A scholar in his study

Karel van der Pluym was Rembrandt's great-nephew and, though no documentary evidence exists, probably studied with him in Amsterdam circa 1645-1648, perhaps living with his uncle Willem van der Pluym, of whom a portrait drawing by Rembrandt is known (private collection). By 1648, van der Pluym was again resident in Leiden, the year he became a member of the city's painters guild. He served as the guild's head man in 1652 and 1653 and was appointed its dean in 1654, resigning the following year. In his will of 1662, van der Pluym left Rembrandt's son, Titus, a large sum of money and was made his legal guardian in 1665, an indication of the warm relations that persisted between van der Pluym and his master and kinsman.
Works by van der Pluym are exceedingly rare, with Werner Sumowski having catalogued only seventeen surviving paintings by the artist (see W. Sumowski, Gemälde der Rembrandt-Schüler, IV, Landau, 1983, pp. 2363-2367, nos. 1588-1601). Sumowski was evidently unaware of the present painting at the time of his publication, though it had previously been published by Abraham Bredius (loc. cit.). Subsequent to the publication of his volumes on Rembrandt's pupils, Sumowski wrote to the painting's owner endorsing the attribution to van der Pluym and dating it to the second half of the 1640s. An alternative date in the mid-1650s can also be considered, as the same elderly man appears in the artist's Scholar in his study dated 1655 (Museum de Lakenhal, Leiden).