Jan Cornelis Sylvius, preacher, by Rembrandt

An image of Jan Cornelis Sylvius, preacher. Rembrandt Harmensz. van Rijn (Dutch, 1606-1669). Etching, drypoint, engraving, sulphur tint, black carbon ink on laid paper, height, plate, 278 mm, width, plate, 188 mm; height, sheet, 279 mm, width, sheet, 192 mm, 1646. Production Note: II/II. Notes: The sitter was a cousin by marriage of Rembrandt's wife, Saskia, and her guardian. Rembrandt produced a lifetime portrait of Sylvius in 1633 (see AD.12.39-194, 23.K.5-344 & 345), as well as this posthumous one (Sylvius died in 1638); however, the reasons for the production of this portrait are still obscure, perhaps the result of a commission or possibly the artist's wish to commemorate a member of his wife's family. Although given the same accession number, and mounted directly above the lower part of the verse fragment in Viscount Fitzwilliam's Rembrandt album, this impression does not appear to be from the same sheet as 23.K.5-368 (2). Alternative Number(s): Hollstein (Dutch/Flemish); B280 II/II; 1969. Biörklund/Barnard; BB46-E II/II; 1955.

Terms of use

The low-resolution images published on this Website are made available under a Creative Commons Attribution licence (CC BY-NC-ND). For more details: Fitzwilliam Terms of Use

This licence does not include any images of works that are still in copyright. Artistic copyright extends from the life of the artist to 70 years from the end of the calendar year in which the artist died.

Download this image

For further information on use of images or to license a high resolution version, please contact our image library who can discuss terms and fees.

Jan Cornelis Sylvius, preacher. Rembrandt Harmensz. van Rijn (Dutch, 1606-1669). Etching, drypoint, engraving, sulphur tint, black carbon ink on laid paper, height, plate, 278 mm, width, plate, 188 mm; height, sheet, 279 mm, width, sheet, 192 mm, 1646. Production Note: II/II. Notes: The sitter was a cousin by marriage of Rembrandt's wife, Saskia, and her guardian. Rembrandt produced a lifetime portrait of Sylvius in 1633 (see AD.12.39-194, 23.K.5-344 & 345), as well as this posthumous one (Sylvius died in 1638); however, the reasons for the production of this portrait are still obscure, perhaps the result of a commission or possibly the artist's wish to commemorate a member of his wife's family. Although given the same accession number, and mounted directly above the lower part of the verse fragment in Viscount Fitzwilliam's Rembrandt album, this impression does not appear to be from the same sheet as 23.K.5-368 (2). Alternative Number(s): Hollstein (Dutch/Flemish); B280 II/II; 1969. Biörklund/Barnard; BB46-E II/II; 1955.

Image data

Accession Number: AD.12.39-173
Photograph copyright © The Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge.
Aperture: f/22.0
Focal length: 120
Camera: Hasselblad H4D-31
Photographer name: Sam Cole
Image height: 1025 pixels
Image width: 709 pixels
Processed with: Adobe Photoshop Lightroom 5.0 (Windows)
Filesize: 701.42kB
Exposure time: 1/125
ISO Speed: 100
Fnumber: 22/1
Captured: 2018:02:06 10:20:27

Key words

17th Century aged bearded beards bible caps Christianity churchman drypoint Dutch elderly engraving etching Fitz_PDP Jan Cornelis Sylvius male man minister old old man oval portraits preacher preaching print religion religious Rembrandt Rembrandt Harmensz. van Rijn sulphur tint

Citation for print

This page can be cited in the Harvard Bibliographic style using the text below:


            The Fitzwilliam Museum (2025)
            "Jan Cornelis Sylvius, preacher, by Rembrandt"
            Web page available at: https://collection.beta.fitz.ms/id/image/media-213254 Accessed: 2025-12-11 11:18:05

Citation for Wikipedia

To cite this page on Wikipedia you can use this code snippet:


            {{cite web|url=https://collection.beta.fitz.ms/id/image/media-213254
            |title=Jan Cornelis Sylvius, preacher, by Rembrandt
            |author=The Fitzwilliam Museum|accessdate=2025-12-11 11:18:05|publisher=The
            University of Cambridge}}

API call for this record

To call these data via our API (remember this needs to be authenticated) you can use this code snippet:

https://collection.beta.fitz.ms/api/v1/images/media-213254

Bootstrap HTML code for reuse

To use this as a simple code embed, copy this string:

<div class="text-center">
    <figure class="figure">
        <img src="https://data.fitzmuseum.cam.ac.uk/imagestore/pdp/pdp81/AD_12_39_173_1_201801_sjc288_dc2.jpg"
        alt="Jan Cornelis Sylvius, preacher"
        class="img-fluid" />
        <figcaption class="figure-caption text-info">Jan Cornelis Sylvius, preacher, by Rembrandt</figcaption>
    </figure>
</div>