{ "dataset_version": "0.9", "dataset_date": "2026-08-12", "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." }, "type": "provenance", "count": 10, "documented_events": 9, "gaps": 1, "gap_note": "Gaps are published at full weight rather than compressed out of the timeline. An unbroken-looking chain of ownership with the undocumented centuries removed is a fiction, and it is the specific fiction that provenance research exists to prevent.", "records": [ { "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", "actors": [ { "id": "AG-REMBRANDT", "name": "Rembrandt Harmenszoon van Rijn", "type": "person", "role": [ "artist", "printmaker", "painter" ], "dates": "1606–1669", "place": "Leiden and Amsterdam", "identifiers": [], "note": null } ], "evidence": [ { "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": "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", "actors": [], "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": "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", "actors": [], "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": "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", "actors": [], "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": "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", "actors": [], "evidence": [] }, { "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", "actors": [], "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": "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", "actors": [ { "id": "AG-BONHAMS", "name": "Bonhams", "type": "auction_house", "role": [ "auction house" ], "dates": "founded 1793", "place": "New York (sale location)", "identifiers": [], "note": "Seller of record in 2023. The project has no commercial relationship with the house." } ], "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": "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", "actors": [ { "id": "AG-BONHAMS", "name": "Bonhams", "type": "auction_house", "role": [ "auction house" ], "dates": "founded 1793", "place": "New York (sale location)", "identifiers": [], "note": "Seller of record in 2023. The project has no commercial relationship with the house." } ], "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": "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", "actors": [ { "id": "AG-OWNER", "name": "Private owner and steward", "type": "person", "role": [ "owner", "steward" ], "dates": null, "place": "Dubai, United Arab Emirates", "identifiers": [], "note": "Named at the owner's discretion in correspondence with institutions. Not named on the public record by policy; see the privacy and security 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": "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", "actors": [ { "id": "AG-PROJECT", "name": "The Plate Mark", "type": "institution", "role": [ "publisher", "steward" ], "dates": "2026–", "place": "Dubai, United Arab Emirates", "identifiers": [], "note": "The publishing entity for this record. It is not a museum and does not describe itself as one." } ], "evidence": [] } ] }