10 things to know about The Standard Bearer and Rembrandt van Rijn

In 1631, Rembrandt started living and working at the studio of Hendrick Uylenburgh, an art dealer in Amsterdam. He painted mostly portraits here, and his pendant marriage portraits of Marten and Oopjen are the highlight of this period.

In 1634, Rembrandt married Uylenburgh’s cousin Saskia. Just a year later, they were living together on Nieuwe Doelenstraat in Amsterdam, where the artist now had his own studio.

It was around this time that Rembrandt apparently decided to stop painting portraits. He concentrated instead on dramatic scenes from myths and the Bible, as well as dynamic life-size figures such as The Standard Bearer. We now think of these works as belonging to his ‘Baroque period’.

At the age of 30, in 1636, he painted himself in the role of the standard bearer.

Rembrandt had his own, quite short, ‘Baroque period’ during the second half of the 1630 s. The standard bearer’s proud pose is characteristic of this style. This painting lets you experience Rembrandt’s ‘Baroque period’ in a Dutch museum.

Rembrandt didn’t come up with all his ideas completely by himself. He followed other people’s examples and was inspired by other paintings. We believe that in this case he was inspired by a 1614 print of an early 16th century soldier. The print was made by the Italian artist Filippo Napoletano.

The Standard Bearer is not the first painting in which Rembrandt portrays himself with military attributes. He also wore military-style costumes in his earliest self-portraits. In one he wore an armoured neck plate, and here you see him in a robe that’s trimmed with cord .

This etching is possibly a self-portrait. And take a look at his pose, his arm, and his 16th-century military costume. It does look rather like The Standard Bearer don’t you think? Might it have been an early study for the painting?

When Rembrandt next moved house it was to Nieuwe Doelenstraat in Amsterdam. He found himself living right next to Kloveniersdoelen, one of the city’s three militia headquarters. Perhaps the artist used The Standard Bearer to advertise his work, so the militia would commission a painting.

And they did indeed ask Rembrandt to make a painting for them. That painting would become The Night Watch. Just as in The Standard Bearer, the subjects in The Night Watch are dressed in 16th-century costume. And, like The Standard Bearer, this painting proves Rembrandt is the supreme master of light-and-shadow contrast, a technique known as chiaroscuro.