Aristotle with a Bust of Homer

When it was painted

In 1653 Rembrandt was forty-seven. He was a famous painter in Amsterdam, yet his money troubles were piling up. He had never finished paying for the big house he bought in 1639. His wife, Saskia, had died in 1642, and he now lived with his young son Titus and his companion, Hendrickje Stoffels.

Then an order came from Messina, in Sicily, from the nobleman and collector Don Antonio Ruffo. When Ruffo's possessions were listed in 1654, this canvas was described as a philosopher by Rembrandt, perhaps Aristotle or perhaps Albertus Magnus. Even its first owner, in other words, was not entirely sure who the man was.

Ruffo kept coming back. In 1661 he received an Alexander the Great from Rembrandt, and in 1663 a Homer. The Homer survives only in part, in the Mauritshuis in The Hague.

Meanwhile Rembrandt's own life came apart. In 1656 he went through bankruptcy proceedings, and his house and his collection of art and curiosities were sold off. He moved to a smaller home and kept painting in Amsterdam until his death in 1669.

The painting left the Ruffo family and passed through several collections. In November 1961 the Met bought it at auction in New York for 2.3 million dollars, at that time the highest price ever paid for a painting.

Look again at Aristotle's two hands. Painted in a year of mounting debt, one rests on the poet's head and the other holds the gold chain.