| The Man with the Golden Helmet | |
| Artist: | Circle of Rembrandt |
| Year: | c. 1650 |
| Height Metric: | 67.5 |
| Width Metric: | 50.7 |
| City: | Berlin |
| Museum: | Gemäldegalerie, Berlin |
The Man with the Golden Helmet (c. 1650) is an oil-on-canvas painting formerly attributed to the Dutch painter Rembrandt and today considered to be a work by someone in his circle. The Man with the Golden Helmet is an example of Dutch Golden Age painting and is now in the collection of the Gemäldegalerie, Berlin.[1]
The picture shows an elderly man in front of a dark background with a striking golden helmet on his head.
The helmet is the dominant subject of the picture thanks to its color and light and the impasto application, against which the half-illuminated face and the dark background become less important.
Categorized as a work by Rembrandt for many years, doubts were expressed as to its provenance in 1984 by a Dutch curators' commission specifically created to investigate Rembrandt's works of questionable authenticity. They made their remarks while viewing the painting in West Berlin.
In November 1985, Berlin-based art expert Jan Kelch announced that important details in the painting's style did not match the style of Rembrandt's known works, and that the painting was probably painted in 1650 by one of Rembrandt's students.
"It is not a fake," Kelch averred. "It remains a great masterful work."[2]
This painting was documented by Hofstede de Groot in 1915, who wrote:[3]