Rembrant: Een jongensdroom

Translating roughly as 'Rembrant: A childhood dream', this was the title of the exhibition I went to see on Sunday at the Frans Hals museum in Haarlem (a beautiful provincial city close to Amsterdam). The Frans Hals is famous for its collection of 17th century masters anyway, but the exhibition was special in that it put an entire private collection (the property of a Dutch couple called the Kremers) on display - something that doesn't happen too often.

There were some very impressive pieces among the collection but my favourite was a small, oddball, portrait that didn't fit in with the rest of the collection (being 16th rather than 17th century). Depicting an unknown young Spanish nobleman, it was thought to be the work of the Antwerp painter Adriaen Key when it was bought. Recently however, research on the painting has show it not to be the work of Key but of some other, unknown artist. A beautiful painting of an unknown man, by an unknown artist - I like that.