Head of Christ (Rembrandt, Louvre Abu Dhabi)

Head of Christ is a circa 1648 painting by Rembrandt or his workshop. It shows Christ with a beard and long dark hair. It is in the collection of the Louvre Abu Dhabi.

Description
Rembrandt created several similar heads of the same model in varying poses, possibly as devotional objects. Today about a dozen are known. This one remained in private hands until 2019, when it came into the collection via purchase at Sotheby's in London for a hammer price of 9,480,800 GBP. This face of Christ relates very closely to the version at the Gemäldegalerie, long considered the primary version. Rembrandt expert Ernst van de Wetering calls this one autograph or by a Rembrandt pupil.

This painting was overlooked by Wilhelm Valentiner in his 1908 catalog, as he explored the idea of a series of rotations of the heads of the same model. In this series he chose the similarly posed head of the Hyde Collection version substituted for this one in his row of five (he chose Philadelphia, then Berlin, Detroit, Hyde, and finally, New York). He worked in New York, so he was most familiar with the Hyde and New York versions.

Valentiner lineup: