Although he received prestigious commissions in Holland and from the court of Friedrich Wilhelm, Elector of Brandenburg, in Berlin (1653–4), the last decade of Lievens’s career was overshadowed by domestic and financial difficulties, and he died in poverty. Lievens went to London (1632–5) and was active in Antwerp (1635–44) before settling in Amsterdam, where he was based for most of his remaining career. When Rembrandt returned from his training with Lastman in 1625, he and Lievens worked independently in Leiden, though the two engaged in artistic exchange and competition. Vogelaar et al., Rembrandt & Lievens in Leiden, Leiden 1991 pp.132 & 138). The Leiden burgomaster Jan Orlers admired the ‘consummate skill’ of the precocious child and Constantijn Huygens, secretary to the stadhouder, praised Lievens as ‘a young man of great spirit, and great things may be expected of him’ (C. On his return to Leiden at the age of about twelve, Lievens set up his own studio in the family’s house. Like his fellow artist, Lievens was born in Leiden, where he trained for two years with Joris van Schooten, subsequently becoming Pieter Lastman’s apprentice in Amsterdam from about 1618 to 1620. Clark was the first to propose the now universally accepted attribution to Jan Lievens, in 1921. Lievens enjoyed a considerable artistic reputation in his own day but has since been outshone by Rembrandt’s fame. As well as Rembrandt, his pupils Gerrit Dou, Ferdinand Bol and Salomon Koninck have been suggested as authors, and even Paulus Bor has been considered. This intriguing, dramatically lit depiction of a young man, which is probably a self-portrait by the artist, posing as a commander in a yellow robe with gorget and baton and carrying his (invisible) sword on an embroidered baldric, has a chequered history of attributions.

The portrait of young man as an artist