Rembrandt van Rijn´s painting Scholar in a Study from 1634 forms one of the highlights of the National Gallery´s Collection of Old Masters at Sternberg palace and the Golden Age of Dutch Art. Interestingly it represents the same model that Rembrandt used in other works from the same period, for example in his Oriental from the Rijksmuseum Amsterdam. It shows a man dressed in eastern clothing, crowned off by an elaborate turban. Figures of this kind are not incidental in Rembrandt's work. For the first time, the speaker Gary Schwartz, a well-known Rembrandt-specialist, will present the results of a complete survey of this intriguing subject. What was the background and connotation of Rembrandt's Orientals? What do they tell us about the attitude to the east of a Dutch Protestant artist who never left his home country?

The lecture offers an overture to next year's exhibition project Rembrandt and Friends. Celebrating Dutch Art in Prague, which will include the precious loanship of Rembrandt's Oriental from the Rijksmuseum Amsterdam.

It will be given in English, a simultaneous interpretation in Czech via headphones will be available. Gary Schwartz was born in Brooklyn, New York in 1940. He studied art history at New York University and Johns Hopkins University between 1956 and 1965. In 1965 he was granted a Kress Fellowship to the Netherlands, where he stayed. He has been active as a translator, editor and publisher; teacher, lecturer and writer; and as the founder of CODART, an international network organization for curators of Dutch and Flemish art. His publications on Rembrandt include Rembrandt: all the etchings in true size (1977), Rembrandt, his life, his paintings: a new biography (1984) and Rembrandt's universe: his art, his life, his works (2006).

Anja K. Ševčík