The Girl in a Picture Frame

The Girl in a Picture Frame.

The Girl in a Picture Frame is a 1641 oil on panel painting by the Dutch artist Rembrandt.^[1][2] It is also known as The Jewish Bride and The Girl in a Hat. With The Scholar at the Lectern and Landscape with the Good Samaritan, it is one of only three Rembrandt paintings in Polish collections.^[3][4] Its provenance has sometimes been questioned, but was confirmed in 2006.

Stanisław August Poniatowski bought it and The Scholar at the Lectern in 1777 from Countess Maria Golovkina (widow of Count Friedrich Paul von Kameke) via the art dealer Jakub Triebl. He initially displayed them at the Łazienki Palace in Warsaw and after his death they both passed to Józef Poniatowski who in 1813 left them to his sister Maria Teresa Poniatowska. In 1815 they were bought by Kazimierz Rzewuski, who gave them to his daughter Ludwice, wife of Antony Lanckoroński.^[5] They were later owned by the Lanckoroński family, resident in Vienna, who in 1902 arranged for The Girl in the Picture Frame to be exhibited there with other Renaissance and Baroque paintings from their collection. The Gestapo seized it during World War Two, but in 1947 it was returned to its rightful owners and placed in a Swiss bank vault. It was next exhibited in 1994 in an exhibition of the family's artworks at the Royal Castle, Warsaw, after which Karolina Lanckorońska transferred the painting to the Royal Castle.

It was studied during the Rembrandt Research Project, led by Ernst van de Wetering, who analysed Girl and Scholar three times and in February 2006 confirmed they were painted by Rembrandt.^[6] They were then exhibited at the Rembrandthuis in Amsterdam and the Gemäldegalerie Berlin as part of "Rembrandt - The Quest of a Genius", an exhibition marking the 400th anniversary of the painter's birth.^[7]

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