In the Louvre collection in Paris is a painting entitled “Portrait of an Elderly Man”, formerly part of the collection of the last King of Poland, Stanisław II August.

Unidentified Sitter

The painting depicts an elderly man shown frontally, with short, slightly curly grey hair, a trimmed beard and moustache. His face is pale, his mouth slightly open, yet his gaze remains lively, directed slightly downwards to the right. He wears a brown coat with a collar and an undergarment, from which the white collar of his shirt emerges. A pendant chain can be faintly discerned on his chest, while the background remains indeterminate. The overall palette is dark brown, with highlights falling on the left side of the face and on the shirt collar. 

“Portrait of an Elderly Man” was once believed to represent Rembrandt van Rijn’s brother, Adriaen (1597–1652), and to be an authentic late work by Rembrandt himself. Today, however, the Louvre canvas is considered the work of an imitator of the great master, datable to between 1650 and 1660; the identity of the sitter remains unknown. Comparable in facial physiognomy is a painting entitled “Study of an Elderly Man”, likewise once attributed to Rembrandt, now in the Mauritshuis in The Hague (inv. no. 560). Both paintings may therefore be regarded as belonging to the category of portrait studies known as “tronies”, that is, representations of a characteristic human type. “Tronies” were not intended as formal portraits but as studies of expression, type, or physiognomy, often portraying figures such as an old man, a young man, or a woman of any age. They were characteristic of Dutch and Flemish Baroque art, a format that Rembrandt himself employed frequently. 

The Louvre painting displays numerous cracks and paint losses; its condition makes it difficult to describe with precision and, above all, to appreciate fully the painterly qualities of the sitter’s image. Of particular interest is the number 40, painted in white, visible in the lower right corner of the canvas. On the reverse, in the upper left corner, there is a wax seal and the number 343 in white chalk. The frame bears three labels: the number 89 written in white chalk, and the number 10 inscribed in pencil within a circle. 

History of the Painting

The painting was probably executed in the mid-seventeenth century, during a period marked by interest in Rembrandt’s late works, when numerous imitators produced images of this kind. By the second half of the eighteenth century, the painting was in a German collection, most likely that of Councillor Trible, where it was regarded as an authentic Rembrandt. This attribution is confirmed by the 1768 graphic reproductions of Georg Friedrich Schmidt (1712–1775), a noted printmaker who produced engravings after paintings, including works attributed to Rembrandt. A well-known print of 1768 by Schmidt, now in the Prints Cabinet of the State Art Collections in Dresden, depicts a painting attributed to Rembrandt that shows an elderly man whose facial features are indisputably identical to those of the sitter in the Louvre canvas. The illumination differs, however: in the print the face is lit from the right, a variation most likely resulting from the conventions of the graphic medium. 

At an undetermined date thereafter, the painting entered the renowned collection of the last King of Poland, Stanisław II August. It was recorded in the royal inventory of 1795. Following the dispersal of the royal collection, the painting passed into the Potocki family holdings in the mid-nineteenth century. It then belonged to Mikołaj (Félix-Nicolas) Potocki (1845–1921), son of Mieczysław, grandson of the bargain hunter Szczęsny, and heir to the Tulczyn estate and its collection (today in Ukraine). In the late 1870s Mikołaj Potocki brought the painting to Paris, where, together with the rest of the Tulczyn collection, it was housed in the palace built for him at 27 avenue Friedland, known as the “Hôtel Potocki” (today the Chambre de Commerce et d’Industrie de Paris). The residence served as a fashionable literary salon, admired also for its interior decoration. 

Count Potocki regularly lent works from his collection to Parisian exhibitions, and in 1907 he deposited the “Portrait of an Elderly Man”, then still regarded as an authentic Rembrandt, in the Louvre for permanent display. Shortly before his death, in a will dated 25 August 1920, Nicolas Potocki bequeathed the painting to the Louvre. His name was inscribed on a stone plaque in the rotunda before the Apollo Gallery, where benefactors of the museum are commemorated. The remainder of Mikołaj Potocki’s collection passed to Alfred Potocki (1886–1958), the last Ordynat of Łańcut, before being dispersed. 

Collection of King Stanisław II August

The celebrated collections of the last King of Poland, assembled during his reign from 1764 to 1795, encompassed paintings, sculpture, arms, jewellery, a library, and the furnishings of his residences. By the end of his reign, Stanisław August’s picture collection numbered nearly 2,500 works, as recorded in the inventory *Catalogue des Tableaux appartenant à Sa Majesté le Roi de Pologne*, compiled in 1795. The royal collection embraced Dutch, Italian, French, German, and Polish schools. Following the king’s abdication, the collection was gradually dispersed, with virtually no prospect of its survival as a whole. Today, some four hundred paintings from the collection have been identified.