The picture is dated 1655, at which time the boy west was fourteen. He has a winning, rather delicate wall face with a “vague, dreamy expression.” He is dressed up for the portrait, as Rembrandt was so fond of doing. He has earrings, a wide-brimmed hat with a feather, and brownish-red doublet over a plaited shirt.
Titus was the fourth child of Saskia, Rembrandt’s wife, who, it is surmised, died at his birth, and the only one of her children who survived her. His short life is traceable in the work of his father, who used him as a model continually for portraits, as well as for subject pictures and many drawings and etchings. He often figures as the young Christ, as Joseph, as Tobias, as Daniel, and appears in many of the biblical pictures.
This admirable work also comes from the Rodolphe Kann Collection. It formerly belonged to E. Secretan, in Paris, and before that to the Comte Podstatzky, in Bohemia.