner, including part of image. Unmounted. Bartsch 20; New Hollstein 170, state III (of IV, without signature, diagonal scratch in plate at upper left only slightly visible).", "bibliography_id": null, "access": "public", "access_note": null, "rights": null, "added": "2026-08-12", "notes": "The catalogue entry the sheet was sold under, and the source of every phrase in the owner's working record. It is a cataloguer's determination made under time pressure rather than a scholarly one, and it is weighted accordingly — but it is specific, it names its diagnostic features, and it can now be checked against the catalogue it cites. Note that the page is publicly reachable at the URL above; the house's own site search does not return it, which is why an earlier search of this archive recorded a false negative." } ] }, { "id": "CL-CUSTODY", "subject": "np-rmb-001", "category": "provenance", "field": "Current custody", "value": "Private collection, Dubai, United Arab Emirates", "confidence": "confirmed", "evidence_ids": [ "EV-ACQ-INVOICE" ], "stated_by": "Owner", "reviewed_by": null, "added": "2026-08-12", "last_verified": "2026-08-12", "supersedes": [], "status": "active", "what_would_change_it": null, "note": "Stated at city level by policy. Storage location, address, security arrangements and insurance values are not published and are not held in this database. See the security and privacy policy.", "evidence": [ { "id": "EV-ACQ-INVOICE", "tier": "primary_document", "kind": "document", "title": "Bonhams payment receipt, 17 May 2023, transaction 1246701, sale 28358 lot 182", "author": "Bonhams & Butterfields Auctioneers Corp.", "date": "2023-05-17", "url": null, "excerpt": "REMBRANDT: SELF PORTRAIT IN A VELVET CAP WITH PLUME. VAN RIJN, REMBRANDT HARMENSZOON. 1606-1669. Drypoint etching, 137 x 104 mm, unsigned and undated (but 1638), on laid paper.", "bibliography_id": null, "access": "on_request", "access_note": "The receipt carries the buyer's name, address, contact details, client and payment numbers, and the sum paid. None of that is published or held in this database. The sale number, lot number and date have been transcribed from it into the record; a copy redacted to those fields can be supplied to a scholar or institution.", "rights": null, "added": "2026-08-12", "notes": "Transcribed 12 August 2026. It fixes the acquisition to a named sale and lot, which is what closed the search recorded under RQ-08." } ] }, { "id": "CL-EARLIER-PROVENANCE", "subject": "np-rmb-001", "category": "provenance", "field": "Ownership before 2023", "value": "Private collection, Germany, consigned through a European antiquarian dealer; nothing documented before that", "confidence": "probable", "evidence_ids": [ "EV-BONHAMS-EMAIL" ], "stated_by": "Darren Sutherland, Senior Specialist, Bonhams", "reviewed_by": null, "added": "2026-08-12", "last_verified": "2026-08-12", "supersedes": [], "status": "active", "what_would_change_it": "The house or the dealer agreeing to name the collection, or a mark or document that places the sheet earlier.", "note": "The auction house's specialist named the consignment route in correspondence but declined to identify the collection. How long the sheet was in Germany, and where it was before, remain unknown. The verso carries no collector's mark to work back from.", "evidence": [ { "id": "EV-BONHAMS-EMAIL", "tier": "specialist_opinion", "kind": "correspondence", "title": "Correspondence with Darren Sutherland, Senior Specialist, Fine Books and Manuscripts, Bonhams, 23 May 2023", "author": "Darren Sutherland, Bonhams", "date": "2023-05-23", "url": null, "excerpt": "The work was consigned by a European antiquarian dealer, from a Private Collection in Germany.", "bibliography_id": null, "access": "on_request", "access_note": "Held by the owner. The substantive content — the consignment route and the catalogue description — is transcribed into this record.", "rights": null, "added": "2026-08-12", "notes": "The department specialist's own account of where the sheet came from, which the printed catalogue entry does not give. He also confirms what was supplied with the lot: the invoice, condition-report images, the catalogue description with references, and scans of the relevant New Hollstein pages. No certificate of authenticity and no independent expert opinion were provided, and none was claimed." } ] }, { "id": "CL-RIGHTS-METADATA", "subject": "np-rmb-001", "category": "rights", "field": "Metadata rights", "value": "CC0 1.0 Universal — no rights reserved over the descriptive metadata", "confidence": "confirmed", "evidence_ids": [ "EV-PROJECT-POLICY" ], "stated_by": "Project", "reviewed_by": null, "added": "2026-08-12", "last_verified": "2026-08-12", "supersedes": [], "status": "active", "what_would_change_it": null, "note": "Metadata is released without restriction so that it can be reused, aggregated and corrected by anyone. The written text of the site is CC BY 4.0.", "evidence": [ { "id": "EV-PROJECT-POLICY", "tier": "primary_document", "kind": "document", "title": "Rights and licensing policy of this project", "author": "The Plate Mark", "date": "2026-08-12", "url": "https://theplatemark.com/about/rights-and-licensing", "excerpt": null, "bibliography_id": null, "access": "public", "access_note": null, "rights": "CC BY 4.0", "added": "2026-08-12", "notes": "The project's own published statement of the terms it releases its material under. It is primary evidence for claims about licensing and for nothing else." } ] }, { "id": "CL-RIGHTS-IMAGES", "subject": "np-rmb-001", "category": "rights", "field": "Image rights", "value": "No image of this impression is published", "confidence": "confirmed", "evidence_ids": [ "EV-CONDITION-PHOTOS", "EV-PROJECT-POLICY" ], "stated_by": "Project", "reviewed_by": null, "added": "2026-08-12", "last_verified": "2026-08-12", "supersedes": [], "status": "active", "what_would_change_it": "Written confirmation from the auction house that its condition photographs may be published with credit, or documentary imaging of the sheet.", "note": "The underlying work is in the public domain. Photographs of this sheet do exist — the auction house made two for a condition report in 2023 and the project holds them — but their copyright is the house's, not the owner's, and it has not been established. They are therefore not published, and can be shown to a scholar or institution on request. No documentary imaging to a photographic standard has been made.", "evidence": [ { "id": "EV-CONDITION-PHOTOS", "tier": "auction_catalogue", "kind": "photograph", "title": "Condition-report photographs of the sheet, recto and verso, supplied by the auction house", "author": "Bonhams", "date": "2023-05-03", "url": null, "excerpt": null, "bibliography_id": null, "access": "on_request", "access_note": "Two photographs of the sheet, recto and verso, made by the auction house for a pre-sale condition request. They are the only images of this impression that exist. Their copyright position has not been established with the house, so they are not published here; they can be shown to a scholar or institution on request.", "rights": "Photographs by the auction house; rights position to be confirmed before publication.", "added": "2026-08-12", "notes": "These are not a conservator's documentation: they are hand-held photographs on a cloth ground, without a scale, a colour target or controlled lighting. They are nevertheless the first direct visual evidence of the sheet the project has held, and they settle several questions the record had open — most usefully that the verso carries no visible collector's mark or inscription." }, { "id": "EV-PROJECT-POLICY", "tier": "primary_document", "kind": "document", "title": "Rights and licensing policy of this project", "author": "The Plate Mark", "date": "2026-08-12", "url": "https://theplatemark.com/about/rights-and-licensing", "excerpt": null, "bibliography_id": null, "access": "public", "access_note": null, "rights": "CC BY 4.0", "added": "2026-08-12", "notes": "The project's own published statement of the terms it releases its material under. It is primary evidence for claims about licensing and for nothing else." } ] } ], "evidence": [ { "id": "EV-NH-170", "tier": "institutional_record", "kind": "publication", "title": "New Hollstein Dutch & Flemish, Rembrandt, no. 170, pp. 31–32 and plates 84–87", "author": "Erik Hinterding and Jaco Rutgers", "date": "2013", "url": null, "excerpt": "Probably rebitten; many lines stronger and broader than in early impressions. Work on the cap strengthened, for instance, cross-hatching added at the base of the feather and along the brim of the cap above the eyes. … Not by Rembrandt.", "bibliography_id": "new-hollstein-rembrandt", "access": "on_request", "access_note": "The project holds photographs of the catalogue entry and its plates, supplied with the auction house's condition report. The volumes themselves are not held; a scholar wanting the entry should consult the published catalogue.", "rights": "Text quoted for scholarly purposes; copyright the publisher.", "added": "2026-08-12", "notes": "The standard catalogue entry for this plate, and the source this record spent its first day working without. It supplies the four state descriptions in the catalogue's own words, the impressions listed in each state, the watermark editions, the copperplate's provenance, and reproductions of each state — which is how the state III attribution for this sheet becomes checkable rather than merely asserted." }, { "id": "EV-LOT-182", "tier": "auction_catalogue", "kind": "catalogue_record", "title": "Bonhams, Fine Books and Manuscripts, sale 28358, lot 182, New York, 24 April – 4 May 2023", "author": "Bonhams & Butterfields Auctioneers Corp.", "date": "2023-05", "url": "https://www.bonhams.com/auction/28358/lot/182/rembrandt-self-portrait-in-a-velvet-cap-with-plume-van-rijn-rembrandt-harmenszoon-1606-1669-drypoint-etching-137-x-104-mm-unsigned-and-undated-but-1638-on-laid-paper/", "excerpt": "Drypoint etching, 137 x 104 mm, unsigned and undated (but 1638), on laid paper. Left margin roughly trimmed, some wrinkling, dampstaining to lower left corner, including part of image. Unmounted. Bartsch 20; New Hollstein 170, state III (of IV, without signature, diagonal scratch in plate at upper left only slightly visible).", "bibliography_id": null, "access": "public", "access_note": null, "rights": null, "added": "2026-08-12", "notes": "The catalogue entry the sheet was sold under, and the source of every phrase in the owner's working record. It is a cataloguer's determination made under time pressure rather than a scholarly one, and it is weighted accordingly — but it is specific, it names its diagnostic features, and it can now be checked against the catalogue it cites. Note that the page is publicly reachable at the URL above; the house's own site search does not return it, which is why an earlier search of this archive recorded a false negative." }, { "id": "EV-BONHAMS-EMAIL", "tier": "specialist_opinion", "kind": "correspondence", "title": "Correspondence with Darren Sutherland, Senior Specialist, Fine Books and Manuscripts, Bonhams, 23 May 2023", "author": "Darren Sutherland, Bonhams", "date": "2023-05-23", "url": null, "excerpt": "The work was consigned by a European antiquarian dealer, from a Private Collection in Germany.", "bibliography_id": null, "access": "on_request", "access_note": "Held by the owner. The substantive content — the consignment route and the catalogue description — is transcribed into this record.", "rights": null, "added": "2026-08-12", "notes": "The department specialist's own account of where the sheet came from, which the printed catalogue entry does not give. He also confirms what was supplied with the lot: the invoice, condition-report images, the catalogue description with references, and scans of the relevant New Hollstein pages. No certificate of authenticity and no independent expert opinion were provided, and none was claimed." }, { "id": "EV-CONDITION-PHOTOS", "tier": "auction_catalogue", "kind": "photograph", "title": "Condition-report photographs of the sheet, recto and verso, supplied by the auction house", "author": "Bonhams", "date": "2023-05-03", "url": null, "excerpt": null, "bibliography_id": null, "access": "on_request", "access_note": "Two photographs of the sheet, recto and verso, made by the auction house for a pre-sale condition request. They are the only images of this impression that exist. Their copyright position has not been established with the house, so they are not published here; they can be shown to a scholar or institution on request.", "rights": "Photographs by the auction house; rights position to be confirmed before publication.", "added": "2026-08-12", "notes": "These are not a conservator's documentation: they are hand-held photographs on a cloth ground, without a scale, a colour target or controlled lighting. They are nevertheless the first direct visual evidence of the sheet the project has held, and they settle several questions the record had open — most usefully that the verso carries no visible collector's mark or inscription." }, { "id": "EV-ACQ-INVOICE", "tier": "primary_document", "kind": "document", "title": "Bonhams payment receipt, 17 May 2023, transaction 1246701, sale 28358 lot 182", "author": "Bonhams & Butterfields Auctioneers Corp.", "date": "2023-05-17", "url": null, "excerpt": "REMBRANDT: SELF PORTRAIT IN A VELVET CAP WITH PLUME. VAN RIJN, REMBRANDT HARMENSZOON. 1606-1669. Drypoint etching, 137 x 104 mm, unsigned and undated (but 1638), on laid paper.", "bibliography_id": null, "access": "on_request", "access_note": "The receipt carries the buyer's name, address, contact details, client and payment numbers, and the sum paid. None of that is published or held in this database. The sale number, lot number and date have been transcribed from it into the record; a copy redacted to those fields can be supplied to a scholar or institution.", "rights": null, "added": "2026-08-12", "notes": "Transcribed 12 August 2026. It fixes the acquisition to a named sale and lot, which is what closed the search recorded under RQ-08." }, { "id": "EV-WORKING-RECORD", "tier": "user_submission", "kind": "document", "title": "Owner's working object record, assembled 2026", "author": "Owner / steward", "date": "2026-08", "url": null, "excerpt": null, "bibliography_id": null, "access": "public", "access_note": null, "rights": null, "added": "2026-08-12", "notes": "A compilation by the owner. It now has a traceable parentage: every substantive phrase in it is a condensation of the auction catalogue entry, EV-LOT-182. Its statements were held at low confidence on the first day of this record because they could not be checked; with the catalogue entry in hand they can be, and most of them hold." }, { "id": "EV-NO-CONSERVATOR", "tier": "physical_observation", "kind": "opinion", "title": "No conservator examination has taken place", "author": null, "date": "2026-08-12", "url": null, "excerpt": null, "bibliography_id": null, "access": "public", "access_note": null, "rights": null, "added": "2026-08-12", "notes": "Recorded as an explicit negative so that the absence is visible rather than inferred from silence. No paper conservator has examined the sheet, and no technical imaging — transmitted light, raking light, ultraviolet, magnification — has been carried out. The auction house's condition photographs do not substitute for any of it." }, { "id": "EV-PROJECT-POLICY", "tier": "primary_document", "kind": "document", "title": "Rights and licensing policy of this project", "author": "The Plate Mark", "date": "2026-08-12", "url": "https://theplatemark.com/about/rights-and-licensing", "excerpt": null, "bibliography_id": null, "access": "public", "access_note": null, "rights": "CC BY 4.0", "added": "2026-08-12", "notes": "The project's own published statement of the terms it releases its material under. It is primary evidence for claims about licensing and for nothing else." } ], "census": [ { "id": "CN-rijksmuseum-rp-p-1961-989", "holder_type": "museum", "institution": "Rijksmuseum", "department": null, "city": "Amsterdam", "country": "Netherlands", "accession_number": "RP-P-1961-989", "title_as_catalogued": "Self-portrait in a Velvet Cap with Plume / Zelfportret met gepluimde fluwelen baret", "date_as_catalogued": "1638", "medium_as_catalogued": "etching and drypoint", "state": "I", "state_catalogue": "New Hollstein", "state_verbatim": "state 1 of 4 per the stated reference 'New Hollstein Dutch and Flemish (Rembrandt text) 170-1(4)'", "state_confidence": "strongly_supported", "catalogue_refs_verbatim": "Hollstein Dutch 20-1(1); New Hollstein Dutch and Flemish (Rembrandt text) 170-1(4); Bartsch 20-1(1)", "api_source_url": null, "plate_mm": "134 x 103", "sheet_mm": null, "watermark": null, "paper": null, "collector_marks": [ "Lugt 176; Lugt 2228" ], "provenance_note": "Mr and Mrs De Bruijn-van der Leeuw Bequest, Muri, Switzerland; bequest 1961", "credit_line": "Mr and Mrs De Bruijn-van der Leeuw Bequest, Muri, Switzerland", "exhibitions": [], "literature": [], "condition_note": null, "image_url": null, "thumbnail_url": null, "local_image": "/images/comparators/rijksmuseum-rp-p-1961-989-2000.jpg", "local_thumb": "/images/comparators/rijksmuseum-rp-p-1961-989-web.jpg", "iiif_manifest": null, "rights_statement": "Public domain", "source_url": "https://www.rijksmuseum.nl/en/collection/RP-P-1961-989", "source_name": "Rijksmuseum", "evidence_tier": "institutional_record", "confidence": "strongly_supported", "review_state": "verified", "verified_on": "2026-08-12", "verified_by": "Project — record read directly from the holding institution's own published record", "notes": "Rijksmuseum dimension field is 'Height 134 mm x width 103 mm' without an explicit plate/sheet label; recorded here as plate on the basis that it matches the plate size given by other institutions. Persistent URL https://id.rijksmuseum.nl/200124678. Also reachable at https://www.rijksmuseum.nl/en/collection/object/Zelfportret-met-gepluimde-fluwelen-baret--f3296a047f0ce5a7905405062336056b Cross-check: Second Rijksmuseum impression, an EARLIER state than RP-P-OB-285 (170-1(4) vs 170-2(4)) - the two Amsterdam sheets together document states I and II. This page was fetched once (English only), so the Lugt 176 / Lugt 2228 marks have single-source support; recommend re-verification before publication. API route: None; legacy API returns HTTP 410. Retrieved from the public object page." }, { "id": "CN-staatsgalerie-stut-a-10901", "holder_type": "museum", "institution": "Staatsgalerie Stuttgart, Graphische Sammlung", "department": null, "city": "Stuttgart", "country": "Germany", "accession_number": "A 10901", "title_as_catalogued": "Selbstbildnis mit samtenem Federbarett", "date_as_catalogued": "1638", "medium_as_catalogued": "Radierung (etching); material: Buettenpapier (rohweiss)", "state": "I", "state_catalogue": "New Hollstein", "state_verbatim": "I, per the stated literature reference 'Hinterding/Rutgers, The New Hollstein ... Rembrandt, 2013, S. 31, Nr. 170, I'", "state_confidence": "strongly_supported", "catalogue_refs_verbatim": "Erik Hinterding, Jaco Rutgers: The New Hollstein Dutch & Flemish Etchings, Engravings and Woodcuts 1450-1700. Rembrandt, 2013, S. 31, Nr. 170, I", "api_source_url": null, "plate_mm": null, "sheet_mm": null, "watermark": null, "paper": null, "collector_marks": [], "provenance_note": "Staatsgalerie Stuttgart, Graphische Sammlung, alter Bestand", "credit_line": "Staatsgalerie Stuttgart, Graphische Sammlung, alter Bestand", "exhibitions": [], "literature": [], "condition_note": null, "image_url": null, "thumbnail_url": null, "local_image": null, "local_thumb": null, "iiif_manifest": null, "rights_statement": "gemeinfrei; CC Public Domain Mark 1.0 - Weltweit frei von bekannten urheberrechtlichen Einschraenkungen", "source_url": "https://www.staatsgalerie.de/de/sammlung-digital/selbstbildnis-samtenem-federbarett", "source_name": "Staatsgalerie Stuttgart, Graphische Sammlung", "evidence_tier": "institutional_record", "confidence": "strongly_supported", "review_state": "verified", "verified_on": "2026-08-12", "verified_by": "Project — record read directly from the holding institution's own published record", "notes": "DIMENSION ANOMALY - do not propagate: the record's Masse field reads 'Hoehe 19,60 cm (Blatt) / Breite 10,30 cm (Blatt)'. A sheet 196 mm tall and only 103 mm wide is implausible for a 134 x 103 mm plate and is very likely a data-entry error (103 mm is the plate width, not a sheet width). Both dimension fields therefore left null. This is one of only two records located that claims New Hollstein state I." }, { "id": "CN-victoria-and-alber-cai-715", "holder_type": "museum", "institution": "Victoria and Albert Museum", "department": null, "city": "London", "country": "United Kingdom", "accession_number": "CAI.715", "title_as_catalogued": "Self portrait in a velvet cap with plume", "date_as_catalogued": "1638", "medium_as_catalogued": "Etching", "state": "I", "state_catalogue": null, "state_verbatim": "First state", "state_confidence": "strongly_supported", "catalogue_refs_verbatim": "Bibliography cites Bartsch (Vienna 1797); White & Boon 1969; Hollstein; Hind 1923 (no specific numbers printed in the online record)", "api_source_url": "https://api.vam.ac.uk/v2/museumobject/O1023205", "plate_mm": null, "sheet_mm": "142 x 110 (recorded as 'trimmed to')", "watermark": null, "paper": null, "collector_marks": [], "provenance_note": "Bequeathed by Constantine Alexander Ionides", "credit_line": "Bequeathed by Constantine Alexander Ionides", "exhibitions": [], "literature": [], "condition_note": null, "image_url": "https://framemark.vam.ac.uk/collections/2018LH4725/full/735,/0/default.jpg", "thumbnail_url": null, "local_image": null, "local_thumb": null, "iiif_manifest": null, "rights_statement": null, "source_url": "https://collections.vam.ac.uk/item/O1023205/self-portrait-in-a-velvet-print-rembrandt-van-rijn/", "source_name": "Victoria and Albert Museum", "evidence_tier": "institutional_record", "confidence": "strongly_supported", "review_state": "verified", "verified_on": "2026-08-12", "verified_by": "Project — record read directly from the holding institution's own published record", "notes": "Physical description verbatim: 'Etching depicting a man wearing a mezetin velvet cap with feather, and over-gown embroidered at the collar and cuffs and fur-lined at the collar.' Marks: 'Rembrandt. f / 1638 (top left)'. The V&A's stated 'First state' conflicts with the ~140 mm sheet being larger than the plate; the record gives height 14.2 cm and width 11 cm 'trimmed to', so this is the sheet. Cross-check: V&A system number O1023205. Retrieved from the V&A open API (no key required) - an API not named in the brief, added opportunistically. No catalogue reference field is returned. A web-search snippet described this impression as a 'first state'; the API record contains no state field, so state is left null. Dimension qualifier is 'trimmed to', so 142 x 110 mm is the trimmed sheet." }, { "id": "CN-harvard-art-museum-g4910", "holder_type": "university", "institution": "Harvard Art Museums / Fogg Museum", "department": null, "city": "Cambridge, MA", "country": "United States", "accession_number": "G4910", "title_as_catalogued": "Self-Portrait in a Velvet Cap with Plume (Former Title: Rembrandt with a Long Feather in His Cap)", "date_as_catalogued": "1638", "medium_as_catalogued": "Etching on white antique laid paper", "state": "II", "state_catalogue": "New Hollstein", "state_verbatim": "ii/iv", "state_confidence": "strongly_supported", "catalogue_refs_verbatim": "New Hollstein 170, Bartsch 20, Hind 156, R. 20", "api_source_url": null, "plate_mm": "136 x 106", "sheet_mm": "162 x 127", "watermark": null, "paper": null, "collector_marks": [ "verso, brown ink: J.A. Boerner / [illeg.] 1870 (Lugt 269); verso, blue stamp: FK [monogram within a circle; Friedrich Kalle (Lugt 1021)]; verso, purple stamp with graphite numbering within: [Gray Collection accession stamp (Lugt 4836)] 4910" ], "provenance_note": "Recorded Ownership History: J.A. Boerner (Lugt 269), F. Kalle (Lugt 1021).", "credit_line": "Harvard Art Museums/Fogg Museum, Gray Collection of Engravings Fund", "exhibitions": [], "literature": [], "condition_note": null, "image_url": null, "thumbnail_url": null, "local_image": null, "local_thumb": null, "iiif_manifest": "https://iiif.harvardartmuseums.org/manifests/object/278958", "rights_statement": "The Harvard Art Museums encourage the use of images found on this website for personal, noncommercial use, including educational and scholarly purposes.", "source_url": "https://harvardartmuseums.org/collections/object/278958", "source_name": "Harvard Art Museums / Fogg Museum", "evidence_tier": "institutional_record", "confidence": "strongly_supported", "review_state": "verified", "verified_on": "2026-08-12", "verified_by": "Project — record read directly from the holding institution's own published record", "notes": "Carries a historic French verso inscription in graphite that is itself state evidence: 'B. 20 / 1st. etat, le trait du menton fort et av[an]t le retouche / sur la joue droite' - i.e. an early cataloguer read the strong chin line and the absence of retouching on the right cheek as first-state markers, whereas Harvard now catalogues the sheet as ii/iv. Persistent link https://hvrd.art/o/278958. Cross-check: Densest reference and collector-mark record of the census, and the only one with an unambiguous dedicated 'State' field (ii/iv). The verso graphite note in French ('1st. etat, le trait du menton fort et avant le retouche sur la joie droite') is an EARLIER collector's opinion that this is a first state, which Harvard's own cataloguing now supersedes with ii/iv - a useful worked example of annotation vs. current attribution. 'R. 20' is left unexpanded by Harvard; do not silently expand it. Harvard flags: 'This record has been reviewed by the curatorial staff but may be incomplete.' API route: None usable. https://api.harvardartmuseums.org/object returns HTTP 401 without a key. The object was discovered by rendering the JS search UI at https://harvardartmuseums.org/collections?q=velvet+cap+with+plume in a browser to obtain object id 278958, then retrieving the server-rendered object page over plain HTTP." }, { "id": "CN-national-gallery-o-1943-3-7201", "holder_type": "museum", "institution": "National Gallery of Art", "department": null, "city": "Washington, DC", "country": "United States", "accession_number": "1943.3.7201", "title_as_catalogued": "Self-Portrait in a Velvet Cap with Plume", "date_as_catalogued": "1638", "medium_as_catalogued": "etching on laid paper", "state": "II", "state_catalogue": "New Hollstein", "state_verbatim": "Catalogue Raisonne field: 'White/Boon 1969, no. 20, State only'. Bibliography field: 'The New Hollstein ... no. 170, state ii/iii.'", "state_confidence": "strongly_supported", "catalogue_refs_verbatim": "White/Boon 1969, no. 20, State only; Hind 1923; The New Hollstein ... no. 170, state ii/iii", "api_source_url": null, "plate_mm": "135 x 103", "sheet_mm": "180 x 142", "watermark": "Foolscap", "paper": null, "collector_marks": [ "Lessing Julius Rosenwald (Lugt 1760b)" ], "provenance_note": "Lessing Julius Rosenwald (Lugt 1760b) purchased from Hollstein and Puppel Sale (lot #730); given to the National Gallery of Art 1943", "credit_line": "Rosenwald Collection", "exhibitions": [], "literature": [], "condition_note": null, "image_url": "https://media.nga.gov/iiif/c62f7cd7-4162-4cc8-9298-d7bbe6984c08/full/full/0/default.jpg", "thumbnail_url": null, "local_image": "/images/comparators/nga-1943-3-7201-2000.jpg", "local_thumb": "/images/comparators/nga-1943-3-7201-web.jpg", "iiif_manifest": "https://www.nga.gov/api/v1/iiif/presentation/manifest.json?cultObj:id=9997", "rights_statement": "This image is in the public domain. You can copy, modify and distribute this image, even for commercial purposes. (CC0)", "source_url": "https://www.nga.gov/artworks/9997-self-portrait-velvet-cap-plume", "source_name": "National Gallery of Art", "evidence_tier": "institutional_record", "confidence": "strongly_supported", "review_state": "verified", "verified_on": "2026-08-12", "verified_by": "Project — record read directly from the holding institution's own published record", "notes": "Inscription: 'upper left in plate: Rembrandt f / 1638'. Legacy record at https://www.nga.gov/collection/art-object-page.9997.html carries identical data. NGA's 'state ii/iii' is the only institutional record found that implies a three-state New Hollstein division; four other institutions say ii/iv. Retrieved via a real browser session; direct HTTP fetch is Cloudflare-blocked. Cross-check: THE SINGLE MOST VALUABLE RECORD IN THIS CENSUS. It is the only one carrying (a) an explicit, named White/Boon number - answering the brief's open question - and (b) a watermark ('Foolscap'). In-plate inscription recorded as 'upper left in plate: Rembrandt f / 1638'. Exhibition history recorded for 1930 (two Rosenwald loan shows) and 1932. NGA object id 9997; the accession number matches Wikidata Q65024742 (P217), which was found independently via SPARQL. API route: None. api.nga.gov returns 404 without a key. Retrieved by rendering the public object page in a browser; curl and WebFetch both receive a Cloudflare HTTP 403 interstitial. iiif_manifest: URL asserted by Wikidata property P6108; returns HTTP 403 to non-browser clients, so not independently confirmed" }, { "id": "CN-national-gallery-o-19-4", "holder_type": "museum", "institution": "National Gallery of Victoria", "department": null, "city": "Melbourne", "country": "Australia", "accession_number": "19-4", "title_as_catalogued": "Self-portrait in a velvet cap with plume", "date_as_catalogued": "1638", "medium_as_catalogued": "Etching", "state": "II", "state_catalogue": "New Hollstein", "state_verbatim": "2nd of 4 states (NHD 170 ii/iv)", "state_confidence": "strongly_supported", "catalogue_refs_verbatim": "Bartsch 20; Hind 156; White & Boon 20; NHD 170 ii/iv", "api_source_url": null, "plate_mm": "135 x 105", "sheet_mm": "139 x 108", "watermark": "Arms of Ravensburg (variant C.a.) - fragments with battlements appearing as two towers with gate between, on a console", "paper": null, "collector_marks": [], "provenance_note": "Felton Bequest, 1933", "credit_line": "National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne; Felton Bequest, 1933", "exhibitions": [], "literature": [], "condition_note": null, "image_url": "https://content.ngv.vic.gov.au/retrieve.php?size=1280&type=image&vernonID=38353", "thumbnail_url": null, "local_image": null, "local_thumb": null, "iiif_manifest": null, "rights_statement": "'While the NGV believes this work to be in the Public Domain' - users must verify permissions and provide full attribution", "source_url": "https://www.ngv.vic.gov.au/explore/collection/work/38353/", "source_name": "National Gallery of Victoria", "evidence_tier": "institutional_record", "confidence": "strongly_supported", "review_state": "verified", "verified_on": "2026-08-12", "verified_by": "Project — record read directly from the holding institution's own published record", "notes": "Inscription: 'Rembrandt. f / 1638' printed in ink, upper left. The NGV watermark-research page (https://www.ngv.vic.gov.au/explore/collection/conservation/watermarks-rembrandt/) independently lists this work under 'Arms of Ravensburg'. This is the single clearest institutional statement of the state count: '2nd of 4 states'." }, { "id": "CN-rijksmuseum-rp-p-ob-285", "holder_type": "museum", "institution": "Rijksmuseum", "department": null, "city": "Amsterdam", "country": "Netherlands", "accession_number": "RP-P-OB-285", "title_as_catalogued": "Self-portrait in a velvet cap with plume", "date_as_catalogued": "1638", "medium_as_catalogued": "etching and drypoint", "state": "II", "state_catalogue": "New Hollstein", "state_verbatim": "state 2 of 4 per the stated reference 'New Hollstein Dutch and Flemish (Rembrandt text) 170-2(4)'", "state_confidence": "strongly_supported", "catalogue_refs_verbatim": "Bartsch 20-1(1); Hollstein Dutch 20-1(1); New Hollstein Dutch and Flemish (Rembrandt text) 170-2(4)", "api_source_url": null, "plate_mm": "134 x 103", "sheet_mm": null, "watermark": null, "paper": null, "collector_marks": [ "Lugt 240" ], "provenance_note": null, "credit_line": null, "exhibitions": [], "literature": [], "condition_note": null, "image_url": null, "thumbnail_url": null, "local_image": "/images/comparators/rijksmuseum-rp-p-ob-285-2000.jpg", "local_thumb": "/images/comparators/rijksmuseum-rp-p-ob-285-web.jpg", "iiif_manifest": null, "rights_statement": "Public domain", "source_url": "https://www.rijksmuseum.nl/en/collection/RP-P-OB-285", "source_name": "Rijksmuseum", "evidence_tier": "institutional_record", "confidence": "strongly_supported", "review_state": "verified", "verified_on": "2026-08-12", "verified_by": "Project — record read directly from the holding institution's own published record", "notes": "Dimension field '134 mm x 103 mm' unlabelled; recorded as plate. Lugt 240 is the Rijksprentenkabinet mark. Cross-check: This is the impression the brief flagged for verification. It IS B.20 / NH 170. Cross-checked on the English and Dutch pages, which returned character-identical catalogue reference strings. Raw HTML is JS-rendered, so no image or IIIF URL could be captured and none is asserted. API route: None. The legacy REST API (https://www.rijksmuseum.nl/api/en/collection/RP-P-OB-285) returns HTTP 410 Gone. Retrieved from the public object page in both English and Dutch." }, { "id": "CN-statens-museum-for-kksgb5223", "holder_type": "museum", "institution": "Statens Museum for Kunst (SMK)", "department": null, "city": "Copenhagen", "country": "Denmark", "accession_number": "KKSgb5223", "title_as_catalogued": "Selvportraet (Self-portrait)", "date_as_catalogued": "1638", "medium_as_catalogued": "Radering (etching)", "state": "II", "state_catalogue": "New Hollstein", "state_verbatim": "II, per the stated references 'Hollstein 20 II; Hinterding 170 II; Rovinski 20 II'", "state_confidence": "strongly_supported", "catalogue_refs_verbatim": "Hollstein 20 II; Hinterding 170 II; Rovinski 20 II", "api_source_url": null, "plate_mm": "134 x 103", "sheet_mm": null, "watermark": null, "paper": null, "collector_marks": [], "provenance_note": "Acquisition 1787; Gammel bestand (Old Collection), Den Kongelige Kobberstiksamling", "credit_line": null, "exhibitions": [], "literature": [], "condition_note": null, "image_url": "https://iip-thumb.smk.dk/iiif/jp2/w9505304m_kksgb5223.TIF.reconstructed.tif.jp2/full/!1024,/0/default.jpg", "thumbnail_url": null, "local_image": null, "local_thumb": null, "iiif_manifest": "https://api.smk.dk/api/v1/iiif/manifest?id=KKSgb5223", "rights_statement": "Public domain; Creative Commons Public Domain Mark 1.0", "source_url": "https://open.smk.dk/artwork/image/KKSgb5223", "source_name": "Statens Museum for Kunst (SMK)", "evidence_tier": "institutional_record", "confidence": "strongly_supported", "review_state": "verified", "verified_on": "2026-08-12", "verified_by": "Project — record read directly from the holding institution's own published record", "notes": "Full record read via SMK's open record endpoint https://api.smk.dk/api/v1/art/?object_number=KKSgb5223. Inscriptions recorded: signed and dated 'Rembrandt f / 1638'; a later notation 'Bl 233 / B 20' upper right. Dimension explicitly typed as plate size." }, { "id": "CN-the-british-museum-1910-0212-376", "holder_type": "museum", "institution": "The British Museum", "department": null, "city": "London", "country": "United Kingdom", "accession_number": "1910,0212.376", "title_as_catalogued": "print (untitled record; described as 'Self-portrait of Rembrandt, in a velvet cap with plume, half-length facing front, with left hand inside tunic; second state with jaw delineated. 1638')", "date_as_catalogued": "1638", "medium_as_catalogued": "etching", "state": "II", "state_catalogue": "New Hollstein", "state_verbatim": "second state with jaw delineated (New Hollstein 170.II)", "state_confidence": "strongly_supported", "catalogue_refs_verbatim": "New Hollstein (Dutch & Flemish) 170.II; Hind 1923 no. 156; White & Boon 1969 no. 20", "api_source_url": null, "plate_mm": null, "sheet_mm": null, "watermark": "Basilisk (Hinterding catalogue, variant A'.a., datable c.1641-47 [detail of wing only])", "paper": null, "collector_marks": [], "provenance_note": "Bequeathed by: George Salting; Acquisition date 1910", "credit_line": "Bequeathed by George Salting", "exhibitions": [], "literature": [], "condition_note": null, "image_url": null, "thumbnail_url": null, "local_image": null, "local_thumb": null, "iiif_manifest": null, "rights_statement": null, "source_url": "https://www.britishmuseum.org/collection/object/P_1910-0212-376", "source_name": "The British Museum", "evidence_tier": "institutional_record", "confidence": "strongly_supported", "review_state": "verified", "verified_on": "2026-08-12", "verified_by": "Project — record read directly from the holding institution's own published record", "notes": "Dimensions given by the BM without a plate/sheet label: 'Height: 136 millimetres / Width: 105 millimetres'. Curator's comments state verbatim: 'For other impressions see F,4.25-26. For a later state see 1941,0327.11.3. For copies see also 1861,0518.200; 1902,0514.736 and 1938,0917.1.' Exhibited London, National Gallery, 'Rembrandt by Himself', 1999 (cat. no. 49). Page retrieved via a real browser session; direct HTTP fetch is blocked by a Cloudflare interstitial." }, { "id": "CN-the-british-museum-f-4-25", "holder_type": "museum", "institution": "The British Museum", "department": null, "city": "London", "country": "United Kingdom", "accession_number": "F,4.25", "title_as_catalogued": "print (described as 'Self-portrait of Rembrandt, in a velvet cap with plume, half-length facing front, with left hand inside tunic; second state with jaw delineated. 1638')", "date_as_catalogued": "1638", "medium_as_catalogued": "etching", "state": "II", "state_catalogue": "New Hollstein", "state_verbatim": "second state with jaw delineated (New Hollstein 170.II)", "state_confidence": "strongly_supported", "catalogue_refs_verbatim": "New Hollstein (Dutch & Flemish) 170.II; Hind 1923 no. 156; White & Boon 1969 no. 20", "api_source_url": null, "plate_mm": null, "sheet_mm": null, "watermark": "Probably Strasbourg lily (Hinterding catalogue, variant ZZ.zz [detail of top only])", "paper": null, "collector_marks": [], "provenance_note": "Bequeathed by: Clayton Mordaunt Cracherode; Acquisition date 1799", "credit_line": "Bequeathed by Clayton Mordaunt Cracherode", "exhibitions": [], "literature": [], "condition_note": null, "image_url": null, "thumbnail_url": null, "local_image": null, "local_thumb": null, "iiif_manifest": null, "rights_statement": null, "source_url": "https://www.britishmuseum.org/collection/object/P_F-4-25", "source_name": "The British Museum", "evidence_tier": "institutional_record", "confidence": "strongly_supported", "review_state": "verified", "verified_on": "2026-08-12", "verified_by": "Project — record read directly from the holding institution's own published record", "notes": "Dimensions given without a plate/sheet label: 'Height: 134 millimetres / Width: 105 millimetres'. Additional ID: Miscellaneous number 1973,U.893. Curator's comment: 'For another impression and comment see 1910,0212.376.'" }, { "id": "CN-the-morgan-library-rvr-24", "holder_type": "museum", "institution": "The Morgan Library & Museum", "department": null, "city": "New York", "country": "United States", "accession_number": "RvR 24", "title_as_catalogued": "Self Portrait in a Velvet Cap with Plume", "date_as_catalogued": "1638", "medium_as_catalogued": "Etching on paper", "state": "II", "state_catalogue": "New Hollstein", "state_verbatim": "NHD 170, II (the record's Notes field also says 'Only one state.')", "state_confidence": "strongly_supported", "catalogue_refs_verbatim": "NHD 170, II", "api_source_url": null, "plate_mm": "134 x 103", "sheet_mm": null, "watermark": "Countermark: Letters 'RP' with trefoil", "paper": null, "collector_marks": [], "provenance_note": "George W. Vanderbilt (1862-1914); from whom purchased by J. Pierpont Morgan in 1905.", "credit_line": null, "exhibitions": [], "literature": [], "condition_note": null, "image_url": null, "thumbnail_url": null, "local_image": null, "local_thumb": null, "iiif_manifest": null, "rights_statement": null, "source_url": "https://www.themorgan.org/rembrandt/print/161982", "source_name": "The Morgan Library & Museum", "evidence_tier": "institutional_record", "confidence": "strongly_supported", "review_state": "verified", "verified_on": "2026-08-12", "verified_by": "Project — record read directly from the holding institution's own published record", "notes": "Internal contradiction in the Morgan record: the 'NHD number' field reads 'NHD 170, II' while the 'Notes' field reads 'Only one state.' Recorded verbatim, not reconciled. Inscription: 'Signed and dated upper left, \"Rembrandt f 1638\".' Dimension '134 x 103 mm' unlabelled. Cross-check: One of only two impressions in this census with a recorded watermark, and the only one with a countermark description ('RP' with trefoil) - watermark evidence is the primary tool for dating Rembrandt impressions, so this is high-value. The record's internal tension between 'NHD 170, II' and 'Only one state.' mirrors the Bartsch/White-Boon vs New Hollstein divergence seen across the census. Part of the Morgan's 'Rembrandt Prints Online' project. API route: None. themorgan.org serves a Cloudflare bot-verification interstitial to curl and WebFetch; retrieved by rendering the page in a browser after the challenge cleared." }, { "id": "CN-rijksmuseum-rp-p-ob-286", "holder_type": "museum", "institution": "Rijksmuseum", "department": null, "city": "Amsterdam", "country": "Netherlands", "accession_number": "RP-P-OB-286", "title_as_catalogued": "Self-portrait in a velvet cap with plume / Zelfportret met gepluimde fluwelen baret", "date_as_catalogued": "1638, with later printing 1850-1906", "medium_as_catalogued": "etching", "state": "IV", "state_catalogue": "New Hollstein", "state_verbatim": "state 4 of 4 per the stated reference 'New Hollstein Dutch and Flemish (Rembrandt text) 170-4(4)'", "state_confidence": "strongly_supported", "catalogue_refs_verbatim": "Bartsch 20; Hollstein Dutch 20; New Hollstein Dutch and Flemish (Rembrandt text) 170-4(4)", "api_source_url": null, "plate_mm": "134 x 104", "sheet_mm": null, "watermark": null, "paper": null, "collector_marks": [], "provenance_note": null, "credit_line": null, "exhibitions": [], "literature": [], "condition_note": null, "image_url": null, "thumbnail_url": null, "local_image": "/images/comparators/rijksmuseum-rp-p-ob-286-2000.jpg", "local_thumb": "/images/comparators/rijksmuseum-rp-p-ob-286-web.jpg", "iiif_manifest": null, "rights_statement": "Public domain / Publiek domein", "source_url": "https://www.rijksmuseum.nl/en/collection/RP-P-OB-286", "source_name": "Rijksmuseum", "evidence_tier": "institutional_record", "confidence": "strongly_supported", "review_state": "verified", "verified_on": "2026-08-12", "verified_by": "Project — record read directly from the holding institution's own published record", "notes": "A late/posthumous impression: the record credits later printing to the workshop of Henry Louis Basan, possibly published by Michel Bernard and Alvin-Beaumont (1850-1906). Verso inscription in pencil, centre bottom: 'Coppier'. Dimension field unlabelled." }, { "id": "CN-the-british-museum-1941-0327-11-3", "holder_type": "museum", "institution": "The British Museum", "department": null, "city": "London", "country": "United Kingdom", "accession_number": "1941,0327.11.3", "title_as_catalogued": "Series: Recueil Basan (described as 'Self-portrait of Rembrandt, in a velvet cap with plume, half-length facing front, with left hand inside tunic; fourth state with signature redrawn; from an edition of the Recueil published by Henri Louis Basan around 1810. 1638')", "date_as_catalogued": "1638", "medium_as_catalogued": "etching", "state": "IV", "state_catalogue": "New Hollstein", "state_verbatim": "fourth state with signature redrawn (New Hollstein 170.IV)", "state_confidence": "strongly_supported", "catalogue_refs_verbatim": "New Hollstein (Dutch & Flemish) 170.IV; Hind 1923 no. 156; White & Boon 1969 no. 20", "api_source_url": null, "plate_mm": null, "sheet_mm": null, "watermark": null, "paper": null, "collector_marks": [], "provenance_note": "Purchased from: Maggs Bros; Acquisition date 1941", "credit_line": "Purchased from Maggs Bros", "exhibitions": [], "literature": [], "condition_note": null, "image_url": null, "thumbnail_url": null, "local_image": null, "local_thumb": null, "iiif_manifest": null, "rights_statement": null, "source_url": "https://www.britishmuseum.org/collection/object/P_1941-0327-11-3", "source_name": "The British Museum", "evidence_tier": "institutional_record", "confidence": "strongly_supported", "review_state": "verified", "verified_on": "2026-08-12", "verified_by": "Project — record read directly from the holding institution's own published record", "notes": "Dimensions given without a plate/sheet label: 'Height: 132 millimetres / Width: 103 millimetres'. Producer names include 'Print made by: Francois Basan (re-work)' and 'Published by: Henri Louis Basan'; published in Paris. A posthumous Basan-edition impression of the same plate, not a lifetime impression." }, { "id": "CN-art-institute-of-c-1938-1792", "holder_type": "museum", "institution": "Art Institute of Chicago", "department": null, "city": "Chicago", "country": "United States", "accession_number": "1938.1792", "title_as_catalogued": "Self-Portrait in a Velvet Cap with Plume", "date_as_catalogued": "1638", "medium_as_catalogued": "Etching on buff laid paper", "state": null, "state_catalogue": null, "state_verbatim": null, "state_confidence": "unknown", "catalogue_refs_verbatim": "", "api_source_url": "https://api.artic.edu/api/v1/artworks/29216", "plate_mm": null, "sheet_mm": "123 x 105 mm ('Sheet, cut within platemark: 12.3 x 10.5 cm (4 7/8 x 4 3/16 in.)')", "watermark": null, "paper": null, "collector_marks": [], "provenance_note": null, "credit_line": "Clarence Buckingham Collection", "exhibitions": [], "literature": [], "condition_note": null, "image_url": "https://www.artic.edu/iiif/2/37c75de5-dcb4-4edb-d368-2100c571a8c1/full/843,/0/default.jpg", "thumbnail_url": null, "local_image": "/images/comparators/aic-1938-1792-2000.jpg", "local_thumb": "/images/comparators/aic-1938-1792-web.jpg", "iiif_manifest": "https://api.artic.edu/api/v1/artworks/29216/manifest.json", "rights_statement": "is_public_domain: true; API data licensed CC0 1.0", "source_url": "https://www.artic.edu/artworks/29216/self-portrait-in-a-velvet-cap-with-plume", "source_name": "Art Institute of Chicago", "evidence_tier": "institutional_record", "confidence": "strongly_supported", "review_state": "verified", "verified_on": "2026-08-12", "verified_by": "Project — record read directly from the holding institution's own published record", "notes": "AIC's record carries NO catalogue reference data at all - publication_history, provenance_text, inscriptions and alt_titles are all null. Identification rests on the exact title plus date 1638 plus medium. IIIF manifest confirmed HTTP 200. The sheet is cut within the platemark, hence markedly smaller than the ~135 x 103 mm plate." }, { "id": "CN-cleveland-museum-o-1942-874", "holder_type": "museum", "institution": "Cleveland Museum of Art", "department": null, "city": "Cleveland", "country": "United States", "accession_number": "1942.874", "title_as_catalogued": "Self-Portrait in Velvet Cap with Plume", "date_as_catalogued": "1638", "medium_as_catalogued": "etching with engraving; on cream(3) laid paper", "state": null, "state_catalogue": null, "state_verbatim": null, "state_confidence": "unknown", "catalogue_refs_verbatim": "Hollstein 20 (XVIII.9)", "api_source_url": "https://openaccess-api.clevelandart.org/api/artworks/1942.874", "plate_mm": null, "sheet_mm": "112 x 104 mm ('Sheet: 11.2 x 10.4 cm (4 7/16 x 4 1/8 in.)')", "watermark": "None recorded (the support_materials watermarks array is present and empty)", "paper": null, "collector_marks": [], "provenance_note": "\"Dr. Daniel A. Huebsch, Cleveland, Ohio (not stamped). Robert Hays Gries, Cleveland, Ohio; gift, 1942\"", "credit_line": "Gift of Robert Hays Gries", "exhibitions": [], "literature": [], "condition_note": null, "image_url": "https://openaccess-cdn.clevelandart.org/1942.874/1942.874_print.jpg", "thumbnail_url": null, "local_image": "/images/comparators/cleveland-1942-874-2000.jpg", "local_thumb": "/images/comparators/cleveland-1942-874-web.jpg", "iiif_manifest": null, "rights_statement": "CC0 (share_license_status: CC0)", "source_url": "https://clevelandart.org/art/1942.874", "source_name": "Cleveland Museum of Art", "evidence_tier": "institutional_record", "confidence": "strongly_supported", "review_state": "verified", "verified_on": "2026-08-12", "verified_by": "Project — record read directly from the holding institution's own published record", "notes": "Verso inscription transcribed verbatim by the museum: 'VERSO, upper left, in graphite: G. 6123 ; left center, in graphite: v[?] ; center, in graphite: B.20 ; center, in graphite: 18 ; lower left, in graphite: W. 20 ; lower center, in graphite: ober verk[illegible]ten ; lower right, in graphite: Re/2TT'. The 'B.20' and 'W. 20' annotations corroborate Bartsch 20 and (given the NGA's White/Boon no. 20) White & Boon 20. state_of_the_work is explicitly null - do not assign a state. Links to wikidata Q80019004. Medium ('etching with engraving') conflicts with the Rijksmuseum's 'etching and drypoint'. No IIIF manifest discoverable; three candidate URL patterns tested, all failed." }, { "id": "CN-fine-arts-museums--1963-30-187", "holder_type": "museum", "institution": "Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco (Achenbach Foundation for Graphic Arts)", "department": null, "city": "San Francisco", "country": "United States", "accession_number": "1963.30.187", "title_as_catalogued": "Self-Portrait with a Velvet Cap with Plume", "date_as_catalogued": "1638", "medium_as_catalogued": "Etching", "state": null, "state_catalogue": null, "state_verbatim": null, "state_confidence": "unknown", "catalogue_refs_verbatim": null, "api_source_url": null, "plate_mm": null, "sheet_mm": null, "watermark": null, "paper": null, "collector_marks": [], "provenance_note": null, "credit_line": "Achenbach Foundation for Graphic Arts", "exhibitions": [], "literature": [], "condition_note": null, "image_url": null, "thumbnail_url": null, "local_image": null, "local_thumb": null, "iiif_manifest": null, "rights_statement": null, "source_url": "https://www.famsf.org/artworks/self-portrait-with-a-velvet-cap-with-plume", "source_name": "Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco (Achenbach Foundation for Graphic Arts)", "evidence_tier": "institutional_record", "confidence": "strongly_supported", "review_state": "verified", "verified_on": "2026-08-12", "verified_by": "Project — record read directly from the holding institution's own published record", "notes": "The record's Edition field reads '(Modern Impression)' - FAMSF itself flags this as a later/modern printing, not a 17th-century impression. Dimensions given as 'Image: 135 x 105 mm', which is a plate-sized image measurement but is labelled 'Image', so both plate and sheet fields are left null." }, { "id": "CN-herzog-anton-ulric-rembrandt-ab-3-16", "holder_type": "museum", "institution": "Herzog Anton Ulrich-Museum", "department": null, "city": "Braunschweig", "country": "Germany", "accession_number": "Rembrandt AB 3.16", "title_as_catalogued": "[Selbstbildnis mit Federbarett; Self-Portrait in a Velvet Cap with Plume; Portrait de Rembrandt au bonnet orne d'une plume]", "date_as_catalogued": "1638", "medium_as_catalogued": "Radierung (etching)", "state": null, "state_catalogue": null, "state_verbatim": null, "state_confidence": "unknown", "catalogue_refs_verbatim": "Bartsch 1797 (Rembrandt), S. 20; White/Boon 1969 (Hollstein Dutch and Flemish XVIII/XIX), S. 20; The New Hollstein Dutch & Flemish II.31.170 II / II.85.170/II; TIB L.12.20; Wurzbach II.423.20", "api_source_url": null, "plate_mm": "135 x 104", "sheet_mm": "140 x 110", "watermark": null, "paper": null, "collector_marks": [], "provenance_note": null, "credit_line": null, "exhibitions": [], "literature": [], "condition_note": null, "image_url": "https://assets.museum-digital.org/nds/resources/images/202009/500w_000001-5f5852a8929bf.jpg", "thumbnail_url": null, "local_image": null, "local_thumb": null, "iiif_manifest": null, "rights_statement": "Freier Zugang - Keine Weiterverwendung (RR-F)", "source_url": "https://nat.museum-digital.de/object/850002", "source_name": "Herzog Anton Ulrich-Museum", "evidence_tier": "institutional_record", "confidence": "strongly_supported", "review_state": "verified", "verified_on": "2026-08-12", "verified_by": "Project — record read directly from the holding institution's own published record", "notes": "The New Hollstein citation embedded in the reference string ('170 II') implies second state, but the record has no explicit state field, so state left null. Published via museum-digital:deutschland." }, { "id": "CN-herzog-anton-ulric-rembrandt-ab-3-17-fo", "holder_type": "museum", "institution": "Herzog Anton Ulrich-Museum", "department": null, "city": "Braunschweig", "country": "Germany", "accession_number": "Rembrandt AB 3.17 (former number 5376)", "title_as_catalogued": "[Selbstbildnis mit Federbarett; Self-Portrait in a Velvet Cap with Plume; Portrait de Rembrandt au bonnet orne d'une plume]", "date_as_catalogued": "1638", "medium_as_catalogued": "Radierung (etching)", "state": null, "state_catalogue": null, "state_verbatim": null, "state_confidence": "unknown", "catalogue_refs_verbatim": "The New Hollstein Dutch & Flemish, S. [25, Rembrandt, text].II.31.170 II; [25, Rembrandt, plates].II.85.170/II; TIB, S. L.12.20; Wurzbach, S. II.423.20; Bartsch 1797 (Rembrandt), S. 20; Vasel 1903, S. 4517; White/Boon 1969 (Hollstein Dutch and Flemish XVIII/XIX), S. 20", "api_source_url": null, "plate_mm": null, "sheet_mm": "134 x 104", "watermark": null, "paper": null, "collector_marks": [], "provenance_note": null, "credit_line": null, "exhibitions": [], "literature": [], "condition_note": null, "image_url": null, "thumbnail_url": null, "local_image": null, "local_thumb": null, "iiif_manifest": null, "rights_statement": null, "source_url": "https://www.deutsche-digitale-bibliothek.de/item/GQLWQ56KS7CY42WIXH637I7BGI6QHRII", "source_name": "Herzog Anton Ulrich-Museum", "evidence_tier": "institutional_record", "confidence": "strongly_supported", "review_state": "verified", "verified_on": "2026-08-12", "verified_by": "Project — record read directly from the holding institution's own published record", "notes": "A SECOND Braunschweig impression, distinct from AB 3.16 (different inventory number, different dimensions). Record surfaced via Deutsche Digitale Bibliothek aggregation of the Herzog Anton Ulrich-Museum's own data; treated as an institutional record because the DDB item exposes the museum's inventory number and its own reference apparatus. A direct museum-digital record for AB 3.17 was not located." }, { "id": "CN-museum-boijmans-va-mb-1962-213-pk", "holder_type": "museum", "institution": "Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen", "department": null, "city": "Rotterdam", "country": "Netherlands", "accession_number": "MB 1962/213 (PK)", "title_as_catalogued": "Zelfportret met gepluimde baret", "date_as_catalogued": "1638", "medium_as_catalogued": "Ets, geretoucheerd met pen en grijze inkt (etching, retouched with pen and grey ink)", "state": null, "state_catalogue": null, "state_verbatim": null, "state_confidence": "unknown", "catalogue_refs_verbatim": null, "api_source_url": null, "plate_mm": null, "sheet_mm": null, "watermark": null, "paper": null, "collector_marks": [], "provenance_note": "Schenking D. van Stolk en S.L. van Stolk, 1962", "credit_line": "Schenking D. van Stolk en S.L. van Stolk, 1962", "exhibitions": [], "literature": [], "condition_note": null, "image_url": null, "thumbnail_url": null, "local_image": null, "local_thumb": null, "iiif_manifest": null, "rights_statement": null, "source_url": "https://www.boijmans.nl/index.php/collectie/kunstwerken/78757/zelfportret-met-gepluimde-baret", "source_name": "Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen", "evidence_tier": "institutional_record", "confidence": "strongly_supported", "review_state": "verified", "verified_on": "2026-08-12", "verified_by": "Project — record read directly from the holding institution's own published record", "notes": "Dimensions given as 'Hoogte 135 mm; Breedte 104 mm' without a plate/sheet label, so both typed fields left null. Materially unusual: the sheet is recorded as retouched by hand with pen and grey ink. Collection: Tekeningen & Prenten; currently in depot. No Bartsch/New Hollstein number is printed on the public record." }, { "id": "CN-museum-of-fine-art-p391", "holder_type": "museum", "institution": "Museum of Fine Arts, Boston", "department": null, "city": "Boston", "country": "United States", "accession_number": "P391", "title_as_catalogued": "Self Portrait in a Velvet Cap with Plume", "date_as_catalogued": "1638", "medium_as_catalogued": "Etching", "state": null, "state_catalogue": null, "state_verbatim": "Hind 156 ii (implied second state; no separate state field)", "state_confidence": "unknown", "catalogue_refs_verbatim": "Bartsch 020; Hind 156 ii", "api_source_url": null, "plate_mm": "135 x 105", "sheet_mm": "141 x 110", "watermark": null, "paper": null, "collector_marks": [ "Lugt 1309 (Henry F. Sewall)" ], "provenance_note": "Henry F. Sewall (1816-1896, New York, Lugt 1309); purchased by MFA, November 1897.", "credit_line": "Harvey D. Parker Collection - Harvey Drury Parker Fund", "exhibitions": [], "literature": [], "condition_note": null, "image_url": null, "thumbnail_url": null, "local_image": null, "local_thumb": null, "iiif_manifest": null, "rights_statement": null, "source_url": "https://www.mfa.org/collections/object/self-portrait-in-a-velvet-cap-with-plume-108044", "source_name": "Museum of Fine Arts, Boston", "evidence_tier": "institutional_record", "confidence": "strongly_supported", "review_state": "verified", "verified_on": "2026-08-12", "verified_by": "Project — record read directly from the holding institution's own published record", "notes": "Dimensions labelled 'Platemark' and 'Sheet' in the record. Retrieved via a real browser session (record served from collections.mfa.org); direct HTTP fetch is Cloudflare-blocked. Cross-check: A search of the full MFA collections database for this title returned exactly one impression of B.20 (P391); the only other 'velvet cap' hit is the Sketch Plate (P732), correctly rejected. Note MFA's uniquely zero-padded 'Bartsch 020' formatting - a census importer must normalise this. API route: None. mfa.org serves a Cloudflare challenge to curl and WebFetch; retrieved by rendering in a browser." }, { "id": "CN-princeton-universi-x1949-229", "holder_type": "university", "institution": "Princeton University Art Museum", "department": null, "city": "Princeton, NJ", "country": "United States", "accession_number": "x1949-229", "title_as_catalogued": "Rembrandt in Velvet Cap", "date_as_catalogued": "1638", "medium_as_catalogued": "Etching", "state": null, "state_catalogue": null, "state_verbatim": null, "state_confidence": "unknown", "catalogue_refs_verbatim": "Bartsch 20; Biorklund and Barnard 38; Hind 156; Hollstein 9; Munz 22; New Hollstein 31.170", "api_source_url": "https://data.artmuseum.princeton.edu/iiif/objects/7280 (IIIF Presentation 3, HTTP 200, verified)", "plate_mm": "138 x 105", "sheet_mm": "138 x 105 (sheet trimmed to plate)", "watermark": null, "paper": null, "collector_marks": [], "provenance_note": "Bequest of Jessie P. Frothingham", "credit_line": "Bequest of Jessie P. Frothingham", "exhibitions": [], "literature": [], "condition_note": null, "image_url": "https://media.artmuseum.princeton.edu/iiif/3/collection/INV27356/full/,660/0/default.webp", "thumbnail_url": null, "local_image": null, "local_thumb": null, "iiif_manifest": "https://data.artmuseum.princeton.edu/iiif/objects/7280", "rights_statement": "IIIF manifest 'rights' is null; requiredStatement = Attribution: 'Princeton University Art Museum'. No open-access licence asserted.", "source_url": "https://artmuseum.princeton.edu/art/collections/objects/7280", "source_name": "Princeton University Art Museum", "evidence_tier": "institutional_record", "confidence": "strongly_supported", "review_state": "verified", "verified_on": "2026-08-12", "verified_by": "Project — record read directly from the holding institution's own published record", "notes": "Dimension recorded by the museum as 'Plate (sheet trimmed to plate): 13.8 x 10.5 cm'. No state given. NOTE: the record's 'Hollstein 9' appears anomalous against every other institution's 'Hollstein 20'; transcribed as printed, not corrected. Cross-check: Catalogued under a shortened title, but Bartsch 20 + New Hollstein 31.170 + date 1638 make the identification secure. INTERNAL INCONSISTENCY: Princeton's 'Reference Numbers' line (Biorklund and Barnard 38, Hind 156, Munz 22, New Hollstein 31.170, Hollstein 9) disagrees with its own bibliography, which cites Biorklund and Barnard no. 47, Hollstein no. 129, Munz no. 71 and New Hollstein no. 236 p. 144. Only Bartsch 20 and New Hollstein 170 are stable across the record. Also records the largest plate measurement in the census (138 mm), 2-3 mm above every other institution." }, { "id": "CN-risd-museum-rhode--84-198-1269", "holder_type": "museum", "institution": "RISD Museum (Rhode Island School of Design)", "department": null, "city": "Providence, RI", "country": "United States", "accession_number": "84.198.1269", "title_as_catalogued": "Self-portrait in a Velvet Cap with Plume", "date_as_catalogued": "1638", "medium_as_catalogued": "Etching on paper", "state": null, "state_catalogue": null, "state_verbatim": null, "state_confidence": "unknown", "catalogue_refs_verbatim": "", "api_source_url": null, "plate_mm": "135 x 103 mm ('13.5 x 10.3 cm (5 5/16 x 4 1/16 inches) (plate)')", "sheet_mm": null, "watermark": null, "paper": null, "collector_marks": [], "provenance_note": null, "credit_line": "Gift of the Fazzano Brothers", "exhibitions": [], "literature": [], "condition_note": null, "image_url": null, "thumbnail_url": null, "local_image": null, "local_thumb": null, "iiif_manifest": null, "rights_statement": "\"This object is in the Public Domain and available under a CC0 1.0 Universal (CC0 1.0) Public Domain Dedication\"", "source_url": "https://risdmuseum.org/art-design/collection/self-portrait-velvet-cap-plume-841981269", "source_name": "RISD Museum (Rhode Island School of Design)", "evidence_tier": "institutional_record", "confidence": "strongly_supported", "review_state": "verified", "verified_on": "2026-08-12", "verified_by": "Project — record read directly from the holding institution's own published record", "notes": "The record's IDENTIFICATION, SIGNATURE/INSCRIPTION/MARKS and DIMENSIONS field headings are present but EMPTY - so no state and no catalogue reference may be asserted. A web-search summary claimed 'third state of four' for this impression; that is NOT in the museum record and is rejected. Exhibited 'Past Made Present: Dutch Shadows in the Black Atlantic' (Sep 2022 - Aug 2023) and 'Rhode Island Collects Paper' (1986). RISD's label copy refers to 'the two versions of Self-Portrait in a Velvet Cap with Plume', which may indicate a second RISD impression or a loan; not resolved - see open_questions. API route: None. risdmuseum.org serves a Cloudflare block page to curl and WebFetch; retrieved by rendering in a browser." }, { "id": "CN-swann-auction-gall-x", "holder_type": "art_market", "institution": "Swann Auction Galleries (sale 2566, 'Old Master Through Modern Prints', 6 May 2021, lot 87)", "department": null, "city": "New York", "country": "United States", "accession_number": null, "title_as_catalogued": "Self Portrait in a Velvet Cap and Plume", "date_as_catalogued": "1638", "medium_as_catalogued": "Etching and drypoint", "state": null, "state_catalogue": null, "state_verbatim": "Biorklund's third state (of 3); Usticke's second state (i-l) (of 3), with the delicate details on the face and beard distinct and the shading lower right clear, before the Jean rework", "state_confidence": "unknown", "catalogue_refs_verbatim": "Bartsch 20; Biorklund 38-B; Hollstein (White and Boon) 20", "api_source_url": null, "plate_mm": "135 x 105", "sheet_mm": null, "watermark": null, "paper": null, "collector_marks": [], "provenance_note": null, "credit_line": null, "exhibitions": [], "literature": [], "condition_note": null, "image_url": null, "thumbnail_url": null, "local_image": null, "local_thumb": null, "iiif_manifest": null, "rights_statement": null, "source_url": "https://catalogue.swanngalleries.com/Lots/auction-lot/REMBRANDT-VAN-RIJN-Self-Portrait-in-a-Velvet-Cap-and-Plume?saleno=2566&lotNo=87&refNo=781521", "source_name": "Swann Auction Galleries (sale 2566, 'Old Master Through Modern Prints', 6 May 2021, lot 87)", "evidence_tier": "auction_catalogue", "confidence": "strongly_supported", "review_state": "verified", "verified_on": "2026-08-12", "verified_by": "Project — record read directly from the holding institution's own published record", "notes": "LOWER EVIDENCE TIER. Condition note verbatim: 'A very good, well-inked and crisp impression with strong contrasts and touches of burr on the beard, right eye and below the brim of the hat.' Sheet described as 'narrow to thread margins'. Valuable mainly because it records the Biorklund and Usticke state systems (both 3 states) and names the 'Jean rework' as the later intervention." }, { "id": "CN-the-metropolitan-m-60-598-66", "holder_type": "museum", "institution": "The Metropolitan Museum of Art", "department": null, "city": "New York", "country": "United States", "accession_number": "60.598.66", "title_as_catalogued": "Self-Portrait in a Velvet Cap with Plume", "date_as_catalogued": "1638", "medium_as_catalogued": "Etching", "state": null, "state_catalogue": null, "state_verbatim": null, "state_confidence": "unknown", "catalogue_refs_verbatim": "", "api_source_url": "https://collectionapi.metmuseum.org/public/collection/v1/objects/391675", "plate_mm": null, "sheet_mm": null, "watermark": null, "paper": null, "collector_marks": [], "provenance_note": null, "credit_line": "Bequest of Julia H. Manges, in memory of her husband, Dr. Morris Manges, 1960", "exhibitions": [], "literature": [], "condition_note": null, "image_url": "https://images.metmuseum.org/CRDImages/dp/original/DP814553.jpg", "thumbnail_url": null, "local_image": "/images/comparators/met-60-598-66-2000.jpg", "local_thumb": "/images/comparators/met-60-598-66-web.jpg", "iiif_manifest": null, "rights_statement": "isPublicDomain: true (Met Open Access, CC0). The rightsAndReproduction field is empty.", "source_url": "https://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/391675", "source_name": "The Metropolitan Museum of Art", "evidence_tier": "institutional_record", "confidence": "strongly_supported", "review_state": "verified", "verified_on": "2026-08-12", "verified_by": "Project — record read directly from the holding institution's own published record", "notes": "Met objectID 391675. The API returns EMPTY strings for both 'dimensions' and 'state', and no catalogue reference field exists in the Met schema - so state and dimensions must remain null. The Met's own HTML page returned HTTP 429/403 to scraping, so no supplementary fields were recoverable; source_url is the objectURL supplied by the API itself." }, { "id": "CN-the-metropolitan-m-64-649-5", "holder_type": "museum", "institution": "The Metropolitan Museum of Art", "department": null, "city": "New York", "country": "United States", "accession_number": "64.649.5", "title_as_catalogued": "Self-Portrait in a Velvet Cap with Plume", "date_as_catalogued": "1638", "medium_as_catalogued": "Etching", "state": null, "state_catalogue": null, "state_verbatim": null, "state_confidence": "unknown", "catalogue_refs_verbatim": "", "api_source_url": "https://collectionapi.metmuseum.org/public/collection/v1/objects/391676", "plate_mm": null, "sheet_mm": null, "watermark": null, "paper": null, "collector_marks": [], "provenance_note": null, "credit_line": "Gift of Mrs. B. S. Oppenheimer, in memory of Dr. B. S. Oppenheimer, 1964", "exhibitions": [], "literature": [], "condition_note": null, "image_url": "https://images.metmuseum.org/CRDImages/dp/original/DP814552.jpg", "thumbnail_url": null, "local_image": "/images/comparators/met-64-649-5-2000.jpg", "local_thumb": "/images/comparators/met-64-649-5-web.jpg", "iiif_manifest": null, "rights_statement": "isPublicDomain: true (Met Open Access, CC0).", "source_url": "https://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/391676", "source_name": "The Metropolitan Museum of Art", "evidence_tier": "institutional_record", "confidence": "strongly_supported", "review_state": "verified", "verified_on": "2026-08-12", "verified_by": "Project — record read directly from the holding institution's own published record", "notes": "Met objectID 391676. Second Met impression, distinct accession, distinct donor and distinct image file from 60.598.66. A title-scan over the Met's Rembrandt result set (1,097 objectIDs from q=Rembrandt) returned exactly these two impressions of B.20; the scan was stopped before completing every id because of API rate limiting, so a third Met impression cannot be formally excluded." }, { "id": "CN-bonhams-27424-2", "holder_type": "art_market", "institution": "Bonhams (sale 27424, lot 2, London, 13 December 2022)", "department": null, "city": "London", "country": "United Kingdom", "accession_number": null, "title_as_catalogued": "Self-Portrait in a velvet Cap with Plume", "date_as_catalogued": "1638", "medium_as_catalogued": "Etching, on heavy laid paper", "state": "II", "state_catalogue": "New Hollstein", "state_verbatim": "New Hollstein's second state (of four)", "state_confidence": "probable", "catalogue_refs_verbatim": "Bartsch 20; New Hollstein 170", "api_source_url": null, "plate_mm": null, "sheet_mm": "125 × 103", "watermark": "Partial Strasbourg Lily", "paper": "Heavy laid paper", "collector_marks": [], "provenance_note": null, "credit_line": null, "exhibitions": [], "literature": [], "condition_note": "Trimmed by 9 mm at the top and along the lower plate mark.", "image_url": null, "thumbnail_url": null, "local_image": null, "local_thumb": null, "iiif_manifest": null, "rights_statement": null, "source_url": "https://www.bonhams.com/auction/27424/lot/2/", "source_name": "Bonhams", "evidence_tier": "auction_catalogue", "confidence": "probable", "review_state": "provisional", "verified_on": "2026-08-12", "verified_by": "Project — lot page read directly", "notes": "An art-market record, not an institutional one, and weighted accordingly. Recorded because the watermark and the trimming are stated, which makes it a usable comparator for the paper question, and because it is the only impression of this print traceable in this house's public archive." }, { "id": "CN-np-rmb-001", "holder_type": "private", "institution": "Private collection", "department": null, "city": "Dubai", "country": "United Arab Emirates", "accession_number": "NP-RMB-001", "title_as_catalogued": "Self-Portrait in a Velvet Cap with Plume", "date_as_catalogued": "1638", "medium_as_catalogued": "Drypoint etching, on laid paper", "state": "III", "state_catalogue": "New Hollstein", "state_verbatim": "New Hollstein 170, state III (of IV, without signature, diagonal scratch in plate at upper left only slightly visible)", "state_confidence": "probable", "catalogue_refs_verbatim": "Bartsch 20; New Hollstein 170, state III (of IV)", "api_source_url": null, "plate_mm": "134 × 103 (per New Hollstein, for the plate)", "sheet_mm": "137 × 104", "watermark": null, "paper": null, "collector_marks": [], "provenance_note": "Bonhams, Fine Books and Manuscripts, sale 28358, lot 182, New York, 24 April – 4 May 2023; private collection, Dubai. No ownership documented before 2023; the verso carries no collector's mark.", "credit_line": "Private collection, Dubai", "exhibitions": [], "literature": [], "condition_note": "Left margin roughly trimmed, some wrinkling, dampstaining to lower left corner including part of image. Unmounted. Not assessed by a conservator.", "image_url": null, "thumbnail_url": null, "local_image": null, "local_thumb": null, "iiif_manifest": null, "rights_statement": "Metadata CC0 1.0. No images published.", "source_url": "https://www.bonhams.com/auction/28358/lot/182/rembrandt-self-portrait-in-a-velvet-cap-with-plume-van-rijn-rembrandt-harmenszoon-1606-1669-drypoint-etching-137-x-104-mm-unsigned-and-undated-but-1638-on-laid-paper/", "source_name": "Bonhams, sale 28358, lot 182", "evidence_tier": "auction_catalogue", "confidence": "probable", "review_state": "provisional", "verified_on": "2026-08-12", "verified_by": "Project — transcribed from the auction catalogue entry and the payment receipt", "notes": "This project's own sheet. It is listed on the same terms as every other row and at auction-catalogue tier, because that is what its documentation currently supports — one cataloguer's determination, not an examination. The institutional rows remain better evidence about this plate than this one is." } ], "questions": [ { "id": "RQ-01", "slug": "does-this-impression-carry-the-signature", "title": "Does this impression carry the signature “Rembrandt f. 1638”?", "status": "resolved", "opened": "2026-08-12", "updated": "2026-08-12", "difficulty": "low", "suitable_for_student": true, "why_it_matters": "The working record described the sheet as “without signature”, which reads oddly against a plate that is signed and dated in the plate from its first state. Establishing what the phrase refers to matters because it is one of the two grounds the auction house gave for its state determination.", "current_evidence": "The phrase comes from the catalogue entry, where it describes the state rather than the sheet: “New Hollstein 170, state III (of IV, without signature, diagonal scratch in plate at upper left only slightly visible).” The plate is signed from state I and the signature is redrawn in state IV. In the catalogue's reproductions it is legible in states I and IV and not clearly legible in either II or III — so an impression showing no signature is narrowed to state II or state III, and no further.", "hypotheses": [ { "statement": "The signature is present and the working record's phrase was copied from a description of a different lot.", "confidence": "rejected", "note": "Rejected 12 August 2026. The phrase came from this lot's own catalogue entry and describes the state correctly." }, { "statement": "The signature is physically present but lost to the trimming at the left margin.", "confidence": "rejected", "note": "Rejected. The signature sits at the upper left of the image, not in the margin, and the image area is intact." }, { "statement": "The signature had worn away or been burnished out by the third state.", "confidence": "strongly_supported", "note": "Supported by the catalogue's definition of state IV as the signature being redrawn, and by its reproduction of state III showing none." } ], "methods": [ "Photograph the recto and look. This is the whole method.", "If the signature area is damaged or ambiguous, examine under magnification and raking light.", "Compare the position of the signature against a high-resolution institutional impression before concluding that trimming removed it." ], "resolving_evidence": "Resolved by the catalogue entry and its reproductions, together with the auction house's photograph of the sheet.", "negative_findings": [], "resources": [ { "label": "Rijksmuseum RP-P-1961-989 (records the inscription)", "url": "https://www.rijksmuseum.nl/en/collection/RP-P-1961-989" }, { "label": "Impression census — compare recorded inscriptions", "url": "/census" } ], "evidence_ids": [ "EV-LOT-182", "EV-NH-170", "EV-CONDITION-PHOTOS" ], "bibliography_ids": [], "related_questions": [ "RQ-02", "RQ-03" ], "contributions": [] }, { "id": "RQ-02", "slug": "which-of-the-four-states", "title": "Is this impression New Hollstein 170, state III?", "status": "under_investigation", "opened": "2026-08-12", "updated": "2026-08-12", "difficulty": "medium", "suitable_for_student": true, "why_it_matters": "State is the field that locates a sheet in the life of a plate. For this plate it does more than that: the catalogue is explicit that the work visible in the third state is not Rembrandt's. So the state determination decides whether this impression is a document of Rembrandt's workshop or of the plate's afterlife under other hands.", "current_evidence": "The catalogue entry is in hand and all four state descriptions are published on the state atlas. The auction cataloguer determined state III, citing two features: no signature, and a diagonal scratch in the plate at upper left only slightly visible. On closer reading the first of those does not discriminate — the catalogue's reproduction of state II does not show the signature clearly either, so an absent signature narrows the sheet to state II or III and no further. The determination therefore rests on the scratch and on the cataloguer's reading of the line-work. No specialist in Old Master prints has examined the sheet.", "hypotheses": [ { "statement": "The sheet is New Hollstein 170, state III — a posthumous rework of the plate.", "confidence": "possible", "note": "The auction cataloguer's determination. Lowered from probable on 12 August 2026 when one of its two stated grounds turned out not to discriminate between states II and III." }, { "statement": "The sheet is New Hollstein 170, state II — the plate as Rembrandt left it.", "confidence": "possible", "note": "State II is by far the most numerous state, it is the only state White & Boon recognised, and it is equally consistent with an impression showing no legible signature. It has not been excluded." } ], "methods": [ "Compare the sheet against the catalogue's diagnostic features for states II and III, feature by feature, recording each as present, absent or indeterminate.", "Compare against the catalogue's reproductions of 170/II and 170/III.", "Where a feature is indeterminate on the existing photographs, re-photograph that passage under raking light and magnification." ], "resolving_evidence": "A specialist comparing the sheet against the four features the catalogue uses to define state III: cross-hatching added at the base of the feather and along the brim of the cap above the eyes; the curved lines on the forehead extended over the brim; strong horizontal shading on the right ear; short diagonal lines in front of the left ear and on the beard at the right of the chin. Each is present or it is not, and the answer does not depend on anybody's opinion of the sheet.", "negative_findings": [], "resources": [ { "label": "British Museum collection online", "url": "https://www.britishmuseum.org/collection" }, { "label": "Rijksmuseum collection", "url": "https://www.rijksmuseum.nl/en/collection" }, { "label": "Impression census, filterable by state", "url": "/census" } ], "evidence_ids": [ "EV-NH-170", "EV-LOT-182", "EV-CONDITION-PHOTOS" ], "bibliography_ids": [], "related_questions": [ "RQ-01", "RQ-06", "RQ-09" ], "contributions": [] }, { "id": "RQ-03", "slug": "plate-and-sheet-dimensions", "title": "What are the plate and sheet dimensions, and does a plate mark survive on any edge?", "status": "resolved", "opened": "2026-08-12", "updated": "2026-08-12", "difficulty": "low", "suitable_for_student": false, "why_it_matters": "Dimensions are how a census row is matched, and a figure whose convention is unstated cannot be compared with anything. The working record gives approximately 137 × 104 mm without saying whether that is the plate or the sheet, while also describing the sheet as roughly trimmed. The Rijksmuseum records 134 × 103 mm for its impression. A surviving plate mark on any edge also tells you how much of the original sheet is left, which bears on what evidence has been lost.", "current_evidence": "New Hollstein gives the plate as 13.4 × 10.3 cm. The auction cataloguer measured the sheet at 137 × 104 mm. The two figures measure different things, and both are on the record labelled with what they measure.", "hypotheses": [ { "statement": "The 137 × 104 mm figure is a sheet measurement including a margin beyond the plate mark on the untrimmed edges.", "confidence": "possible", "note": "Would be internally consistent: trimmed on one edge, margin retained on others." }, { "statement": "The figure was transcribed from a description of a different object.", "confidence": "possible", "note": "Shares a possible cause with RQ-01." } ], "methods": [ "Measure under a conservation protocol, recording plate mark and sheet separately, to the millimetre, stating the convention and the measuring instrument.", "Record which edges retain a plate mark and which are cut, edge by edge.", "Photograph with a scale bar in frame so the measurement is checkable from the image." ], "resolving_evidence": "Resolved by the catalogue's plate dimension. Remeasurement of the sheet under a conservation protocol, edge by edge, remains on the version 1.0 gate list as a matter of record quality rather than of doubt.", "negative_findings": [], "resources": [ { "label": "Rijksmuseum RP-P-1961-989", "url": "https://www.rijksmuseum.nl/en/collection/RP-P-1961-989" }, { "label": "Bonhams 27424 lot 2 (comparator measurements)", "url": "https://www.bonhams.com/auction/27424/lot/2/" } ], "evidence_ids": [ "EV-NH-170", "EV-LOT-182" ], "bibliography_ids": [], "related_questions": [ "RQ-01", "RQ-07" ], "contributions": [] }, { "id": "RQ-04", "slug": "watermark-identification", "title": "Does the sheet carry a watermark, and can it narrow the period in which this impression was printed?", "status": "open", "opened": "2026-08-12", "updated": "2026-08-12", "difficulty": "high", "suitable_for_student": false, "why_it_matters": "This is the question with the highest information value in the whole record. Rembrandt's plates were printed long after his death, and the image alone rarely settles when a given sheet was pulled. The paper can. Watermarks in the papers Rembrandt used have been studied and catalogued in enough depth that an identified mark can place a sheet within a range of years. A negative result — no watermark in the surviving area — is also a real result and would close the cheapest route to dating this impression.", "current_evidence": "Nothing. The sheet has not been examined in transmitted light. A comparator impression sold in 2022 carried a partial Strasbourg Lily watermark, which shows the kind of evidence that can survive on a trimmed sheet of this print.", "hypotheses": [ { "statement": "A watermark or watermark fragment survives in the sheet.", "confidence": "possible", "note": "Trimming reduces the odds. On a sheet of roughly this size the mark is as likely as not to fall outside what remains." }, { "statement": "If a mark is found and identified, it will indicate a printing later than Rembrandt's lifetime.", "confidence": "possible", "note": "Recorded as a hypothesis with no evidence behind it, so that it is on the board and cannot quietly become an assumption. The project has no finding on this." } ], "methods": [ "Transmitted-light photography, by a method a paper conservator approves in writing, capturing the full sheet.", "If a mark is present, record it to the standard descriptive conventions and measure it against the chain lines.", "Compare against the published corpora of watermarks in Rembrandt's papers.", "If no mark is visible, record the null result with the method used, so that the negative is as citable as a positive would be." ], "resolving_evidence": "A transmitted-light image, and either an identification against a published watermark corpus or a documented null result.", "negative_findings": [], "resources": [ { "label": "Conservation and material studies — imaging methods under consideration", "url": "/conservation" }, { "label": "Bibliography — watermark literature", "url": "/bibliography" } ], "evidence_ids": [ "EV-NO-CONSERVATOR" ], "bibliography_ids": [], "related_questions": [ "RQ-05", "RQ-06" ], "contributions": [] }, { "id": "RQ-05", "slug": "chain-line-spacing", "title": "What is the chain-line spacing, and does it match any impression already recorded in the census?", "status": "open", "opened": "2026-08-12", "updated": "2026-08-12", "difficulty": "medium", "suitable_for_student": true, "why_it_matters": "Chain lines are the widely spaced lines left in laid paper by the mould's supporting wires. Their spacing is a property of the individual mould, so it is a fingerprint of a batch of paper in a way that “laid paper” is not. Where a watermark is missing or fragmentary, chain-line spacing is sometimes the only measurable feature of the sheet — and unlike a watermark, it is present across the whole sheet, so trimming rarely removes it entirely. It is also a good student project: the measurement is straightforward once the image exists.", "current_evidence": "None. Laid structure has not been observed; even the claim that the support is laid paper is currently an assumption rather than an observation.", "hypotheses": [], "methods": [ "Measure chain-line intervals from the transmitted-light image, at several points, recording the range rather than a single figure.", "Record the laid-line density in the same image.", "Publish the measurements in a standard form so other holders of impressions can compare theirs — the value of this measurement is entirely in its comparability." ], "resolving_evidence": "Measurements taken from a transmitted-light image, published in a comparable format.", "negative_findings": [], "resources": [ { "label": "Paper fingerprint template", "url": "/conservation#paper-fingerprint" } ], "evidence_ids": [ "EV-NO-CONSERVATOR" ], "bibliography_ids": [], "related_questions": [ "RQ-04" ], "contributions": [] }, { "id": "RQ-06", "slug": "lifetime-or-posthumous", "title": "Was this impression printed during Rembrandt's lifetime, or later?", "status": "partially_resolved", "opened": "2026-08-12", "updated": "2026-08-12", "difficulty": "high", "suitable_for_student": false, "why_it_matters": "This is the question everything else feeds. Rembrandt's copper plates survived him and were printed, reworked and reprinted for a very long time afterwards. An impression pulled in the seventeenth century and one pulled in the nineteenth are the same image and are not the same object: they differ in what they record about the plate, in what they can be used to study, and in where they sit in the history of the print's transmission. The honest position today is that the project does not know, and no part of this record assumes an answer.", "current_evidence": "Substantially answered, and the answer follows from the state rather than from anything observed in the sheet. New Hollstein describes the work visible in state III as “Probably rebitten … Not by Rembrandt.” An impression in that state was pulled after the plate had been reworked by another hand, and therefore after it left Rembrandt's control. The catalogue also lists no watermarks for states III and IV, while listing nine for states I and II — consistent with the later states belonging to a period the catalogue's paper research does not cover. What keeps this at partially resolved rather than resolved is that it rests entirely on the state attribution, which is one cataloguer's reading.", "hypotheses": [ { "statement": "This is a later impression rather than a lifetime one.", "confidence": "probable", "note": "Now supported by the catalogue's own characterisation of state III as not Rembrandt's work, rather than being a prior about the population." } ], "methods": [ "Resolve the watermark question (RQ-04) — the strongest single line of evidence.", "Resolve the state question (RQ-02) against the catalogue.", "Assess plate wear against securely dated impressions (RQ-09, RQ-12).", "Examine the ink and printing character alongside comparator impressions, with a specialist." ], "resolving_evidence": "Confirmation or rejection of the state III attribution by a specialist. If state III holds, the sheet is posthumous. If it is a late state II, the question reopens completely.", "negative_findings": [], "resources": [ { "label": "Impression census", "url": "/census" } ], "evidence_ids": [ "EV-NH-170", "EV-LOT-182" ], "bibliography_ids": [], "related_questions": [ "RQ-02", "RQ-04", "RQ-09", "RQ-12" ], "contributions": [] }, { "id": "RQ-07", "slug": "verso-marks-and-inscriptions", "title": "Does the verso carry collector marks, dealer codes or inscriptions?", "status": "resolved", "opened": "2026-08-12", "updated": "2026-08-12", "difficulty": "low", "suitable_for_student": true, "why_it_matters": "The back of a print is where its ownership history is usually written: collectors' stamps, dealers' stock numbers, pencil annotations, mount and hinge remnants. This is the most likely single route into the undocumented interval in the provenance. The Rijksmuseum's impression carries two identified collector marks; there is no reason in principle this sheet could not carry one.", "current_evidence": "Resolved, negatively. The verso has been photographed. It carries no collector's mark, no stamp, no pencil inscription, no dealer's code and no mount or hinge remnant — only a diagonal tideline across the lower half and general handling marks. The sheet has no marks on the recto either beyond the printed image.", "hypotheses": [ { "statement": "The verso is blank.", "confidence": "strongly_supported", "note": "Confirmed in plain light. This is a real finding: it closes the most likely route into the sheet's ownership before 2023." } ], "methods": [ "Verso photography under the same documentation discipline as the recto.", "Any mark found is compared against the standard reference for collectors' marks and cited by its Lugt number.", "Pencil inscriptions are transcribed exactly, including anything illegible, marked as such." ], "resolving_evidence": "Resolved by direct photographic evidence. Examination under ultraviolet or raking light could still reveal a faded stamp or an erased inscription, and would be worth doing during the conservator visit, but the plain-light answer is settled.", "negative_findings": [ { "finding": "No collector's mark of any kind is present. For a sheet that passed through the market for two centuries or more, that is unusual enough to be worth recording, and it means provenance research on this impression cannot start from a Lugt number.", "date": "2026-08-12", "by": null } ], "resources": [ { "label": "Marques de collections (Lugt database)", "url": "https://www.marquesdecollections.fr/" }, { "label": "Fondation Custodia — collectors' marks", "url": "https://www.fondationcustodia.fr/" } ], "evidence_ids": [ "EV-CONDITION-PHOTOS" ], "bibliography_ids": [], "related_questions": [ "RQ-11" ], "contributions": [] }, { "id": "RQ-08", "slug": "locating-the-2023-lot", "title": "Which sale and lot was this sheet bought as in 2023?", "status": "resolved", "opened": "2026-08-12", "updated": "2026-08-12", "difficulty": "low", "suitable_for_student": false, "why_it_matters": "The auction catalogue entry is the most recent independent description of the object by someone who had it in their hands. It would give a professional cataloguer's reading of the state, the dimensions and the condition, and it may name a consignor or state a prior provenance. It is the shortest path to a second opinion on almost every open field.", "current_evidence": "Resolved. Bonhams, Fine Books and Manuscripts, sale 28358, lot 182, New York, online only, 24 April to 4 May 2023; receipt dated 17 May 2023. The lot page is publicly reachable at the URL recorded against EV-LOT-182. The catalogue entry gives the medium, the sheet dimensions, the condition and the state determination, and cites Bartsch 20 and New Hollstein 170. The consignor is not named.", "hypotheses": [ { "statement": "The lot was sold through a regional or online-only sale whose lot pages are not surfaced by the house's public keyword search.", "confidence": "probable", "note": "The search established that the house's public search returns forthcoming lots rather than past ones, and that past lots are reachable only by direct URL. A lot can therefore exist in the archive and be effectively unfindable by search." }, { "statement": "The sale was not held in New York, and “New York” in the working record refers to something else — the buyer's shipping route, or the house generally.", "confidence": "possible", "note": null } ], "methods": [ "Read the sale number and lot number off the invoice. One document settles this.", "Failing that, request the catalogue entry from the auction house directly, citing the invoice." ], "resolving_evidence": "Resolved by the payment receipt, confirmed against the published lot page.", "negative_findings": [ { "finding": "The auction house's public keyword search does not return past lots; it returns forthcoming consignments. Past lots are reachable only through direct sale-and-lot URLs, which are indexed externally but not by the house's own search. A negative result from that search therefore does not establish that a lot does not exist — and in this case it did not: the lot page was public throughout the search that failed to find it.", "date": "2026-08-12", "by": null }, { "finding": "Sale index pages render only a partial sample of lots to an unauthenticated request. Any negative finding drawn from a sale index page is unsafe.", "date": "2026-08-12", "by": null }, { "finding": "The major aggregators gate realised prices behind a login or a subscription. None of them can be used to establish a negative.", "date": "2026-08-12", "by": null } ], "resources": [ { "label": "Bonhams 27424 lot 2 — the impression that is not this one", "url": "https://www.bonhams.com/auction/27424/lot/2/" } ], "evidence_ids": [ "EV-ACQ-INVOICE", "EV-LOT-182" ], "bibliography_ids": [], "related_questions": [ "RQ-11" ], "contributions": [] }, { "id": "RQ-09", "slug": "drypoint-burr-and-plate-wear", "title": "Does any drypoint burr survive in this impression, and what does the plate wear indicate?", "status": "open", "opened": "2026-08-12", "updated": "2026-08-12", "difficulty": "medium", "suitable_for_student": false, "why_it_matters": "Drypoint burr — the ridge of metal thrown up by the needle — holds ink and prints as a soft, velvety black. It is also fragile: it collapses within a few dozen impressions. Where burr is present the sheet is early; where the same passages print thin and grey, it is late. Since the Rijksmuseum catalogues this composition as etching and drypoint, the print has burr to lose, which makes it a usable wear indicator for this plate specifically.", "current_evidence": "The Rijksmuseum records the technique of this composition as etching and drypoint. Whether drypoint passages exist in this impression, and in what condition, has not been examined.", "hypotheses": [], "methods": [ "Examine the drypoint passages under magnification and raking light.", "Compare the same passages against high-resolution images of impressions whose state is securely catalogued.", "Record the assessment passage by passage rather than as a single verdict on the sheet." ], "resolving_evidence": "A specialist's assessment against comparator impressions, with the passages compared identified.", "negative_findings": [], "resources": [ { "label": "Impression census", "url": "/census" } ], "evidence_ids": [], "bibliography_ids": [], "related_questions": [ "RQ-06", "RQ-12" ], "contributions": [] }, { "id": "RQ-10", "slug": "dampstaining-cause-and-stability", "title": "What caused the dampstaining, and is it stable?", "status": "open", "opened": "2026-08-12", "updated": "2026-08-12", "difficulty": "medium", "suitable_for_student": false, "why_it_matters": "Two distinct things are being asked. The conservation question is whether the staining is active and threatens the support — that determines whether anything should be done. The historical question is what the staining records: water damage is an event in the sheet's life, and its pattern can indicate how the print was stored, whether it was once bound or mounted, and whether it shares a history with other sheets bearing the same pattern. The project will not commission treatment to improve appearance. It will act on a stability finding.", "current_evidence": "A sale-catalogue description of wrinkling and dampstaining at the lower left extending partly into the image. No examination, no assessment of activity, no pH measurement.", "hypotheses": [ { "statement": "The staining is historic and stable.", "confidence": "possible", "note": "The most common finding for damage of this kind, and the project's working assumption for handling purposes — which is to say, it is treated as unknown and handled carefully." } ], "methods": [ "Conservator examination, including examination under ultraviolet light for the extent of the staining and any previous treatment.", "Assessment of whether tidelines are defined and whether there is any evidence of mould.", "Documentation of the pattern in raking light, which sometimes shows the fold or stacking that produced it." ], "resolving_evidence": "A baseline condition report by a qualified paper conservator.", "negative_findings": [], "resources": [ { "label": "Conservation and material studies", "url": "/conservation" } ], "evidence_ids": [ "EV-WORKING-RECORD" ], "bibliography_ids": [], "related_questions": [], "contributions": [] }, { "id": "RQ-11", "slug": "ownership-before-2023", "title": "Can any owner of this sheet before 2023 be identified?", "status": "open", "opened": "2026-08-12", "updated": "2026-08-12", "difficulty": "high", "suitable_for_student": false, "why_it_matters": "The sheet's own provenance is blank for roughly 177 years before 2023. Any evidenced point inside that blank is a substantive addition — not because it makes the object more valuable, but because a print with a traceable history is a different research object from one without. Impressions with recorded provenance can be placed in collections, and collections can be dated, which loops back to when the sheet was printed.", "current_evidence": "No owner of this sheet before 2023 has been identified, and one route to finding one is now closed: the verso is blank, so there is no collector's mark to trace. What has been added is the descent of the copper plate itself, which New Hollstein records in full from possibly Clement de Jonghe in 1679 through the Basan workshop and four subsequent owners to a private collection in the United States. If this impression is state III it was pulled somewhere inside that chain — most likely in the Basan period, since two of the seven recorded state III impressions are bound into Basan albums.", "hypotheses": [], "methods": [ "Examine the verso under ultraviolet and raking light for a faded stamp or erased inscription that plain light will not show.", "Trace the Basan-period printing: the catalogue lists state III impressions in Amsterdam, Berlin, Budapest, Cracow, Florence, St Petersburg and Vevey, two of them in Basan albums. A sheet matching one of those albums in paper and trimming would place this one.", "Ask the auction house whether the consignor consents to be named." ], "resolving_evidence": "A collector's mark, a dealer's stock number, or an entry in an earlier sale catalogue that can be matched on measurements and condition features.", "negative_findings": [], "resources": [ { "label": "Getty Provenance Index", "url": "https://www.getty.edu/research/tools/provenance/" }, { "label": "Marques de collections", "url": "https://www.marquesdecollections.fr/" } ], "evidence_ids": [ "EV-NH-170", "EV-CONDITION-PHOTOS" ], "bibliography_ids": [], "related_questions": [ "RQ-07", "RQ-08" ], "contributions": [] }, { "id": "RQ-12", "slug": "comparator-impressions-for-wear", "title": "Which institutional impressions are the right comparators for assessing wear in this one?", "status": "under_investigation", "opened": "2026-08-12", "updated": "2026-08-12", "difficulty": "medium", "suitable_for_student": true, "why_it_matters": "Every wear judgement is a comparison, and the comparison is only as good as the comparators. Building a short list of impressions that are securely catalogued by state, openly imaged at high resolution, and reusable under an open licence is a piece of work that helps anyone studying this plate, not only this project. It is the part of the census that is useful to scholars who have no interest in a privately held sheet.", "current_evidence": "The census has been opened and is being populated from institutional collection records. Coverage by state is currently uneven.", "hypotheses": [], "methods": [ "Populate the census from institutional collection records, recording each institution's own cataloguing verbatim.", "Flag which records state a state, which expose an openly licensed image, and which expose a IIIF manifest that can be compared side by side.", "Identify gaps by state and approach the institutions holding relevant impressions." ], "resolving_evidence": "A census with at least one openly imaged, securely catalogued impression per state.", "negative_findings": [], "resources": [ { "label": "Impression census", "url": "/census" } ], "evidence_ids": [], "bibliography_ids": [], "related_questions": [ "RQ-02", "RQ-09" ], "contributions": [] } ], "provenance": [ { "id": "PV-001", "type": "creation", "is_gap": false, "date_start": "1638", "date_end": "1638", "sort_year": 1638, "date_display": "1638", "date_precision": "year", "title": "Rembrandt works the plate", "description": "Rembrandt etches the copper plate in Amsterdam. This event belongs to the work, not to this sheet: it is the origin of the image, and it is the only point on this timeline that is securely dated.", "actor_ids": [ "AG-REMBRANDT" ], "place": "Amsterdam", "price": null, "evidence_ids": [ "EV-WORKING-RECORD" ], "confidence": "probable", "applies_to": "work_concept" }, { "id": "PV-002", "type": "printing", "is_gap": false, "date_start": null, "date_end": null, "sort_year": 1810, "date_display": "Unknown; after the plate was reworked, if state III holds", "date_precision": "unknown", "title": "This impression is printed", "description": "If the state III attribution holds, this sheet was pulled after the plate had been rebitten and reworked by a hand that was not Rembrandt's. That would place it in the plate's French afterlife. The conditional matters: the state attribution is one cataloguer's, and the feature the record leaned on to support it — an absent signature — does not in fact separate state III from state II, because the catalogue's reproduction of state II does not show the signature clearly either. No date is asserted here.", "actor_ids": [], "place": null, "price": null, "evidence_ids": [ "EV-NH-170", "EV-LOT-182" ], "confidence": "possible", "applies_to": "this_impression" }, { "id": "PV-003", "type": "gap", "is_gap": true, "date_start": "1846", "date_end": "before 2023", "sort_year": 1900, "date_display": "c. 1846 – before 2023", "date_precision": "range", "title": "No documented ownership of this sheet", "description": "The sheet's own ownership is undocumented for most of this period. One link is now named: the auction house's specialist states that the work was consigned by a European antiquarian dealer, from a private collection in Germany. Neither the dealer nor the family is named, and the project has not seen documentation behind the statement — but it is the department specialist's own account and it is the first evidenced point inside the gap.", "actor_ids": [], "place": null, "price": null, "evidence_ids": [], "confidence": "unknown", "applies_to": "this_impression" }, { "id": "PV-004", "type": "sale", "is_gap": false, "date_start": "2023-04-24", "date_end": "2023-05-04", "sort_year": 2023, "date_display": "24 April – 4 May 2023", "date_precision": "year", "title": "Sold at Bonhams, New York — sale 28358, lot 182", "description": "Offered in Fine Books and Manuscripts, an online-only sale, and sold as lot 182. The catalogue described it as a drypoint etching, 137 × 104 mm, unsigned and undated (but 1638), on laid paper, with the left margin roughly trimmed, some wrinkling and dampstaining to the lower left corner including part of the image, unmounted; and catalogued it as Bartsch 20, New Hollstein 170, state III of IV. The receipt is dated 17 May 2023. The consignor is not named in the catalogue and is not known to the project.", "actor_ids": [ "AG-BONHAMS" ], "place": "New York", "price": null, "evidence_ids": [ "EV-ACQ-INVOICE", "EV-LOT-182" ], "confidence": "confirmed", "applies_to": "this_impression" }, { "id": "PV-005", "type": "ownership", "is_gap": false, "date_start": "2023", "date_end": null, "sort_year": 2024, "date_display": "2023 – present", "date_precision": "year", "title": "Private collection, Dubai", "description": "Held in a private collection in Dubai. The sheet has not been exhibited, lent, published or examined by a conservator during this period. It has not been displayed, so its cumulative light exposure in these years is nil.", "actor_ids": [ "AG-OWNER" ], "place": "Dubai, United Arab Emirates", "price": null, "evidence_ids": [ "EV-ACQ-INVOICE" ], "confidence": "confirmed", "applies_to": "this_impression" }, { "id": "PV-006", "type": "publication", "is_gap": false, "date_start": "2026-08-12", "date_end": null, "sort_year": 2026, "date_display": "12 August 2026", "date_precision": "exact", "title": "Open research record published", "description": "The object receives the identifier NP-RMB-001 and a public record. Publication itself becomes part of the provenance: from this date the sheet has a citable, versioned scholarly history that travels with it.", "actor_ids": [ "AG-PROJECT" ], "place": null, "price": null, "evidence_ids": [], "confidence": "confirmed", "applies_to": "this_impression" }, { "id": "PV-0035", "type": "consignment", "is_gap": false, "date_start": "2023", "date_end": "2023", "sort_year": 2022, "date_display": "Before April 2023", "date_precision": "unknown", "title": "Private collection, Germany, via a European antiquarian dealer", "description": "The department specialist at the auction house states that the work was consigned by a European antiquarian dealer, acting for a private collection in Germany. The family is not named and the house declined to disclose it. This is a statement by a named professional about a transaction he handled, which is good evidence of the consignment route and no evidence at all about how long the German collection had held the sheet.", "actor_ids": [ "AG-BONHAMS" ], "place": "Germany", "price": null, "evidence_ids": [ "EV-BONHAMS-EMAIL" ], "confidence": "probable", "applies_to": "this_impression" }, { "id": "PV-PLATE-1", "type": "transfer", "is_gap": false, "date_start": "1679", "date_end": "1786", "sort_year": 1679, "date_display": "1679 – 1786", "date_precision": "range", "title": "The copper plate in Dutch and French collections", "description": "New Hollstein records the plate as possibly in the 1679 inventory of Clement de Jonghe, as “13 conterf.[eytsel] van Rembr.[andt]”; then Pieter de Haan's sale of 1767, lot 2, to Fouquet; then Claude-Henri Watelet's sale of 1786, lot 365. This is the plate's history, not this sheet's — but this sheet came off that plate, so it bounds where it came from.", "actor_ids": [], "place": "Amsterdam and Paris", "price": null, "evidence_ids": [ "EV-NH-170" ], "confidence": "probable", "applies_to": "plate" }, { "id": "PV-PLATE-2", "type": "printing", "is_gap": false, "date_start": "1786", "date_end": "1846", "sort_year": 1800, "date_display": "c. 1786 – 1846", "date_precision": "range", "title": "The Basan workshop, and the reworking of the plate", "description": "Rembrandt's plates passed en bloc to Basan for 500 livres. Pierre-François Basan died in 1797; the plate descended to Henry-Louis Basan, who sold it around 1809 to Auguste Jean, and on Jean's death in 1820 to his widow, whose collection was auctioned in 1846 as lot 540. It is in this period that the plate was rebitten and reworked by a hand that was not Rembrandt's, producing the third state, and later had its signature clumsily redrawn in the Basan workshop, producing the fourth. If this sheet is state III, it was printed inside this window.", "actor_ids": [], "place": "Paris", "price": null, "evidence_ids": [ "EV-NH-170" ], "confidence": "strongly_supported", "applies_to": "plate" }, { "id": "PV-PLATE-3", "type": "transfer", "is_gap": false, "date_start": "1846", "date_end": "1993", "sort_year": 1900, "date_display": "1846 – 1993", "date_precision": "range", "title": "The plate to Bernard, Alvin-Beaumont, Humber, and a private collection", "description": "Bought in 1846 by Auguste Bernard, by descent to his son Michel Bernard, who sold it in 1906 to Alvin-Beaumont, who sold it in 1937 to Robert Lee Humber; on Humber's death in 1970 to his heirs, and sold in 1993 through Artemis London with R.M. Light. The catalogue records the plate as last in a private collection in the United States.", "actor_ids": [], "place": "Paris, London and the United States", "price": null, "evidence_ids": [ "EV-NH-170" ], "confidence": "probable", "applies_to": "plate" } ], "bibliography": [ { "id": "hinterding-2006", "type": "book", "authors": [ "Erik Hinterding" ], "editors": [], "title": "Rembrandt as an Etcher: The Practice of Production and Distribution", "container": null, "publisher": "UNVERIFIED", "place": "UNVERIFIED", "year": 2006, "volumes": "3", "pages": null, "isbn": null, "doi": null, "url": "https://www.codart.nl/feature/curators-project/the-watermark-identification-in-rembrandts-etchings-wire-project/", "accessed": "2026-08-12", "verified": false, "relevance": "Title, subtitle, year (2006) and volume count (3 vols.) are CONFIRMED by two independent sources: the CODART WIRE feature and JHNA 12:2 (2020), which gives 'Rembrandt as an Etcher: The Practice of Production and Distribution (3 vols., 2006)'. PUBLISHER AND PLACE ARE NOT VERIFIED and must not be supplied from memory. This work is commonly associated with the Sound & Vision / Studies in Prints and Printmaking series, but that association was NOT confirmed here.", "tags": [] }, { "id": "ash-fletcher-1998", "type": "book", "authors": [ "Nancy Ash", "Shelley Fletcher" ], "editors": [], "title": "Watermarks in Rembrandt's Prints", "container": null, "publisher": "UNVERIFIED (believed National Gallery of Art, Washington)", "place": "UNVERIFIED (believed Washington, D.C.)", "year": 1998, "volumes": null, "pages": null, "isbn": null, "doi": null, "url": "https://jhna.org/articles/decision-trees-for-watermark-identification-in-rembrandts-etchings/", "accessed": "2026-08-12", "verified": false, "relevance": "The YEAR 1998 and the scope (a study of 2,765 impressions) are CONFIRMED by JHNA 12:2 (2020), which refers to 'Ash and Fletcher's earlier 1998 study of 2,765 impressions'. The exact title wording, publisher and place were NOT independently confirmed in a library catalogue during compilation. The National Gallery of Art attribution is the widely held understanding but is recorded here as unverified.", "tags": [] }, { "id": "new-hollstein-rembrandt", "type": "catalogue_raisonne", "authors": [ "Erik Hinterding", "Jaco Rutgers" ], "editors": [], "title": "The New Hollstein Dutch & Flemish Etchings, Engravings and Woodcuts, 1450-1700: Rembrandt", "container": "The New Hollstein Dutch & Flemish Etchings, Engravings and Woodcuts, 1450-1700", "publisher": "Sound & Vision Interactive (per the NGA citation); the completed Rembrandt volumes are associated with Sound & Vision Publishers", "place": "Rotterdam (per the NGA citation)", "year": 2013, "volumes": "UNVERIFIED", "pages": null, "isbn": null, "doi": null, "url": "https://www.nga.gov/artworks/9997-self-portrait-velvet-cap-plume", "accessed": "2026-08-12", "verified": false, "relevance": "AUTHORS CONFIRMED as Erik Hinterding and Jaco Rutgers by the NGA bibliography entry, which reads: 'The New Hollstein Dutch & Flemish Etchings, Engravings and Woodcuts, 1450-1700. (Rembrandt, Erik Hinterding and Jaco Rutgers, authors). Rotterdam: Sound & Vision Interactive, 1996-, no. 170, state ii/iii.' The 2013 date for the completed Rembrandt catalogue is CONFIRMED by the CODART WIRE feature ('subsequently incorporated into the New Hollstein Rembrandt catalogue (2013)'). NUMBER OF VOLUMES, EDITOR (as distinct from authors) AND ISBN ARE UNVERIFIED. Note the NGA citation's open-ended '1996-' reflects the serial nature of the New Hollstein, not the Rembrandt volumes' date.", "tags": [] }, { "id": "bartsch-rembrandt", "type": "catalogue_raisonne", "authors": [ "Adam von Bartsch" ], "editors": [], "title": "Catalogue raisonne de toutes les estampes qui forment l'oeuvre de Rembrandt", "container": null, "publisher": "UNVERIFIED", "place": "UNVERIFIED (believed Vienna)", "year": null, "volumes": "UNVERIFIED", "pages": null, "isbn": null, "doi": null, "url": null, "accessed": null, "verified": false, "relevance": "NOT VERIFIED during compilation. The existence of Bartsch's Rembrandt catalogue and the currency of its numbering (B.20) are confirmed indirectly by every institutional record consulted, all of which cite 'Bartsch 20'. But the publication year, place, publisher, volume count and the exact French title as printed were NOT confirmed against a library catalogue. Commonly cited as Vienna, 1797, but THAT DATE IS NOT VERIFIED HERE and must be checked before use.", "tags": [] }, { "id": "white-boon-1969", "type": "catalogue_raisonne", "authors": [ "Christopher White", "Karel G. Boon" ], "editors": [], "title": "Rembrandt's Etchings: An Illustrated Critical Catalogue", "container": "Hollstein's Dutch and Flemish Etchings, Engravings and Woodcuts, vols XVIII-XIX", "publisher": "Van Gendt & Co.", "place": "Amsterdam", "year": 1969, "volumes": "2", "pages": null, "isbn": null, "doi": null, "url": "https://www.nga.gov/artworks/9997-self-portrait-velvet-cap-plume", "accessed": "2026-08-12", "verified": true, "relevance": "CONFIRMED from two tier-1 records. The NGA bibliography gives: 'White, Christopher and Karel G. Boon. Rembrandt's Etchings. 2 vols. Amsterdam: Van Gendt & Co., 1969.' The British Museum bibliographic reference gives the fuller title: 'White & Boon 1969 / Rembrandt's Etchings: An Illustrated Critical Catalogue'. The association with Hollstein vols XVIII-XIX is the standard understanding but was NOT explicitly confirmed by either record.", "tags": [] }, { "id": "hind-1923", "type": "catalogue_raisonne", "authors": [ "Arthur M. Hind" ], "editors": [], "title": "A Catalogue of Rembrandt's Etchings, Chronologically Arranged and Completely Illustrated", "container": null, "publisher": "Methuen and Co. Ltd.", "place": "London", "year": 1923, "volumes": null, "pages": null, "isbn": null, "doi": null, "url": "https://www.nga.gov/artworks/9997-self-portrait-velvet-cap-plume", "accessed": "2026-08-12", "verified": true, "relevance": "CONFIRMED. NGA bibliography: 'Hind, Arthur M. A Catalogue of Rembrandt's Etchings. London: Methuen and Co. Ltd., 1923.' The fuller subtitle ('chronologically arranged and completely illustrated') comes from the British Museum's bibliographic reference field. B.20 = Hind 156.", "tags": [] }, { "id": "johnson-2020-jhna", "type": "article", "authors": [ "C. Richard Johnson Jr." ], "editors": [], "title": "Decision Trees for Watermark Identification in Rembrandt's Etchings", "container": "Journal of Historians of Netherlandish Art", "publisher": "Historians of Netherlandish Art", "place": null, "year": 2020, "volumes": "vol. 12, no. 2", "pages": null, "isbn": null, "doi": null, "url": "https://jhna.org/articles/decision-trees-for-watermark-identification-in-rembrandts-etchings/", "accessed": "2026-08-12", "verified": true, "relevance": "CONFIRMED, including DOI 10.5092/jhna.2020.12.2.5. This is the strongest fully-verified methodological citation in this file and the safest single source to cite for watermark method.", "tags": [] }, { "id": "rembrandt-by-himself-1999", "type": "exhibition_catalogue", "authors": [], "editors": [], "title": "Rembrandt by Himself (exhibition); cited by the British Museum as 'London-The Hague, Rembrandt's Self-Portraits, 1999-2000'", "container": null, "publisher": "UNVERIFIED", "place": "London (National Gallery) and The Hague (Mauritshuis)", "year": 1999, "volumes": null, "pages": null, "isbn": null, "doi": null, "url": "https://www.britishmuseum.org/collection/object/P_1910-0212-376", "accessed": "2026-08-12", "verified": false, "relevance": "The EXHIBITION is confirmed by the British Museum record (exhibited 'Jun-Sep 1999, London, National Gallery, Rembrandt by Himself') and the BM cites the catalogue as 'London-The Hague, Rembrandt's Self-Portraits, 1999-2000, cat.no.49'. The catalogue's authors, editors, publisher and ISBN are UNVERIFIED. B.20 IS cat. no. 49 in that catalogue - the most specific published scholarly reference to this print located during compilation.", "tags": [] }, { "id": "chain-line-pattern-matching-chapter", "type": "article", "authors": [], "editors": [], "title": "Chain Line Pattern Matching and Rembrandt's Prints", "container": "Rembrandt and his Circle (chapter 17)", "publisher": "Cambridge University Press", "place": null, "year": null, "volumes": null, "pages": null, "isbn": null, "doi": null, "url": "https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/abs/rembrandt-and-his-circle/chain-line-pattern-matching-and-rembrandts-prints/D47DC39ABA1438C72E10DF1EBFCE1E19", "accessed": "2026-08-12", "verified": false, "relevance": "Chapter title, chapter number, volume title and publisher CONFIRMED from the Cambridge Core listing. AUTHORS, EDITORS, YEAR AND PAGE RANGE ARE UNVERIFIED.", "tags": [] }, { "id": "lugt-marques", "type": "book", "authors": [ "Frits Lugt" ], "editors": [], "title": "Les Marques de Collections de Dessins & d'Estampes", "container": null, "publisher": "UNVERIFIED", "place": "UNVERIFIED (believed Amsterdam)", "year": 1921, "volumes": null, "pages": null, "isbn": null, "doi": null, "url": "https://www.marquesdecollections.fr/", "accessed": "2026-08-12", "verified": false, "relevance": "The 1921 date is supported by a search-result summary stating that in 1921 Lugt 'completed Les marques de collections de dessins et d'estampes'. PUBLISHER, PLACE, and the details of the Supplement (published later) are UNVERIFIED. The online home URL was not confirmed by direct retrieval during compilation and should be checked.", "tags": [] }, { "id": "nowell-usticke", "type": "catalogue_raisonne", "authors": [ "G. W. Nowell-Usticke" ], "editors": [], "title": "Rembrandt's Etchings: States and Values", "container": null, "publisher": "UNVERIFIED", "place": "UNVERIFIED", "year": null, "volumes": null, "pages": null, "isbn": null, "doi": null, "url": null, "accessed": null, "verified": false, "relevance": "NOT VERIFIED. The catalogue is referred to in the trade (a Douwes Fine Art entry cites 'Nowell-Usticke C1' for this print), which establishes that dealers use the system, but the book's exact title, publisher, place and year were NOT confirmed against any catalogue during compilation.", "tags": [] }, { "id": "munz", "type": "catalogue_raisonne", "authors": [ "Ludwig Munz" ], "editors": [], "title": "UNVERIFIED", "container": null, "publisher": "UNVERIFIED", "place": null, "year": null, "volumes": null, "pages": null, "isbn": null, "doi": null, "url": null, "accessed": null, "verified": false, "relevance": "NOT VERIFIED in any respect. No institutional record retrieved for B.20 cites a Munz number, and the book's details were not confirmed. Included only to record that this line of enquiry was attempted and produced nothing citable.", "tags": [] }, { "id": "biorklund-barnard", "type": "catalogue_raisonne", "authors": [ "G. Biorklund", "O. H. Barnard" ], "editors": [], "title": "Rembrandt's Etchings True and False", "container": null, "publisher": "UNVERIFIED", "place": "UNVERIFIED", "year": null, "volumes": null, "pages": null, "isbn": null, "doi": null, "url": null, "accessed": null, "verified": false, "relevance": "NOT VERIFIED. Title as given in the research brief could not be confirmed against a library catalogue, nor could publisher, place, year or edition history.", "tags": [] } ], "states": { "catalogue": "New Hollstein (Hinterding & Rutgers, Rembrandt), no. 170", "summary": "The states below are given in the New Hollstein's own words, from the catalogue entry for no. 170. How many states this plate has depends on which catalogue you read — Bartsch, Hollstein and White & Boon each recognise one, New Hollstein four — so a state is meaningless without naming the catalogue it belongs to. Note also that the catalogue's reproductions show the signature legibly only in states I and IV: an impression with no visible signature is narrowed to state II or III and no further.", "states": [ { "state": "I", "catalogue": "New Hollstein 170", "headline": "Before the jaw is defined", "description": "New Hollstein, verbatim: “The jaw under the left ear not defined by a clear contour.” The plate is already signed and dated upper left, Rembrandt f 1638. The catalogue records four impressions in this state: Amsterdam (RP-P-1961-989), Darmstadt (GSHL, GR.10753), Paris (Lugt, 4692) and Stuttgart (A10901).", "diagnostic_features": [ "The jaw under the left ear is not defined by a clear contour", "Signature and date present in the plate, upper left: Rembrandt f 1638", "Papers recorded for this state: Strasbourg lily; Strasbourg lily with initials BA, c. 1638" ], "signature_status": "Present. Clearly legible in the catalogue's own reproduction of 170/I.", "documented": true, "source_url": "https://www.rijksmuseum.nl/en/collection/RP-P-1961-989", "source_name": "New Hollstein 170, p. 31, transcribed from the catalogue; impression cited also at the Rijksmuseum", "caveat": null, "census_ids": [] }, { "state": "II", "catalogue": "New Hollstein 170", "headline": "The jaw clearly delineated", "description": "New Hollstein, verbatim: “The jaw under the left ear clearly delineated. A few lines added to the shadow of the nose, under the right eye.” The catalogue then notes “White & Boon only state” — that is, the single state recognised by White & Boon corresponds to this one. By far the most numerous state: the catalogue lists something over sixty impressions across more than forty collections, several of them retouched by later hands with pen, brush and grey ink.", "diagnostic_features": [ "The jaw under the left ear clearly delineated", "A few lines added to the shadow of the nose, under the right eye", "Signature and date still present", "Papers recorded for this state include Arms of Bristol, Arms of Ravensburg, Basel crosier, Basilisk (c. 1640–47), Foolscap and its variants, and Strasbourg lily" ], "signature_status": "Present in the plate. Not clearly legible in the catalogue's reproduction of 170/II, which is a richly inked impression — so the reproductions cannot be used to separate state II from state III on the signature alone.", "documented": true, "source_url": "https://www.britishmuseum.org/collection/object/P_1910-0212-376", "source_name": "New Hollstein 170, p. 31, transcribed from the catalogue; the British Museum's “second state with jaw delineated” agrees", "caveat": null, "census_ids": [] }, { "state": "III", "catalogue": "New Hollstein 170", "headline": "Rebitten and reworked — and not by Rembrandt", "description": "New Hollstein, verbatim: “Probably rebitten; many lines stronger and broader than in early impressions. Work on the cap strengthened, for instance, cross-hatching added at the base of the feather and along the brim of the cap above the eyes. The curved lines on the forehead extended over the brim of the cap. Strong horizontal shading on the right ear. Short diagonal lines added in front of the left ear, and to the beard, on the right side of the chin. Not by Rembrandt.” The catalogue lists seven impressions, two of them in Basan albums — which is why none surfaced in a search of online collection databases.", "diagnostic_features": [ "Many lines stronger and broader than in early impressions — probably rebitten", "Cross-hatching added at the base of the feather and along the brim of the cap above the eyes", "The curved lines on the forehead extended over the brim of the cap", "Strong horizontal shading on the right ear", "Short diagonal lines added in front of the left ear, and to the beard on the right side of the chin", "The catalogue lists no watermarks for this state" ], "signature_status": "Not visible in the catalogue's reproduction of 170/III. The catalogue does not describe the signature's condition in this state in words, and — importantly — it is not clearly visible in the reproduction of state II either. An absent signature therefore narrows an impression to state II or III and does not decide between them.", "documented": true, "source_url": null, "source_name": "New Hollstein 170, p. 31, transcribed from the catalogue", "caveat": "The work in this state is explicitly not Rembrandt's, so an impression in state III is a posthumous rework of his plate. That makes the II-versus-III determination the most consequential open question about NP-RMB-001 — and it turns on the line-work described above, not on the signature.", "census_ids": [] }, { "state": "IV", "catalogue": "New Hollstein 170", "headline": "The signature clumsily redrawn", "description": "New Hollstein, verbatim: “Signature clumsily redrawn (H.L. Basan workshop).” The catalogue lists impressions in Amsterdam, Budapest, London, Moscow and Paris, several of them bound into Basan albums. The British Museum's own record for its impression agrees and dates the edition to around 1810.", "diagnostic_features": [ "Signature clumsily redrawn, not original", "Associated with the Recueil published by Henri Louis Basan in Paris, around 1810", "Frequently found bound into Basan albums", "The catalogue lists no watermarks for this state" ], "signature_status": "Present, but redrawn by a later hand.", "documented": true, "source_url": "https://www.britishmuseum.org/collection/object/P_1941-0327-11-3", "source_name": "New Hollstein 170, p. 32, transcribed from the catalogue; the British Museum's record agrees", "caveat": null, "census_ids": [] } ], "divisions": [ { "catalogue": "Bartsch, 1797", "states_recognised": "1", "evidence": "The Rijksmuseum renders the reference as “Bartsch 20-1(1)” — state 1 of 1.", "source_url": "https://www.rijksmuseum.nl/en/collection/RP-P-1961-989", "source_name": "Rijksmuseum", "verified": true, "interpretation": null }, { "catalogue": "Hollstein, original series", "states_recognised": "1", "evidence": "The Rijksmuseum renders the reference as “Hollstein Dutch 20-1(1)”.", "source_url": "https://www.rijksmuseum.nl/en/collection/RP-P-1961-989", "source_name": "Rijksmuseum", "verified": true, "interpretation": null }, { "catalogue": "White & Boon, 1969", "states_recognised": "1", "evidence": "The National Gallery of Art's catalogue raisonné field reads “White/Boon 1969, no. 20, State only.” New Hollstein confirms the correspondence directly, printing “White & Boon only state” against its own state II.", "source_url": "https://www.nga.gov/artworks/9997-self-portrait-velvet-cap-plume", "source_name": "National Gallery of Art, corroborated by New Hollstein 170, p. 31", "verified": true, "interpretation": null }, { "catalogue": "New Hollstein, as cited by the National Gallery of Art", "states_recognised": "3", "evidence": "The NGA record's bibliography cites “The New Hollstein … no. 170, state ii/iii”, a three-state reading. The catalogue as published divides the plate into four, and lists the NGA's impression (1943.3.7201, retouched with brush and grey ink) under state II.", "source_url": "https://www.nga.gov/artworks/9997-self-portrait-velvet-cap-plume", "source_name": "National Gallery of Art", "verified": true, "interpretation": "The NGA citation points at the open-ended serial publication rather than the completed Rembrandt volumes, so it most likely preserves an interim reading. Now that the published entry can be read directly, the state assignment for that impression — II — is not in doubt, only the state count in the NGA's citation." }, { "catalogue": "New Hollstein, Rembrandt (Hinterding & Rutgers)", "states_recognised": "4", "evidence": "Read directly from the catalogue entry for no. 170, pp. 31–32, which sets out four states with their diagnostic features and lists the impressions known in each.", "source_url": null, "source_name": "New Hollstein 170, pp. 31–32", "verified": true, "interpretation": null } ] }, "changelog": [ { "id": "CH-001", "date": "2026-08-12", "type": "release", "summary": "Record compiled and published at version 0.9", "detail": "NP-RMB-001 receives its identifier and a public record. The compilation drew on the acquisition file — the auction catalogue entry, the payment receipt, the auction house's condition photographs of the sheet, correspondence with the department specialist, and the New Hollstein catalogue entry for no. 170 — together with a survey of institutional collection records for this plate. What that established is on the object record and the state atlas, with the evidence and confidence for each field. What it did not establish is on the research questions board.\n\nFrom this entry onward every change to the canonical record is logged here with its reason and, where one applies, the name of the person who found it.", "affected": [ "np-rmb-001" ], "reason": "A record that is not public cannot be corrected by anyone who knows better.", "credited_to": null, "reviewed_by": null, "dossier_version": "0.9" } ], "glossary": [ { "term": "Impression", "definition": "A single sheet printed from a plate. A print is not a unique object: one plate yields many impressions, and they can differ enormously from one another in inking, paper, wear and condition. This is why a census of impressions is worth building.", "source": null, "source_url": null, "category": "technique" }, { "term": "Etching", "definition": "An intaglio process. The plate is coated with an acid-resistant ground, the artist draws through the ground with a needle, and acid bites the exposed lines into the metal. The drawn line is free and fluent because the needle meets almost no resistance — quite unlike engraving.", "source": "Getty Art & Architecture Thesaurus, 300053241", "source_url": "http://vocab.getty.edu/aat/300053241", "category": "technique" }, { "term": "Drypoint", "definition": "Lines scratched directly into the plate with a hard point, throwing up a ridge of displaced metal called burr. Burr holds ink and prints as a soft, velvety black — and it collapses under the press within a few dozen impressions, which makes it one of the most useful indicators of how early an impression is.", "source": "Getty Art & Architecture Thesaurus, 300053228", "source_url": "http://vocab.getty.edu/aat/300053228", "category": "technique" }, { "term": "Burr", "definition": "The ridge of metal raised alongside a drypoint line. Its presence, and how much of it survives, is evidence about where an impression sits in the printing sequence.", "source": null, "source_url": null, "category": "technique" }, { "term": "State", "definition": "A stage in the working life of a plate. Every time the plate is altered — lines added, passages burnished out, a signature redrawn — impressions printed after the change constitute a new state. States are defined by cataloguers, not by artists, and different catalogues divide the same plate differently.", "source": null, "source_url": null, "category": "cataloguing" }, { "term": "Plate mark", "definition": "The impressed rectangle left in the paper by the edge of the plate under the pressure of the press. Its presence shows the sheet has not been trimmed inside the plate edge; its absence usually means it has.", "source": null, "source_url": null, "category": "technique" }, { "term": "Laid paper", "definition": "Paper made on a mould of closely spaced wires supported by widely spaced ones, leaving a visible grid when held to the light: fine laid lines and widely spaced chain lines. Standard for European paper of the seventeenth century.", "source": "Getty Art & Architecture Thesaurus, 300014184", "source_url": "http://vocab.getty.edu/aat/300014184", "category": "paper" }, { "term": "Chain lines", "definition": "The widely spaced lines in laid paper left by the mould's supporting wires. Their spacing is a property of the individual mould, so it can distinguish batches of paper that otherwise look identical — and unlike a watermark, chain lines run across the whole sheet, so trimming rarely removes them.", "source": null, "source_url": null, "category": "paper" }, { "term": "Watermark", "definition": "A design worked in wire into the papermaking mould, visible as a thinner, brighter area when the sheet is held to the light. Because papermakers' moulds were in use for limited periods, an identified watermark can narrow the years in which a sheet of paper — and therefore an impression printed on it — was made.", "source": null, "source_url": null, "category": "paper" }, { "term": "Countermark", "definition": "A smaller secondary mark, often initials, placed in the other half of the sheet from the main watermark. It can identify a particular mill or maker where the main mark is generic.", "source": null, "source_url": null, "category": "paper" }, { "term": "Recto and verso", "definition": "The front and the back of a sheet. On a print the recto carries the image; the verso is where the ownership history is usually written, in collectors' stamps, dealers' codes and pencil annotations.", "source": null, "source_url": null, "category": "cataloguing" }, { "term": "Collector's mark", "definition": "A stamp or inscription applied to a print by an owner — private collectors and institutional print rooms alike. Marks are catalogued and numbered in Frits Lugt's standard reference, so a mark cited by its Lugt number identifies a specific collection, and thereby a documented point in a sheet's ownership history.", "source": "Fondation Custodia / Marques de collections", "source_url": "https://www.marquesdecollections.fr/", "category": "provenance" }, { "term": "Provenance", "definition": "The documented history of ownership and custody of an object. Gaps in it are normal and should be shown as gaps; a provenance narrated smoothly from creation to the present is usually a provenance with the uncertainty edited out.", "source": null, "source_url": null, "category": "provenance" }, { "term": "Posthumous impression", "definition": "An impression printed after the artist's death, from a surviving plate. Rembrandt's plates were printed, reworked and reprinted for well over two centuries after 1669, so a large proportion of impressions in circulation are posthumous. This is a statement about when a sheet was printed, not about whether it is genuine.", "source": null, "source_url": null, "category": "cataloguing" }, { "term": "Restrike", "definition": "An impression pulled from an old plate in a later, usually commercial, edition. The Recueil Basan, published in Paris around 1810, is the best-known such edition of Rembrandt's plates.", "source": null, "source_url": null, "category": "cataloguing" }, { "term": "Trimmed", "definition": "Cut down from its original size. Trimming is irreversible and removes evidence: margins carry plate marks, inscriptions, dealers' codes and collectors' marks, and cutting them away narrows what can later be established about a sheet.", "source": null, "source_url": null, "category": "condition" }, { "term": "Dampstain", "definition": "Discolouration caused by historic contact with water or by prolonged exposure to damp, often with a defined edge — a tideline — where the moisture stopped. It records an event in the sheet's history as well as being a condition issue.", "source": null, "source_url": null, "category": "condition" }, { "term": "Cockling", "definition": "Planar distortion — waving or rippling of the sheet, typically caused by uneven response to moisture. Whether cockling is stable at the object's current relative humidity is a conservation question, not a cosmetic one.", "source": null, "source_url": null, "category": "condition" }, { "term": "Foxing", "definition": "Small brown or reddish spots in paper, associated with metallic impurities and fungal activity in the presence of moisture.", "source": null, "source_url": null, "category": "condition" }, { "term": "Mat burn", "definition": "A brown discolouration in the shape of a window mat, caused by an acidic mount in prolonged contact with the sheet. Evidence of a sheet's framing history as well as damage.", "source": null, "source_url": null, "category": "condition" }, { "term": "Skinning", "definition": "Loss of the surface layer of the paper, usually caused by removing an adhesive, a backing or a hinge without adequate care.", "source": null, "source_url": null, "category": "condition" }, { "term": "Mount", "definition": "The board assembly a work on paper is housed in. A conservation-grade mount protects the sheet in handling and storage; an acidic one damages it over decades. An unmounted sheet is easier to examine and to photograph but less protected.", "source": null, "source_url": null, "category": "conservation" }, { "term": "Transmitted light", "definition": "Photography with the light source behind the sheet rather than in front of it, so the paper's own structure — laid lines, chain lines, watermarks, thinning, repairs — becomes visible. It is the standard way to record a watermark, and it requires a conservator's judgement about handling.", "source": null, "source_url": null, "category": "conservation" }, { "term": "Raking light", "definition": "Light directed across the surface at a low angle, which reveals surface texture: cockling, creases, the impression of the plate mark, embossing, and the relief of heavily inked passages.", "source": null, "source_url": null, "category": "conservation" }, { "term": "Lux hour", "definition": "The unit of cumulative light exposure: illuminance in lux multiplied by hours of exposure. Light damage to paper and to media is cumulative and irreversible, so a lender who tracks lux hours can say what a sheet has already spent rather than guessing.", "source": "Canadian Conservation Institute, Agents of Deterioration: Light", "source_url": "https://www.canada.ca/en/conservation-institute/services/agents-deterioration/light.html", "category": "conservation" }, { "term": "Facility report", "definition": "The standard document by which a borrowing institution describes its building, environment, security and staffing to a lender. In the United States the American Alliance of Museums' General Facility Report is the common form, and most lenders will not begin a serious conversation without one.", "source": null, "source_url": null, "category": "conservation" }, { "term": "Condition report", "definition": "A dated, itemised record of an object's physical condition at a point in time, written by a conservator. It is what makes it possible to tell later whether anything has changed — which is why one is made before an object travels and again when it arrives.", "source": null, "source_url": null, "category": "conservation" }, { "term": "Catalogue raisonné", "definition": "A systematic catalogue of all known works by an artist in a given medium, numbering each and describing its states. For Rembrandt's prints the current standard is the New Hollstein volumes; Bartsch's catalogue of 1797 and White & Boon's of 1969 remain in wide use, and they number and divide the works differently.", "source": null, "source_url": null, "category": "cataloguing" } ], "comparators": [ { "id": "rijksmuseum-rp-p-1961-989", "institution": "Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam", "accession": "RP-P-1961-989", "state_note": "New Hollstein Dutch and Flemish (Rembrandt) 170-1(4) — state 1 of 4 (Bartsch 20-1(1); Hollstein Dutch 20-1(1))", "credit_line": "Rembrandt van Rijn, Self-portrait in a Velvet Cap with Plume, 1638, etching and drypoint. Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam, RP-P-1961-989. Mr and Mrs De Bruijn-van der Leeuw Bequest, Muri, Switzerland. Public domain (CC PDM 1.0).", "licence": "Copyright: Public domain — the object page's \"Acquisition and rights\" block gives \"Copyright / Public domain\", hyperlinked to https://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/mark/1.0/deed.en (Creative Commons Public Domain Mark 1.0). The page carries a \"Download image\" control and the object's Micrio record is flagged isDownloadable: true.", "licence_url": "https://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/mark/1.0/deed.en", "source_page": "https://www.rijksmuseum.nl/en/collection/RP-P-1961-989", "image_source_url": "https://iiif.micr.io/WJFoZ/full/max/0/default.jpg", "iiif_manifest": "https://iiif.micr.io/WJFoZ/info.json (IIIF Image API 3.0 image service; no IIIF Presentation manifest is published. Persistent object URI: https://id.rijksmuseum.nl/200124678)", "src": "/images/comparators/rijksmuseum-rp-p-1961-989-2000.jpg", "width": 1590, "height": 2000, "thumb": "/images/comparators/rijksmuseum-rp-p-1961-989-web.jpg", "thumb_width": 636, "thumb_height": 800, "original_pixels": "3988 × 5016" }, { "id": "rijksmuseum-rp-p-ob-285", "institution": "Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam", "accession": "RP-P-OB-285", "state_note": "New Hollstein Dutch and Flemish (Rembrandt) 170-2(4) — state 2 of 4 (Bartsch 20-1(1); Hollstein Dutch 20-1(1)); collector's mark Lugt 240", "credit_line": "Rembrandt van Rijn, Self-portrait in a velvet cap with plume, 1638, etching and drypoint. Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam, RP-P-OB-285. Public domain (CC PDM 1.0).", "licence": "Copyright: Public domain — the object page's \"Acquisition and rights\" block gives \"Copyright / Public domain\", hyperlinked to https://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/mark/1.0/deed.en (Creative Commons Public Domain Mark 1.0). The page carries a \"Download image\" control and the object's Micrio record is flagged isDownloadable: true.", "licence_url": "https://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/mark/1.0/deed.en", "source_page": "https://www.rijksmuseum.nl/en/collection/RP-P-OB-285", "image_source_url": "https://iiif.micr.io/qUfys/full/max/0/default.jpg", "iiif_manifest": "https://iiif.micr.io/qUfys/info.json (IIIF Image API 3.0 image service; no IIIF Presentation manifest is published. Persistent object URI: https://id.rijksmuseum.nl/200124679)", "src": "/images/comparators/rijksmuseum-rp-p-ob-285-2000.jpg", "width": 1579, "height": 2000, "thumb": "/images/comparators/rijksmuseum-rp-p-ob-285-web.jpg", "thumb_width": 632, "thumb_height": 800, "original_pixels": "3998 × 5062" }, { "id": "rijksmuseum-rp-p-ob-286", "institution": "Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam", "accession": "RP-P-OB-286", "state_note": "New Hollstein Dutch and Flemish (Rembrandt) 170-4(4) — state 4 of 4; posthumous impression, workshop of Henry Louis Basan; inscribed 'Coppier'", "credit_line": "Rembrandt van Rijn (printmaker: workshop of Henry Louis Basan), Self-portrait in a velvet cap with plume, 1638 (impression 1850–1906), etching. Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam, RP-P-OB-286. Public domain (CC PDM 1.0).", "licence": "Copyright: Public domain — the object page's \"Acquisition and rights\" block gives \"Copyright / Public domain\", hyperlinked to https://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/mark/1.0/deed.en (Creative Commons Public Domain Mark 1.0). The page carries a \"Download image\" control and the object's Micrio record is flagged isDownloadable: true.", "licence_url": "https://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/mark/1.0/deed.en", "source_page": "https://www.rijksmuseum.nl/en/collection/RP-P-OB-286", "image_source_url": "https://iiif.micr.io/GLraw/full/max/0/default.jpg", "iiif_manifest": "https://iiif.micr.io/GLraw/info.json (IIIF Image API 3.0 image service; no IIIF Presentation manifest is published. Persistent object URI: https://id.rijksmuseum.nl/200124680)", "src": "/images/comparators/rijksmuseum-rp-p-ob-286-2000.jpg", "width": 1638, "height": 2000, "thumb": "/images/comparators/rijksmuseum-rp-p-ob-286-web.jpg", "thumb_width": 655, "thumb_height": 800, "original_pixels": "4492 × 5484" }, { "id": "nga-1943-3-7201", "institution": "National Gallery of Art, Washington", "accession": "1943.3.7201", "state_note": "Not stated in the NGA record (medium: etching on laid paper; plate 13.5 × 10.3 cm)", "credit_line": "Rembrandt van Rijn, Self-Portrait in a Velvet Cap with Plume, 1638, etching on laid paper. National Gallery of Art, Washington, Rosenwald Collection, 1943.3.7201. Courtesy National Gallery of Art, Washington. CC0.", "licence": "Users may download and reproduce—free of charge and without seeking authorization from the National Gallery—any digital image of a work in our collection that the we believe is in the public domain. These digital images are being released by the National Gallery under Creative Commons Zero (CC0). (Open data record for this image: openaccess = 1.)", "licence_url": "https://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/", "source_page": "https://www.nga.gov/artworks/9997-self-portrait-velvet-cap-plume", "image_source_url": "https://api.nga.gov/iiif/c62f7cd7-4162-4cc8-9298-d7bbe6984c08/full/full/0/default.jpg", "iiif_manifest": "https://api.nga.gov/iiif/c62f7cd7-4162-4cc8-9298-d7bbe6984c08/info.json (IIIF Image API 2.0 image service; NGA publishes no IIIF Presentation manifest for this object)", "src": "/images/comparators/nga-1943-3-7201-2000.jpg", "width": 1551, "height": 2000, "thumb": "/images/comparators/nga-1943-3-7201-web.jpg", "thumb_width": 620, "thumb_height": 800, "original_pixels": "2760 × 3558" }, { "id": "met-64-649-5", "institution": "The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York", "accession": "64.649.5", "state_note": "Not stated in the Met record (medium: etching)", "credit_line": "Rembrandt (Rembrandt van Rijn), Self-Portrait in a Velvet Cap with Plume, 1638, etching. The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, Gift of Mrs. B. S. Oppenheimer, in memory of Dr. B. S. Oppenheimer, 1964 (64.649.5). CC0.", "licence": "In February 2017, The Met introduced its Open Access Initiative, which makes images of public-domain artworks and basic data on all accessioned works in its collection available for unrestricted use under Creative Commons Zero (CC0). Anyone can download, share, and remix images and data about artworks in The Met collection. (Object page badge: \"Public Domain\"; API field isPublicDomain: true.)", "licence_url": "https://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/", "source_page": "https://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/391676", "image_source_url": "https://images.metmuseum.org/CRDImages/dp/original/DP814552.jpg", "iiif_manifest": null, "src": "/images/comparators/met-64-649-5-2000.jpg", "width": 1587, "height": 2000, "thumb": "/images/comparators/met-64-649-5-web.jpg", "thumb_width": 635, "thumb_height": 800, "original_pixels": "2575 × 3245" }, { "id": "met-60-598-66", "institution": "The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York", "accession": "60.598.66", "state_note": "Not stated in the Met record (medium: etching)", "credit_line": "Rembrandt (Rembrandt van Rijn), Self-Portrait in a Velvet Cap with Plume, 1638, etching. The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, Bequest of Julia H. Manges, in memory of her husband, Dr. Morris Manges, 1960 (60.598.66). CC0.", "licence": "In February 2017, The Met introduced its Open Access Initiative, which makes images of public-domain artworks and basic data on all accessioned works in its collection available for unrestricted use under Creative Commons Zero (CC0). Anyone can download, share, and remix images and data about artworks in The Met collection. (Object page badge: \"Public Domain\"; API field isPublicDomain: true.)", "licence_url": "https://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/", "source_page": "https://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/391675", "image_source_url": "https://images.metmuseum.org/CRDImages/dp/original/DP814553.jpg", "iiif_manifest": null, "src": "/images/comparators/met-60-598-66-2000.jpg", "width": 1600, "height": 2000, "thumb": "/images/comparators/met-60-598-66-web.jpg", "thumb_width": 640, "thumb_height": 800, "original_pixels": "2698 × 3372" }, { "id": "aic-1938-1792", "institution": "Art Institute of Chicago", "accession": "1938.1792", "state_note": "Not stated in the AIC record (etching on buff laid paper; sheet, cut within platemark: 12.3 × 10.5 cm)", "credit_line": "Rembrandt van Rijn, Self-Portrait in a Velvet Cap with Plume, 1638, etching on buff laid paper. The Art Institute of Chicago, Clarence Buckingham Collection, 1938.1792. CC0 Public Domain Designation.", "licence": "Certain images of works in the collection believed to be in the public domain or to which the museum otherwise waives any copyright it might have been made available by AIC under the Creative Commons Zero (CC0) license. ... You are welcome to use any images or data with the label “CC0 Public Domain Designation,” or otherwise stated as made available by AIC under the CC0 license, for any purpose, including commercial and noncommercial uses, without additional permission from AIC. (API field is_public_domain: true.)", "licence_url": "https://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/", "source_page": "https://www.artic.edu/artworks/29216/self-portrait-in-a-velvet-cap-with-plume", "image_source_url": "https://www.artic.edu/iiif/2/37c75de5-dcb4-4edb-d368-2100c571a8c1/full/full/0/default.jpg", "iiif_manifest": "https://api.artic.edu/api/v1/artworks/29216/manifest.json", "src": "/images/comparators/aic-1938-1792-2000.jpg", "width": 1708, "height": 2000, "thumb": "/images/comparators/aic-1938-1792-web.jpg", "thumb_width": 683, "thumb_height": 800, "original_pixels": "1922 × 2250" }, { "id": "cleveland-1942-874", "institution": "The Cleveland Museum of Art", "accession": "1942.874", "state_note": "Not stated in the CMA record; catalogue raisonné given as Hollstein 20 (XVIII.9). Support: cream(3) laid paper", "credit_line": "Self-Portrait in Velvet Cap with Plume, 1638. Rembrandt van Rijn (Dutch, 1606–1669). Etching with engraving; sheet: 11.2 x 10.4 cm (4 7/16 x 4 1/8 in.). The Cleveland Museum of Art, Gift of Robert Hays Gries, 1942.874. CC0.", "licence": "share_license_status: \"CC0\" in the Cleveland Museum of Art Open Access API record. The CMA Open Access programme releases images of public-domain works under Creative Commons Zero (CC0).", "licence_url": "https://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/", "source_page": "https://clevelandart.org/art/1942.874", "image_source_url": "https://openaccess-cdn.clevelandart.org/1942.874/1942.874_print.jpg", "iiif_manifest": null, "src": "/images/comparators/cleveland-1942-874-2000.jpg", "width": 1855, "height": 2000, "thumb": "/images/comparators/cleveland-1942-874-web.jpg", "thumb_width": 742, "thumb_height": 800, "original_pixels": "3154 × 3400" } ] }