The Senses (Rembrandt)

The four known paintings

The Senses is a series of five oil paintings, completed c. 1624 or 1625 by Rembrandt, depicting the five senses.[1] The whereabouts of one, representing the sense of taste, is unknown. Another, representing smell, was only re-identified in 2015.[1]

Rembrandt was only around eighteen years old when the paintings were made; they are his earliest surviving works, and are of identical size.[2]

In about the 1720s the four known paintings were extended, but only one, Smell, retains the additions and those are now concealed by its frame, so that it appears to retain its original format.[2]

Three of the extant paintings, those belonging to the Leiden Collection, were reunited for the first time in public at the Getty Center, in Los Angeles, United States from May to August 2016,[3] and then all four were shown from September to November 2016 at the Ashmolean Museum in Oxford, England.[1] The fifth painting was represented by an empty frame.

The full set includes:[1]

  1. A Pedlar Selling Spectacles (Allegory of Sight)
  2. Three Singers (Allegory of Hearing)
  3. Unconscious Patient (Allegory of Smell)
  4. Stone Operation (Allegory of Touch)
  5. (Allegory of Taste)
  1. ^ a b c d "Sensation: Rembrandt's First Paintings". Ashmolean Museum. 2016. Retrieved 18 November 2016.
  2. ^ a b "About Rembrandt's Senses". Ashmolean Museum. 2016. Retrieved 18 November 2016.
  3. ^ Woollett, Anne (5 May 2016). "Rembrandt at 18". The Getty Iris. Getty Museum. Retrieved 18 November 2016.