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Collections

Rembrandt Harmensz. van Rijn
The Raising of Lazaruscirca 1630-1632

On view:
Geffen Galleries
Oil painting of a multi-figure scene in near-total darkness, with a robed man raising one arm above a group of figures surrounding a shrouded figure emerging from a stone tomb
Oil painting with dramatic chiaroscuro; a robed standing figure raises one arm upward against a dark background while three figures cluster at lower left around a kneeling woman illuminated by a concentrated light source, rendered with loose brushwork.
Oil painting with chiaroscuro technique; four figures in a dark interior, an illuminated young woman with upturned face kneeling at center, surrounded by three older bearded men in robes and turbans leaning over her, rendered in deep browns and earth tones with loose brushwork.
Oil painting, dimly lit scene of a bearded man in white robes and head covering, reclined with head tilted back and mouth open, against a near-black background, with loose painterly brushwork.
Artist or Maker
Rembrandt Harmensz. van Rijn
Northern Netherlands, 1606-1669
Title
The Raising of Lazarus
Date Made
circa 1630-1632
Medium
Oil on wood panel
Dimensions
Panel: 37 5/16 × 32 in. (94.77 × 81.28 cm) Framed: 47 1/2 × 41 3/4 × 2 in. (120.65 × 106.05 × 5.08 cm)
Credit Line
Gift of H. F. Ahmanson and Company, in memory of Howard F. Ahmanson
Accession Number
M.72.67.2
Classification
Paintings
Collecting Area
European Painting and Sculpture
Curatorial Notes
Throughout his life Rembrandt treated the stories and parables of the Old and New Testaments in accessible, familiar images. Because the Dutch Reformed Calvinism of his time forbade religious art in churches, public commissions for paintings of biblical subjects were virtually nonexistent, but an enthusiastic private patronage for them thrived, which helps account for the preponderance of religious subjects in Rembrandt's work.
The Raising of Lazarus is Rembrandt's only painting of this miracle marking the culmination of Christ's ministry, but he also made drawings and etchings of the same subject. Christ's divine and human nature is revealed as he stands in the cave where Lazarus was buried, his hand raised to perform the miracle, his face filled with apprehension and triumph. Rembrandt interprets Lazarus's rising not only in direct correspondence with Christ's forceful gesture but also in response to the divine power it has unleashed by evoking faith.
Around Christ and the tomb huddle the astounded witnesses—among them Mary and Martha, Lazarus's sisters—whose gestures and expressions record successive states of awareness and awe before what is unfolding. The dramatic darkness of the cave does not obscure the subtle colors--mauve, rose, and aqua--of the costumes or the glinting highlights of the quiver and scabbard hanging at the right.
Provenance
Probably collection of the artist, Amsterdam, until 1656. [Possibly Johannes de Renialme (ca. 1600–1657), Amsterdam]. Possibly Abraham Fabritius (1629–1692), Amsterdam, by 1670. Possibly Pieter le Moine, Amsterdam, by 1674. (Possibly David Grenier sale, Middleburg, 18 Aug. 1712, lot 96). (Possibly Anonymous sale, Amsterdam, 4 June 1727, lot 2). Philippus Joseph de Jariges (1706–1770) (sale, Amsterdam, 14 Oct. 1772, lot 24). Gottfried Winckler II (1731–1795), Leipzig, by descent to; Gottfried Winckler III, Leipzig; Jean François André Duval (1776–1854), Saint Petersburg and Geneva, by 1812 (sale, London, 12–13 May 1846, lot 116, to); Charles Auguste Louis Joseph de Morny, 1st Duke of Morny (1811–1865) (sale, Paris, 24 May 1852, lot 17). Jules Beer (sale, Paris, 29 May 1913, lot 52). [Sedelmeyer Gallery, Paris, 1913]. Vicomte de Brimon, Paris. [Sedelmeyer Gallery, Paris, 1920]. [R. Langton Douglas, London, by 1932]. Madame Gertrude Dubi-Müller (1888–1980), Shanzmüle, Solothurn, Switzerland (on extended loan to the Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam), by 1932, sold 1959 to; Howard F. Ahmanson (1906–1968), Los Angeles, upon his death to; H. F. Ahmanson and Company, gift in 1972 to; LACMA.
Selected Bibliography
  • Schaefer, Scott, and Peter Fusco. European Painting and Sculpture in the Los Angeles County Museum of Art: an Illustrated Summary Catalogue. Los Angeles: Los Angeles County Museum of Art, 1987.
  • Bauch, Kurt. Rembrandt Gemälde. Berlin: Walter de Gruyter & Co., 1966.
  • Los Angeles County Museum of Art Members' Calendar 1991. vol. 28-29, no. 12-1 (December, 1990-January, 1992).
  • van de Wetering, Ernst. Rembrandt-The Painter at Work. Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press, 1997.
  • Schwartz, Gary. Rembrandt: His Life, His Paintings: a New Biography with all Accessible Paintings Illustrated in Colour. New York: Viking, 1985.
  • Schama, Simon. Rembrandt's Eyes. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1999.
  • Los Angeles County Museum of Art. New York: Thames and Hudson, 2003.

  • Conisbee, Philip et al. The Ahmanson Gifts: European Masterpieces in the Collection of the Los Angeles County Museum of Art. Los Angeles: Los Angeles County Museum of Art, 1991.


  • Price, Lorna. Masterpieces from the Los Angeles County Museum of Art. Los Angeles: Los Angeles County Museum of Art, 1988.
  • Beckett, Sister Wendy. Sister Wendy's American Collection, Toby Eady Associates, ed. Harper Collins Publishers, 2000.
  • Westerman, Mariët. Art & Ideas/Rembrandt. London: Phaidon Press Limited, 2000.
  • Tanaka, Emiko, ed. Rembrandt's Etchings: The Embrace of Darkness and Light. Nagoya: Nagoya/Boston Museum of Fine Arts, 2007.
  • Muchnic, Suzanne. LACMA So Far: Portrait of a Museum in the Making. San Marino, California: Huntington Library, Art Collections, and Botanical Gardens, 2015.
  • Bruyn, J. A Corpus of Rembrandt Paintings. Vol. 1, 1625-1631. The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff, 1982.
  • Sluijter, Eric Jan. Rembrandt's Rivals: History Painting in Amsterdam, 1630-1650. Amsterdam; Philadelphia: John Benjamins Publishing Company, 2015.
  • Gifts on the Occasion of LACMA's 50th Anniversary. Los Angeles: Los Angeles County Museum of Art, 2015.
  • Schnackenburg, Bernhard. Jan Lievens: Friend and Rival of the Young Rembrandt: with a Catalogue Raisonné of his Early Leiden Work 1623-1632. Petersberg: Michael Imhof Verlag, 2016.
  • Bredius, A. Rembrandt: the Complete Edition of the Paintings. London: Phaidon Press, 1969.
  • Hinterding, Erik. "Rembrandt's Etchings of Biblical and Mythological Subjects: Associations with his Paintings." in Rembrandt and Dutch History Painting in the 17th Century, edited by Akira Kofuku, 139-57. Tokyo: National Museum of Western Art, 2004.
  • Straten, Roelof van. Young Rembrandt: the Leiden Years, 1606-1632. Leiden: Foleor Publishers, 2005.
  • Rosenberg, Charles M. Rembrandt's Religious Prints: the Feddersen Collection at the Snite Museum of Art. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2017.
  • Lehmbeck, Leah, editor. Gifts of European Art from The Ahmanson Foundation. Vol. 3, Dutch Painting, Flemish Painting, Spanish Painting and Sculpture. Los Angeles: Los Angeles County Museum of Art, 2019.
  • Manuth, Volker, Marieke de Winkel, and Rudie van Leeuwen. Rembrandt: the Complete Paintings. Cologne: Taschen GmbH, 2019.
  • Chapman, H. Perry. "Rembrandt, Lievens, Dou. Imagining artistic friendship." Netherlands Yearbook for History of Art 70 (2020): 240-257.

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