Rembrandt Paintings

Two Rembrandts are in our list of the 100 most famous paintings in the world, ranked: The Night Watch at number 27 and The Return of the Prodigal Son at 92.

About Rembrandt

Rembrandt Harmenszoon van Rijn, 1606 to 1669, known by his first name alone, was a Dutch Golden Age painter, printmaker and draughtsman who worked from the Baroque period's middle years until he died. He is generally considered one of the greatest visual artists the West has produced. Rembrandt's surviving output is estimated at about three hundred paintings, three hundred etchings and several hundred drawings, the output of some forty years.

Rembrandt van Rijn is where most people meet the Dutch Golden Age: one light source, a face half in shadow, and paint laid on thick enough to catch the light in your own room. Painting his own face was the habit of a lifetime, and Rembrandt van Rijn made approaching one hundred of those pictures, over forty of them in oil, with thirty-one etchings and about seven drawings besides, and with a few of those the identity of the sitter or the hand of the artist is still uncertain. This page follows the shape of that career, from the guild commissions of his early years to the biblical canvases of his last, and it runs from the pictures everyone knows to the ones collectors ask for by name.

Series and periods

Rembrandt worked across a few clear fields at once, and the collection is easiest to read in those groups.

• Biblical and history painting: the parables, the miracles and the Old Testament scenes, which is where the largest canvases are. Titles here: The Return of the Prodigal Son, The Storm on the Sea of Galilee, Bathsheba at Her Bath, Moses Smashing the Tablets of the Law, David and Uriah, Jeremiah Mourning over the Destruction of Jerusalem, Head of Christ, St. Bartholomew.
• Group portraits and commissions: the guild pictures, made for meeting rooms rather than for a wall at home. Titles here: The Anatomy Lesson of Dr. Nicolaes Tulp, The Anatomy Lesson, fragment, The Syndics, The Mennonite Preacher Anslo and his Wife.
• The painted face: the face he returned to for forty years, from the young man of the early canvases to the old one of the later, and the reason we know what he looked like at every age of his life. Titles here: Self-portrait, Self-portrait at the Age of 63.
• Single figures and old men: the studies of a head, a cap, a suit of armor, the pictures that taught Europe what one lamp can do. The method he used here is the one everything else rests on, and the later examples are the boldest. Titles here: An Old Man in Military Costume, A Study of an Elderly Man in a Cap, A Man in Armour, The Standard Bearer, Lucretia, The Jewish Bride.
• Philosophers, riders and one mill: the subjects that fit no other group, including his rare turn outdoors. Titles here: Aristotle with a Bust of Homer, Philosopher in Meditation, The Polish Rider, The Mill, The Carcass of an Ox.

Most famous works

These are the Rembrandt titles people ask for most in this collection, ordered by the traffic each one draws and by what actually sells. Each name opens its own page, where you choose the size and decide on a frame. Every one is painted in oil after Rembrandt, to order, and no two hands read a brushstroke the same way.

• The Anatomy Lesson of Dr. Nicolaes Tulp: a 1632 oil on canvas, made to hang in the meeting room of the Surgeons Guild. The Surgeons' Widow Fund planned to sell it in 1828, a royal decree of King William I blocked the sale, and the Dutch state bought it instead for 32,000 guilders and placed it in the Mauritshuis museum in The Hague. It is regarded as one of Rembrandt's early masterpieces, and it is the title visitors open most on this page
• The Return of the Prodigal Son: an oil painting in the collection of the Hermitage Museum in St. Petersburg, among the final pictures by van Rijn, likely finished within two years of the year he died, 1669. It shows the moment of return to the father in the biblical parable, and the art historian Kenneth Clark wrote that those who have seen the original may be forgiven for claiming it as the greatest picture ever painted
• The Storm on the Sea of Galilee: a 1633 oil on canvas, catalogued as Christ in the Storm on the Sea of Galilee. A history painting, among the largest and earliest of Rembrandt's canvases, it shows the biblical miracle in which Jesus calmed the storm, and it is Rembrandt's only known seascape
• Self-portrait: one of over forty such faces in a series approaching one hundred, and one of four Rembrandt titles on our list of the best known pictures in art history
• Self-portrait at the Age of 63: the late face, brushed in the last year of his life
• Aristotle with a Bust of Homer: Aristotle with his hand on a bust of Homer, one poet held by one philosopher
• Bathsheba at Her Bath: a woman with a letter, Bathsheba holding the one from King David, as the full title has it
• The Polish Rider: the rider on horseback long known by that name, lit from the left
• The Jewish Bride: the couple long known as The Jewish Bride, a hand laid on a breast in a gold sleeve
• The Syndics: a group portrait of the syndics, seated at their table and looking up at the viewer
• The Mennonite Preacher Anslo and his Wife: a double portrait of the preacher and his wife, caught mid sentence, one of the young commissions
• Philosopher in Meditation: an interior built on a single light source, which is the Rembrandt signature
• Moses Smashing the Tablets of the Law: Moses above the crowd with the tablets raised, and the most ordered Rembrandt of them all
• An Old Man in Military Costume: an old man in costume, once catalogued as a portrait of Rembrandt's father
• A Study of an Elderly Man in a Cap: a study of a head in a cap, one of the small pictures that sell steadily year after year
• A Man in Armour: a figure in armor, the metal doing the work the face would otherwise do
• The Standard Bearer: the standard bearer of the title, given as a full length figure
• Lucretia: the Roman story of Lucretia, told in one figure
• David and Uriah: the Old Testament episode of David and Uriah
• Jeremiah Mourning over the Destruction of Jerusalem: the prophet in the dark, the city burning behind him
• Head of Christ: a study of the head of Christ
• St. Bartholomew: the saint with his knife, a single figure against a plain ground
• The Carcass of an Ox: the slaughtered ox, a subject with no story in it at all
• The Mill: the mill of the title, and one of the few landscapes he left

Browse by subject

Rembrandt's subjects run through other collections of ours, and each one is a different door into the same painter.

• Baroque painting: 3,729 works, the painting of the Baroque cultural movement, often identified with Absolutism, the Counter Reformation and the Catholic Revival, though it took hold in Protestant and non-absolutist states across Western Europe too. Rembrandt van Rijn worked through the Baroque century in the Dutch Republic, and these 192 titles sit inside that larger group.
• Portrait paintings: 8,463 canvases, the genre whose intent is to represent a specific human subject, worked on commission for public and private persons or out of admiration for the sitter, and long kept as a state and family record. The commissions, the guild groups, the studies of old men and the self portraits, which are portraits of the painter by the painter.
• Religious paintings: 3,084 titles, the visual representation of religious ideas and their relationship with humans, with sacred art the part of it made for worship and religious practice. The parables, the prophets and the head studies, which is most of his late painting, from the Prodigal Son to Moses and the tablets.
• Seascape paintings: 4,178 pieces, figurative work that draws its main inspiration from the sea, a genre particularly strong from the 17th to the 19th centuries and stretched in practice to cover shipping on rivers and estuaries, beach scenes and anything with a boat in it. His only known seascape, The Storm on the Sea of Galilee, sits with the rest of the sea pictures.
• Paintings of women: 9,375 paintings, the genre whose intent is to represent a specific human subject, worked on commission for public and private persons or out of admiration for the sitter, and long kept as a state and family record. Bathsheba, Lucretia and the bride of The Jewish Bride, the three women's portraits on this page.
• The 100 most famous paintings of all time: 4 canvases by Rembrandt sit on this list, our reading of the best known paintings in art history, the Anatomy Lesson, the Prodigal Son, the Storm on the Sea of Galilee and one of the faces, all museum pieces today.

The full list of painters we reproduce in oil is on the artist index.

How each reproduction is painted

Nothing here is stock. When you order, an artist paints that title in oil on canvas in the size you picked, layer by layer, and you see a photograph of the finished painting and approve it before it leaves the studio. A museum keeps the original; what you get is a new painting of the same composition, sized for the wall you have in mind. Seven sizes are available and the frame is optional, so the same picture can be a small study by a desk or the one thing on a wall. Shipping is free worldwide and returns stay open for 90 days.

Frequently asked questions

Which Rembrandt painting is the most famous?

Four sit on our list of the 100 most famous paintings: The Anatomy Lesson of Dr. Nicolaes Tulp, The Return of the Prodigal Son, The Storm on the Sea of Galilee and one face of his own. The Anatomy Lesson is the one visitors open most here.

How many self portraits did Rembrandt make?

Approaching one hundred in all, of which over forty are paintings, thirty-one etchings and about seven drawings. With a few of them the identity of the sitter or the hand of the artist remains uncertain, which is what happens when a man paints himself for forty years.

Where are Rembrandt's originals?

In museum collections. The Anatomy Lesson is in the Mauritshuis in The Hague: a planned sale in 1828 was blocked by royal decree, and the Dutch state bought the canvas for 32,000 guilders instead, and The Return of the Prodigal Son is in the Hermitage Museum in St. Petersburg.

Did Rembrandt paint landscapes or seascapes?

Rarely. The Storm on the Sea of Galilee, from 1633, is his only known seascape, and The Mill is one of very few landscapes by him. The rest is figures, faces and biblical scenes.

Which Rembrandt should I start with?

For the museum picture everyone knows, take the Anatomy Lesson or the parable of return. For a single face in one lamp, take a self portrait or the study of an elderly man in a cap, which reads well at a smaller size. Three or four of the small heads make a gallery wall on their own.

What makes a Rembrandt look like a Rembrandt?

One light source, a face half in shadow, and paint laid on thick enough to catch the light in the room you hang it in. The same method carries a guild group, a biblical scene and a single head, and you can watch him use it across the portraits on this page.

How many Rembrandt paintings survive?

About three hundred, alongside three hundred etchings and several hundred drawings. This page carries 192 titles, the ones people ask us to paint, and Rembrandt's range shows even in that slice.

Which Rembrandt group portraits are here?

Three of the guild and family commissions: The Anatomy Lesson of Dr. Nicolaes Tulp, which was made for the Surgeons Guild meeting room, The Syndics, and The Mennonite Preacher Anslo and his Wife. The rest of the 192 titles are single figures, self portraits and biblical scenes.

What size suits a Rembrandt?

A guild group like the Anatomy Lesson or the Syndics holds a wide wall, because the figures are life size in the original. A single head or a study of an elderly man works at the smaller end of the seven sizes, where the one light source does the job in a tight frame.

Why are the originals so dark?

The method is a single light source and deep shadow, so the darks carry most of the surface. A hand-painted copy in oil keeps that, because the same layering of paint is what makes the light read at all, and a photographic print of it flattens the darks.

Does the frame come with it?

The frame is optional on every title here. A dark, plain molding suits the guild groups and the biblical canvases, the way a gallery frames them, and the smaller studies of a head can go unframed on a shelf, because the picture already has a dark border of its own.

Can a Rembrandt work in a modern room?

Yes, and the contrast helps. A dark canvas on a pale wall reads as a window, and the single light source in the picture does not fight a lamp or a window in the room, because all the drama is inside the frame.

Are these original Rembrandt paintings?

No. Each one is a new painting, made by hand in oil on canvas after Rembrandt's composition. It is a reproduction, not a print, and not the original canvas.

What sizes and frames can I order?

Every Rembrandt reproduction here comes in seven sizes, with an optional frame. You see a photo of the finished oil painting and approve it before it ships, worldwide shipping is free, and returns stay open for 90 days.