Rembrandt and the Ancients

Explore a lesser-known but vital aspect of the work of one of history’s most celebrated artists. Rembrandt van Rijn (1606–1669) engaged deeply with the history, literature, and artifacts of ancient Greece, Rome, and the wider Mediterranean world. This interest in antiquity, coupled with his transcendent powers of perception, led him to uncover an extraordinary range of ancient subjects and themes and he depicted them in emphatically modern ways, often articulating ideas about his own time and place. Rembrandt and the Ancients, a historic collaboration between The Met and the Musée du Louvre, is the first comprehensive museum exhibition dedicated to the Dutch artist’s creative engagement with the ancients and their legacies.

Rembrandt’s career unfolded against the backdrop of flourishing interest in antiquity in the Dutch Republic, especially in the cosmopolitan city of Amsterdam, the site of growing collections of ancient art, a modern theater dedicated in part to the production of ancient dramas, and the publication of Dutch translations of numerous ancient texts. At the same time, the increasingly global reach of the Dutch Republic, along with developments in science and philosophy, gave rise to new knowledge and understandings of the world that both illuminated and challenged the ancients’ long-celebrated wisdom and achievements. Within this cultural landscape, Rembrandt reimagined ancient stories and traditions with highly distinctive imagery—by turns playful and poignant, irreverent and intense, and always supremely human.

This exhibition brings together more than 125 works of art, including some 70 of Rembrandt’s paintings, prints, and drawings—many of them traveling to the United States for the first time—and key examples of the ancient and Renaissance objects that served as his touchstones. Spanning the breadth of his career, from his ambitious early history paintings to his moving late portrayals of individual heroes and heroines, this presentation offers an unprecedented look at how antiquity fueled some of this celebrated artist’s boldest innovations and informed his engagement with the artistic, social, and political questions of his time.