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The Unconscious Patient (An Allegory of the Sense of Smell)
Rembrandt Harmenszoon van Rijn • Painting, 1625, 31.8×25.4 cm
Description of the artwork «The Unconscious Patient (An Allegory of the Sense of Smell)»
On September 22, 2015, one of the most amazing and exciting discoveries of recent times was made at the auction house Nye & Company in the United States - an early painting by Rembrandt van Rijn was discovered "Patient unconscious.". The panel, which belonged to a New Jersey family, was catalogued as "Continental School, 19th century" and with a provisional estimate of $500 to $800. It aroused very little interest during the preview. But already during the bidding, it became clear that this is an important work. Two participants by phone vying with each other to raise stakes, inflaming the atmosphere in the hall. The final amount of 870 thousand dollars offered by the Parisian dealer Talabardon & Gautier, and by this point, a puzzled visitors were already sitting on their nerves. When the auctioneer announced that has just sold a lot is an early painting by Rembrandt, the hall burst into applause. About this discovery almost immediately spread the media around the world.
Not surprisingly, the connection between the painting and the most famous Dutch painter of the seventeenth century has not established earlier and more experts. Small panel with the image of an elderly man and woman who are bent over the unconscious young man, not distinguished by the game of light and shadow, muted palette and complex psychological tension typical of the works of Rembrandt. Moreover, the surface was covered with layers of yellowed varnish and dirt, which obscured many of the subtleties of the composition. Additional difficulty in determining authorship was created by the fact that Rembrandt's board was inserted into a larger panel and that the composition on all sides was extended by another artist.
When it was announced that the painting was by Rembrandt, all connoisseurs understood that it was an Allegory of Smell. It's one of a series of works "The Five Senses."He created it in Leiden around 1625, when he was still a teenager. Three other panels were in various private collections in the first half of the 20th century. It is not known for certain when exactly the cycle was dispersed, but it most likely happened no earlier than the beginning of the XVIII century. Around that time, all of Rembrandt's original compositions were inserted into larger panels and supplemented.
"Patient Unconscious (Allegory of Smell)" was acquired by Thomas Kaplan, an American investor and founder of the Leiden Collection. It includes two other works from The Five Senses - "The Three Singers (Allegory of Hearing)" и "Operation (Allegory of Touch)". Panel "Eyeglass Salesman (Allegory of Sight)" is in the Lakenhal Museum in Leiden, the "Allegory of Taste" has not yet been found.
Shortly after the auction, Rembrandt's monogram RHF (Rembrandt Harmenszoon Fecit - "made by Rembrandt, son of Harmen") was discovered on Allegory of Smell. It is on a portrait of a man wearing a cloak and fur hat, attached to a wooden cabinet in the upper right corner. It is by far the earliest signed work by the master.
Each panel in the Five Senses series depicts three radically cropped figures on a dark background. Rembrandt dressed his characters in bright pink and blue. These surgeons, salesmen, their clients, and singers - young and old, men and women - participate in scenes involving the expression of the senses. These are the sense of smell, touch, sight and hearing, which are humorously shown through bringing a patient to consciousness, surgery to remove a "stone of stupidity" or singing hymns from a songbook.
The painting Allegory of Smell depicts a young man in a bright, loosely wrapped housecoat, lying unconscious in an armchair. A disturbed old woman in a hooded cloak trimmed with fur tries to revive him by holding a handkerchief to her nose, probably filled with snuff salts. The piece of cloth is depicted with literally a couple of strokes. Her male counterpart, whose right arm is covered with a white cloth, holds the young man by his naked forearm and waits impatiently for his partner's efforts to succeed. The old man's colorful garb, earrings and gold chains, as well as knives, scissors, razors, and lotions in the large wooden cabinet above his head tell us that he is a barber-surgeon. This profession has always been notorious for its abundance of charlatans. He was probably about to give the lad a bloodletting by incising a vein in his arm.
Such procedures were very common for almost two thousand years, until the early 20th century, but are now considered anachronistic. The patient was punctured with a lancet and the dripping blood was collected in a bowl usually held by an assistant "surgeon". Sometimes patients would lose consciousness at the end of the bloodletting, and this was considered a sign of successful treatment. However, Rembrandt's painting does not show any wound, blood, bandage or bowl - which means that the young man fainted before the session. So the artist mocks not only the old woman's excessive anxiety about the client's condition or the charlatan's actions, but also the young man's lack of manliness.
It is unknown in what sequence Rembrandt painted and arranged the panels from The Five Senses. It is only obvious that in these scenes he was little guided by the established iconographic traditions of his time. Yes, the Allegory of Touch in the 16th century was quite often depicted as a surgical operation, and the Allegory of Hearing was embodied by young lovers with musical instruments. But there is no precedent for the "Allegory of Smell" to be associated with bloodletting. Usually, the visual image of smell was the characters sniffing a rose. So one wonders why Rembrandt decided to take such an unusual subject. It is possible that the reason was the deadly plague that swept the Netherlands in 1624 - when he began creating a series. This disease was among the ailments that were believed to be cured by bloodletting.
Whatever the historical circumstances surrounding the story of The Five Senses, these works offer a particular insight into Rembrandt's creative beginnings. In these paintings we can see how he experimented with colours and brushstrokes as a young man and how he began to manipulate light and shadow - which later became a hallmark of his works. These panels show that Rembrandt was impressionable but independent from his youth, falling under influences but remaining an innovator. In other words, they show the masters' potential.
Not surprisingly, the connection between the painting and the most famous Dutch painter of the seventeenth century has not established earlier and more experts. Small panel with the image of an elderly man and woman who are bent over the unconscious young man, not distinguished by the game of light and shadow, muted palette and complex psychological tension typical of the works of Rembrandt. Moreover, the surface was covered with layers of yellowed varnish and dirt, which obscured many of the subtleties of the composition. Additional difficulty in determining authorship was created by the fact that Rembrandt's board was inserted into a larger panel and that the composition on all sides was extended by another artist.
When it was announced that the painting was by Rembrandt, all connoisseurs understood that it was an Allegory of Smell. It's one of a series of works "The Five Senses."He created it in Leiden around 1625, when he was still a teenager. Three other panels were in various private collections in the first half of the 20th century. It is not known for certain when exactly the cycle was dispersed, but it most likely happened no earlier than the beginning of the XVIII century. Around that time, all of Rembrandt's original compositions were inserted into larger panels and supplemented.
"Patient Unconscious (Allegory of Smell)" was acquired by Thomas Kaplan, an American investor and founder of the Leiden Collection. It includes two other works from The Five Senses - "The Three Singers (Allegory of Hearing)" и "Operation (Allegory of Touch)". Panel "Eyeglass Salesman (Allegory of Sight)" is in the Lakenhal Museum in Leiden, the "Allegory of Taste" has not yet been found.
Shortly after the auction, Rembrandt's monogram RHF (Rembrandt Harmenszoon Fecit - "made by Rembrandt, son of Harmen") was discovered on Allegory of Smell. It is on a portrait of a man wearing a cloak and fur hat, attached to a wooden cabinet in the upper right corner. It is by far the earliest signed work by the master.
Each panel in the Five Senses series depicts three radically cropped figures on a dark background. Rembrandt dressed his characters in bright pink and blue. These surgeons, salesmen, their clients, and singers - young and old, men and women - participate in scenes involving the expression of the senses. These are the sense of smell, touch, sight and hearing, which are humorously shown through bringing a patient to consciousness, surgery to remove a "stone of stupidity" or singing hymns from a songbook.
The painting Allegory of Smell depicts a young man in a bright, loosely wrapped housecoat, lying unconscious in an armchair. A disturbed old woman in a hooded cloak trimmed with fur tries to revive him by holding a handkerchief to her nose, probably filled with snuff salts. The piece of cloth is depicted with literally a couple of strokes. Her male counterpart, whose right arm is covered with a white cloth, holds the young man by his naked forearm and waits impatiently for his partner's efforts to succeed. The old man's colorful garb, earrings and gold chains, as well as knives, scissors, razors, and lotions in the large wooden cabinet above his head tell us that he is a barber-surgeon. This profession has always been notorious for its abundance of charlatans. He was probably about to give the lad a bloodletting by incising a vein in his arm.
Such procedures were very common for almost two thousand years, until the early 20th century, but are now considered anachronistic. The patient was punctured with a lancet and the dripping blood was collected in a bowl usually held by an assistant "surgeon". Sometimes patients would lose consciousness at the end of the bloodletting, and this was considered a sign of successful treatment. However, Rembrandt's painting does not show any wound, blood, bandage or bowl - which means that the young man fainted before the session. So the artist mocks not only the old woman's excessive anxiety about the client's condition or the charlatan's actions, but also the young man's lack of manliness.
It is unknown in what sequence Rembrandt painted and arranged the panels from The Five Senses. It is only obvious that in these scenes he was little guided by the established iconographic traditions of his time. Yes, the Allegory of Touch in the 16th century was quite often depicted as a surgical operation, and the Allegory of Hearing was embodied by young lovers with musical instruments. But there is no precedent for the "Allegory of Smell" to be associated with bloodletting. Usually, the visual image of smell was the characters sniffing a rose. So one wonders why Rembrandt decided to take such an unusual subject. It is possible that the reason was the deadly plague that swept the Netherlands in 1624 - when he began creating a series. This disease was among the ailments that were believed to be cured by bloodletting.
Whatever the historical circumstances surrounding the story of The Five Senses, these works offer a particular insight into Rembrandt's creative beginnings. In these paintings we can see how he experimented with colours and brushstrokes as a young man and how he began to manipulate light and shadow - which later became a hallmark of his works. These panels show that Rembrandt was impressionable but independent from his youth, falling under influences but remaining an innovator. In other words, they show the masters' potential.
