The RembrandtOpen Impression Project

Study and loans

Available for supervised study and for exhibition loan

NP-RMB-001 may be considered for museums, universities and non-profit institutions. There is no lender fee for scholarly projects. The borrower covers agreed preparation, insurance, packing and specialist transport, as is normal.

Before you write

Terms

Who may borrow
Museums, universities, and non-profit institutions with a works-on-paper capability, or with a partner who has one. A supervised study session in a print room needs much less than a loan does.
Lender fee
None for scholarly projects.
Borrower covers
Agreed preparation, conservation-grade housing, insurance or indemnity, packing and specialist transport, and a courier where one is required.
Minimum lead time
12 months, matching the stated minimum at the National Gallery of Art, the British Museum and the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Longer if a condition report and imaging have to be produced first, which at present they do.
Display limit
50 lux with ultraviolet below 75 µW/lm, per the Canadian Conservation Institute's benchmark for works on paper.
Exposure limit
50,000 lux hours a year for very light-sensitive material, followed by 3 years' rest. No more than 13 weeks in a single exhibition.
Environment
40–60% RH, 16–25 °C, with no more than ±10% RH in 24 hours.
Exposure to date
0 lux hours under this stewardship. The sheet has never been displayed since 2023, so its recent exposure budget is untouched. Exposure before 2023 is unknown.
Subject to
Condition at the time, conservation review, legal and export requirements, and schedule. Availability is not guaranteed by this page.

These figures are taken from published conservation guidance rather than invented here, so that you are reading numbers your own registrar already recognises. A lender who makes up its own standards is a lender you have to argue with.

The process

Public up to the point where it stops being public. Facility, security and insurance documentation is exchanged privately and is never held in the published record.
  1. 01Inquiry received and acknowledged
  2. 02Institution and purpose verified
  3. 03Curatorial relevance reviewed — is this sheet actually the right object for the argument?
  4. 04Dates and exposure history checked against the light ledger
  5. 05Facility, security and environmental review
  6. 06Conservator approval and a condition report
  7. 07Insurance or indemnity arranged
  8. 08Loan agreement
  9. 09Packing, courier and customs
  10. 10Installation, with courier attendance if required
  11. 11Return and incoming condition check
  12. 12The exhibition is added to the provenance record

Loan passport

The one-page summary a registrar will ask for. Published as far as it can honestly go, with the gaps named.
Object
Self-Portrait in a Velvet Cap with Plume, NP-RMB-001
Artist
Rembrandt Harmenszoon van Rijn, 1606–1669
Date of plate
1638
Medium
Etching, possibly with drypoint, on laid paper (recorded, not examined)
Dimensions
Approximately 137 × 104 mm as recorded; convention unstated; remeasurement outstanding
Catalogue references
Bartsch 20; New Hollstein 170 (recorded, not verified)
Condition summary
5 observations on record, none of them made by a conservator. Trimmed at the left margin; dampstaining and cockling at lower left extending partly into the image; unmounted.
Framing and mount
Unmounted. Conservation-grade housing is proposed and not yet made.
Exhibition history
None.
Light exposure history
0 lux hours recorded since 2023; unknown before.
Ownership
Private collection, Dubai, United Arab Emirates
Credit line
Private collection, Dubai
Rights
Metadata CC0 1.0. No images of the object exist.
Condition report
Not yet produced — see the note at the top of this page.
Reference image
Not yet produced.
Insurance valuation
Held privately and not published.
Conservator contact
To be appointed; will be named to a borrowing institution.

Storage location, security arrangements and insurance figures are not published and are not held in this database. See the privacy and security policy.

Request study access

For examining the sheet, or for a supervised session with students. Much lighter than a loan, and much faster.

Specific is better than broad. “I want to check the chain-line spacing against two impressions we hold” is an easier request to say yes to than “I would like to see it”.

Rough is fine at this stage.

Including whether digital surrogates would answer your question — often they will, and that is faster for both of us.

Nothing you send is published without a person reading it first. What we do with it is set out in the privacy policy.

Exhibition loan inquiry

Please allow at least 12 months. Do not send facility, security or insurance documentation through this form.

Working title, thesis, venues, dates, and where this sheet sits in the argument.

Please note the 12-month minimum lead time.

Do not send facility, security or insurance documentation through this form. That is exchanged privately once a conversation is under way.

Nothing you send is published without a person reading it first. What we do with it is set out in the privacy policy.

A word on relevance

This project would rather decline a loan than accept a weak one. Every time a light-sensitive sheet travels it spends part of a budget that does not refill, and it takes on transit risk. That is worth doing when the object is genuinely doing work in an argument, and not worth doing to have been in an exhibition.

So the first question in any conversation will be what this sheet, rather than a better impression in a public collection, contributes to what you are making. If the honest answer is “a public collection’s impression would serve you better”, we will say so and point you at the census, which lists more than twenty of them with the contact route on every row.