About the Artwork
This vigorously painted study of a woman’s head offered Rembrandt van Rijn the opportunity to experiment with the representation of textures. The relatively smooth delineation of the figure’s skin stands out against the dynamic, broken brushwork of the clothing. Similarly, the handkerchief that she holds to her right eye is translucent in comparison with the heavy plaid cloth falling from her left shoulder. Rembrandt made this work as an expressive study; the head of the weeping woman, with tear-filled eyes and softly closed mouth, appears again in the figure of the kneeling adulteress in Rembrandt’s Woman Taken in Adultery (1644), now in the National Gallery, London. This picture offers a glimpse at the artist’s creative process as he worked up ideas for the ambitious multifigure scene.
A Woman Weeping
mid- to late 1640s
Circle of Rembrandt Harmensz van Rijn
1606-1669
Dutch
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Oil on oak panel
Unframed: 8 3/8 × 6 5/8 inches (21.3 × 16.8 cm) Framed: 11 1/8 × 9 3/8 × 1 1/4 inches (28.3 × 23.8 × 3.2 cm)
Paintings
European Painting
Founders Society Purchase, Mr. and Mrs. Henry Ford II Fund
56.183
Public Domain
Markings
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Provenance
Holland collection (London, England);London, Samuel Woodburn (1786-1853);
his sale, June 9, 1860, sold by (Christie's, London, England) auction London, no. 109
July 10, 1914, sold by (Christie's, London, England) auction London, lot 62 [sold for £1470];
Berlin, purchased for Friedrich W. Lippmann (1883-1932) by a Christie's employee named "Smith;"
by 1916-1928, Berlin, Oskar Huldschinsky (1846-1931);
May 10-11, 1928, sold by (Cassirer & Helbing, Berlin, Germany) auction O. Huldschinsky, lot 25, repr. [sold for DM 68,000];
until at least 1937, Berlin, private collection.
1938, possibly Gallery F. Drey (dealer) (London, England).
by 1947, New York, Mrs. Hanni Seligman;
1956, New York, Rosenberg and Steibel (dealer) [consigned to];
1956-present, purchase by the Detroit Institute of Arts (Detroit, Michigan, USA) with funds from Mr. and Mrs. Henry Ford II
For more information on provenance, please visit:
Provenance pageExhibition History
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The exhibition history of a number of objects in our collection only begins after their acquisition by the museum, and may reflect an incomplete record.
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Catalogue of the very celebrated & valuable series of capital pictures, by the greatest early Italian Masters, formed under singular advantages, by that distinguished Connoisseur, the late Samuel Woodburn, Esq. Sales cat. Christie, Manson & Woods., London, June 9, 1860, p. 25, no. 109. [as The Woman Taken in Adultery, Brought Before Jesus in the Temple]
Catalogue of Old Pictures & Drawings, The Property of Lady Anna Chandos Pole and Old Pictures and Works of the Early English School, formerly the property of C.L. Fischer, Esq. and from various Private Collections and Different Sources. Sales cat. Christie, Manson & Woods, London, July 10, 1914, p. 12, no. 62. [as by Rembrandt School, sold to Smith for 1470 GBP]
Hofstede de Groot, C. Catalogue Raisonné of the Works of the most Eminent Dutch Painters of the Seventeenth Century, Vol. 6. London, 1916, p. 338, no. 717a. [as "Hendrickje Stoffels"]
Bredius, Abraham. "Wiedergefundene Rembrandts." Zeitschrift für bildende Kunst 32 (1921): p. 150, no. 73. [as by Rembrandt]
Valentiner, Wilhelm R. Rembrandt Wiedergefundene Gemälde. Stuttgart and Berlin, 1921, p. xxii, no. 73 (ill.).
Hofstede de Groot, C. Die holländische Kritik der Jetzigen Rembrandt-Forschung und neuest wiedergefundene Bilder. Stuttgart and Berlin, 1922, p. 12. [as Rembrandt]
Van Dyke, John C. Rembrandt and his School. New York, 1923, p. 167, pl. XLII, fig. 166 (ill.). [as by school of Frans Hals]
Valentiner, Wilhelm R. Rembrandt: Wiedergefundene Gemälde, 2nd ed. Berlin and Leipzig, 1923, pp. xxvi–xxvii, no. 82, fig. 78 (ill.). [dated about 1655]
Die Sammlung Oscar Huldschinsky. Sales cat., Paul Cassirer and Hugo Helbing, Munich, May 10–11, 1928, pp. 46–47, no. 25 (ill.). [as by Rembrandt]
Friedländer, Max J. "Die Sammlung Oscar Huldschinsky." Der Cicerone 20 (1928): 1–7, p. 5 (ill.).
Bredius, Abraham. Rembrandt Gemälde. Vienna, 1935, p. 15, no. 366 (ill.).
Bredius, Abraham. Rembrandt Paintings. London, 1937, p. 15, no. 366.
Loan Exhibition of Paintings by Frans Hals and Rembrandt. Exh. cat., Los Angeles County Museum of Art. Los Angeles, 1947, pp. 72–73, cat. XXV (ill.). [as lent by Mrs. Hanni Seligman, New York]
Rosenberg, Jakob. Rembrandt. Cambridge, Massachusetts, 1948, p. 245. [as Rembrandt]
Benesch, Otto. The Drawings of Rembrandt: The Middle Period, vol. 3. London, 1955, p. 147, no. 535, fig. 699 (ill.). [as by Carel Fabritius]
Grigaut, Paul L. "Rembrandt and his Pupils in North Carolina." Art Quarterly 19 (1956): pp. 406. 409. [as by Rembrandt]
Grigaut, Paul L. Rembrandt and his Pupils in North Carolina. Exh. cat., North Carolina Museum of Art. Raleigh, 1956, unpaginated. [see cat. 25, as by Rembrandt, dated about 1654–1655]
Richardson, E.P. "A Late Rembrandt for the Institute." Bulletin of the Detroit Institute of Arts 36, no. 3 (1956–1957): 58–59, front cover, pp. 58–59 (ill.).
"Rembrandt for $500,000" Time 69, no. 6 (February 11, 1957): p. 78 (ill.).
Sumowski, Werner. "Nachträge zum Rembrandtjahr 1956." Wissenschaftliche Zeitschrift der Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin 7, no. 2 (1957–1958): 223–278, pp. 238.
MacLaren, Neil. The Dutch School: National Gallery Catalogues. London, 1960, pp. 310, note 8. [see no. 45, as not by Rembrandt]
Grigaut, Paul L., ed. Treasures from the Detroit Institute of Arts. Detroit, 1963, p. 141 (ill.).
Paintings in the Detroit Institute of Arts: A Check List of the Paintings Acquired Before June, 1965. Detroit, 1965, p. 91.
Bauch, Kurt. Rembrandt Gemälde. Berlin, 1966, p. 48, no. 366. [as possibly by Carel Fabritius]
Sumowski, Werner. "Zu einem Gemälde von Carel Fabritus." Pantheon 26 (1968): 278–283, p. 281, 283 (ill.). [as "Weeping adultress" by Carel Fabritius]
Bredius, Abraham. Rembrandt Paintings, ed. H. Gerson. London, 1969, p. 287, 578–579, no. 366, (ill.). [as style of G. van den Eeckhout]
Kirschenbaum, Baruch D. The Religious and Historical Paintings of Jan Steen. New York and Montclair, 1977, pp. 107; 183, fig. 43 (ill.).
Sumowski, Werner. Drawings of the Rembrandt School, vol. 4. New York, 1979, p. 1878, no. 13. [as by Carel Fabritius]
Brown, Christopher. Carel Fabritius. Oxford, 1981, pp. 133–134, no. R10, fig. 68 (ill.). [as likely a pastiche of a later Rembrandt]
Sumowski, Werner. Gemälde der Rembrandt-Schüler, vol. 3. Landau, 1983, pp. 2008–2009, no. 1322 (ill.). [as by Nicolaes Maes]
Bruyn, J. "Boekbespreking: W. Sumowski, Gemälde der Rembrandt-Schüler III, Landau/Pfalz, 1986." Oud Holland 102, no. 4 (1988): 322–334, p. 329 fig. 4 (ill.).
MacLaren, Neil and Christopher Brown. The Dutch School 1600–1900, National Gallery Catalogues. London, 1991, pp. 329. [see no. 45, as a study or derivation by a different hand]
Keyes, George S. et al. Masters of Dutch Painting: The Detroit Institute of Arts. London, 2004, pp. 180–181, fig. 73 (ill.). [as by circle of Rembrandt]
Scallen, Catherine B. Rembrandt, Reputation, and the Practice of Connoisseurship. Amsterdam, 2004, pp. 252–253, fig. 60 (ill.); 370, note 28. [as copy after Rembrandt]
Beal, Graham W.J. and Debra N. Mancoff, eds. Treasures of the DIA: Detroit Institute of Arts. Detroit, 2007, p. 304, no. 236 (ill.). [as by circle of Rembrandt]
Liedtke, Walter. Dutch Paintings in The Metropolitan Museum of Art. New York, 2007, vol. 2, pp. 749–750, fig. 216 (ill.). [see no. 170, as style of Rembrandt]
Wetering, Ernst van de. Rembrandt Quest of a Genius. Exh. cat., Rembrandthuis and Staatliche Museen zu Berlin, Gemäldegalerie. Amsterdam and Berlin, 2007, pp. 196–200, fig. 227 (ill.). [as by Rembrandt]
Wetering, Ernst van de. "Connoisseurship and Rembrandt's paintings: new directions in the Rembrandt Research Project, part II." The Burlington Magazine 150, no. 1259 (February 2008): 83–90, p. 90. [see appendix, p. 107, as by Rembrandt]
Wetering, Ernst van de. Rembrandt's Paintings Revisited: A Complete Survey. Dordrecht, 2015, pp. 587–588, no. 197 (ill.).
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Credit Line for Reproduction
circle of Rembrandt Harmensz van Rijn, A Woman Weeping, mid- to late 1640s, oil on oak panel. Detroit Institute of Arts, Founders Society Purchase, Mr. and Mrs. Henry Ford II Fund, 56.183.
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