Modelled and fired. Finished with an orange final coat.

The fingertips of the right hand and the upper part of the stylus are missing.

…; sale, Josephus Albertus Alberdingk Thijm (1820-1889, Amsterdam), Amsterdam (Frederik Muller), 10-12 December 1889, no. 133, fl. 23, to the museum

Object number: BK-NM-9001

The sense of a Dutch national identity developed rapidly in the nineteenth century. Statues in the public space could both express and foster feelings of national pride, by reminding the general public of glorious figures from the nation’s past. Accordingly, they were erected in their dozens, and the leading sculptor of these statues in the Netherlands was Louis Royer (1793-1868).

In 1830 the southern provinces of the Netherlands seceded to form the Kingdom of Belgium. The sense of Belgian pride this kindled led to a statue of Rubens being erected in Antwerp in 1840. The literary figure and art dealer Johannes Immerzeel felt that the Netherlands should not be left behind. In an ode to Rembrandt, he called for a statue to immortalize Rubens’s counterpart in the Netherlands. Not long afterwards, Royer, who was a friend of Immerzeel’s, presented a design in terracotta for a statue of Rembrandt. Although Royer came from Mechelen, he had spent some time in Amsterdam in the 1820s, and since 1836 he had been Director of Sculpture at the city’s Royal Academy of Art.

In the terracotta model, Rembrandt is depicted at work, seated, with a sketchpad in front of him and a painter’s box, paint, palette and brushes at his feet. The inscription 1642 on the box refers to the year in which he produced his masterpiece, the Night Watch (cf. SK-C-5). The work is signed by Royer on the reverse, and dated 1840. A drawing from the same year exists, made for or after this design.¹¹Nijmegen, Catholic Documentation Centre, inv. no. 5458 (Archive J.A. Alberdingk Thijm), see L. Lock in A. Jacobs et al., Welgevormd. Mechelse beeldhouwers in Europa (1780-1850), exh. cat. Mechelen (Museum Schepenhuis) 2006, no. 88.

This model was never executed. After the unveiling of the Rubens statue in Antwerp, two separate committees were set up for a Rembrandt statue, one in Amsterdam and one in The Hague. The cooperation did not run smoothly. In The Hague the preference was for an open tendering procedure, in which different sculptors could submit models for assessment by the impartial Institut de France. The Amsterdam committee had already privately stated a preference for Royer, who submitted his model as early as 1841, before the official programme of requirements had even been announced.

In 1842, Royer and Johannes Antonius van der Ven (1799-1866), who had registered with the Amsterdam committee after hearing of the plans, were invited to make designs for a statue of Rembrandt standing. The committee probably wanted a standing version because that was how Rubens had been depicted in Antwerp, in the impressive pose of a ruler, and a seated Rembrandt working as a craftsman would strike a poor figure in comparison. The commission went to Royer.

Then there was a dispute about Rembrandt’s cloak, which had a classical appearance in Royer’s design, in line with the international trends of the day. In The Hague, people feared that the general public – especially later generations – would fail to understand this, and the preference was for a short cloak instead. Amsterdam agreed, but persuading Royer of the need to make the adjustment took considerable time and effort.

The funds raised would not cover the cost of a bronze statue, and the clay model was therefore cast in iron in 1851. The year after - ten years after the commission had been granted - the statue was finally unveiled at the Botermarkt in Amsterdam, the present-day Rembrandtplein.

Royer immortalised several other famous men from Dutch history, most notably Desiderius Erasmus (1837), Michiel de Ruyter (1841), William of Orange (1848), Laurens Jansz Coster (1856), and Joost van den Vondel (1867). The latter is depicted in the seated pose that Royer had originally intended for Rembrandt.

Margreet Boomkamp, 2017 (updated by Bieke van der Mark in 2026)
This entry was originally published in J. Reynaerts (ed.), 1800-1900, coll. cat. Amsterdam (Rijksmuseum) 2017, no. 40

Nijmegen, Catholic Documentation Centre, inv. no. 5480 (Archive J.A. Alberdingk Thijm); J. Immerzeel, Lofrede op Rembrandt door J. Immerzeel Jr. aan wien de Hollandsche Maatschappij van fraaije kunsten en wetenschappen, in hare algemeene vergadering van den 21. September 1839, den buitengewonen zilveren eerepenning heeft toegewezen, Amsterdam 1840, pp. 509-10; J. Leeuwenberg with the assistance of W. Halsema-Kubes, Beeldhouwkunst in het Rijksmuseum, coll. cat. Amsterdam 1973, no. 449, with earlier literature; W. Bergé, Heimwee naar de klassieken: De beelden van Mathieu Kessels en zijn tijdgenoten, 1815-1840, exh. cat. Den Bosch (Noordbrabants Museum) 1994-95, pp. 141-43; G. van den Hout and E. Langendijk (eds.), Louis Royer 1793-1868: Een Vlaamse beeldhouwer in Amsterdam, exh. cat. Amsterdam (Museum Amstelkring) 1994, p. 25 and no. 63; M. Jonker et al., In beeld gebracht: Beeldhouwkunst uit de collectie van het Amsterdams Historisch Museum, coll. cat. Amsterdam 1995, pp. 100-02; F. Scholten, Gebeeldhouwde portretten/Portrait Sculptures, coll. cat. Amsterdam (Rijksmuseum) 1995, no. 49; Lock in A. Jacobs, Welgevormd. Mechelse beeldhouwers in Europa (1780-1850), exh. cat. Mechelen (Museum Schepenhuis) 2006, p. 242; Boomkamp in G. van der Ham et al., Netherlandish Art in the Rijksmuseum 1800-1900, coll. cat. Amsterdam 2009, no. 36; Boomkamp in J. Reynaerts (ed.), 1800-1900, coll. cat. Amsterdam (Rijksmuseum) 2017, no. 40

M. Boomkamp, 2026, 'Louis Royer, Rembrandt van Rijn (1606-1669), Amsterdam, 1840', in F. Scholten and B. van der Mark (eds.), European Sculpture in the Rijksmuseum, online coll. cat. Amsterdam: https://data.rijksmuseum.nl/200116119