CODART, Dutch and Flemish art in museums worldwide

Rembrandt’s portrait of Catrina Hooghsaet: a masterpiece reconsidered

Symposium: 4 March 2010

Information from the museum, 18 February 2010

The study day is split between a session in the morning for specialists and curators and an afternoon session open to the general public.

Specialist focus group

11.00am

Coffee & Welcome

Oliver Fairclough (Keeper of Art, National Museum Wales)

11.30am

View Rembrandt’s Portrait of Catrina Hooghsaet
Discussion and research questions (Art in the Netherlands, Gallery 2)

12.15pm

Round- table discussion

12.45pm

Lunch

Public talks and discussion

2.00pm

Welcome and introduction

Anne Pritchard (Assistant Curator of Historic Art, National Museum Wales)

2.05pm

Dr. Christopher Brown (Director, Ashmolean Museum)
Rembrandt’s late portraits

Rembrandt enjoyed early fame as a portrait painter, but it was in his late career he specialised. His portraits of the late 1650s, of which the Portrait of Catrina Hooghsaet is one, are amongst his most powerful.

2.35pm

Prof. Joanna Woodall (Lecturer, Courtauld Institute of Art)
Trijntje’s parrot. The character of imitation in Rembrandt’s portrayal of Catrina Hooghsaet

Catrina Hooghsaet had a pet parrot, which she bequeathed to another woman on her death. Joanna Woodall’s talk will explore the part played by the parrot and parroting in Rembrandt’s visual characterisation of this extraordinary woman.

3.05pm

Dr. Tico Seifert (Senior Curator, National Gallery of Scotland)
Saskia, Hendrickje, Geertje? – Sarah! Rembrandt’s Woman in Bed revisited

Rembrandt’s ‘Woman in Bed’ has the peculiar honour of having been thought to represent all three women in Rembrandt’s life (as Julia Lloyd Williams once put it). Tico Seifert will re-consider (and dismiss) these identifications in favour of Sumowski’s and Tümpel’s idea that she is actually representing the biblical figure Sarah in her wedding night with Tobias.

3.35pm

Panel discussion

4.00pm

End

Admission free. Booking essential. Contact Anne Pritchard (tel.+44 (0)2920 573131 or email > )

Location

Oriel Suite, National Museum Cardiff
Cathays Park, Cardiff CF10 3NP

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