The Ashmolean Museum reopened on 10 August and the extended the Young Rembrandt exhibition until 1 November.
The Young Rembrandt exhibition charts the astonishing transformation of the Dutch master Rembrandt. Spanning the years 1624 to 1634, it traces how a young and unremarkable artist from Leiden became the superstar of 17th-century Amsterdam and one of the greatest artists of all time.
Rembrandt Harmensz. van Rijn, simply known as Rembrandt, was born in 1606. There was nothing particularly promising about his work when he qualified as a painter around 1624/5. But during the subsequent decade – working in painting, printmaking and drawing – he was relentless in his efforts to improve. By looking over Rembrandt’s shoulder as he learns from his mistakes and as he experiments with new techniques and subjects, we can follow the steps by which he established himself as an extraordinary talent.To help understand this metamorphosis, works by key figures in Rembrandt’s development are shown alongside his own. The artist’s searching self-portraits punctuate this fascinating story.
The Young Rembrandt exhibition is an international collaboration between the The Ashmolean Museum in Oxford and Museum De Lakenhal in Leiden. The exhibition is co-curated by Christopher Brown, former director of the Ashmolean Museum, An Van Camp, Curator of Northern European Art at the Ashmolean, and Christiaan Vogelaar, Curator of Old Master Paintings and Sculpture at Museum De Lakenhal.