173. ST. MATTHEW THE EVANGELIST. Sm. 136; Bode 270; Dut. 102; Wb. 276; B.-HdG. 521. He sits behind a table with a book open before him, and gazes thoughtfully into the distance.
He is turned three-quarters right, and wears a coloured cap. His left hand is at his untrimmed and tangled beard; his right hand, holding a pen, rests on the book. He wears a loose chestnut-brown robe. An angel with rich fair curls at the back to the left lays his right hand on the evangelist's right shoulder and speaks to him. Half-length, life size. Cf. 172 and 174–5. Signed in the right centre, "Rembrandt f. 1661"; canvas, 38 inches by 32 inches. Mentioned by Vosmaer, pp. 361, 562; by Bode, pp. 523, 594; by Dutuit, p. 35; by Michel, pp. 463, 562 [361–2, 434]. Etched by Claessens in the Musée Francais; by Oortman in the Musée Napoléon, in Filhol, viii. 509, and Landon, ii. 57.
In the Louvre, Paris, 1907 catalogue, No. 2538.[1]
Rembrandt was influenced in his arrangement with the angel acting as an assistant by an earlier work by Frans Hals:
