London exhibition paints Rembrandt as real artist

An exhibition of the late works of Rembrandt opens at London's National Gallery this week, on the first step in a journey that will take many of the works back to Amsterdam, the city where they were created in the 17th Century, BBC News reports.

The story goes that upon viewing Rembrandt's Jewish Bride for the first time in 1885, Vincent Van Gogh said: "I should be happy to give 10 years of my life if I could go on sitting here in front of this picture for a fortnight, with only a crust of dry bread for food."

In a letter to his brother Theo, he wrote: "What an intimate, what an infinitely sympathetic painting."

The Jewish Bride, officially known as Portrait of a Couple as Isaac and Rebecca, dates from about 1665 and is one of the key paintings on show as part of Rembrandt: The Late Works at the National Gallery.

Organised in collaboration with Amsterdam's Rijksmuseum, the exhibition is the first to explore Rembrandt's final years from about 1652 to his death in 1669.

It will then move to the Rijksmuseum's newly opened Philips exhibition wing in February 2015.
"Every work in the exhibition - including many works rarely seen in public - is by the artist himself, to allow the most accurate understanding of his style and technique," said Betsy Wieseman, the show's curator at the National Gallery (NG).