Before he was known for his brooding self-portraits and biblical dramas, the young Rembrandt van Rijn startled Leiden’s art world with The Operation (Allegory of Touch), a painting that forms part of his earliest surviving series on the five senses. Created around 1624, when Rembrandt was barely eighteen, this work is remarkable for being one of the first signed pieces by the artist, bearing the rare monogram “RHF” (Rembrandt Harmenszoon fecit). The painting’s rediscovery in the 20th century caused a stir among scholars, as it had long been presumed lost and its attribution was debated until technical analysis confirmed Rembrandt’s hand. At the heart of the scene, an elderly patient sits slumped in a chair, eyes closed, while a quack surgeon—his face half-hidden in shadow—prepares to perform a crude “stone removal” from the man’s head.

This operation, a popular subject in Dutch art, was believed to cure madness or folly, and here Rembrandt turns it into a sly allegory for the sense of touch. The young artist’s attention to detail is evident: the glint of the surgeon’s blade, the anxious faces of onlookers, and the intimate play of light on wrinkled skin. Unlike Jan Sanders van Hemessen’s more moralizing treatments of the same theme, Rembrandt’s version is less about ridicule and more about the physical immediacy of the act, drawing the viewer into the tactile world of the senses. The painting’s early history remains obscure; there is no record of its original patron, and it may have been intended for a local collector or as part of a series for a cabinet of curiosities.

After disappearing from view for centuries, The Operation resurfaced in a private French collection in the 20th century and was soon recognized as a key work from Rembrandt’s formative years. Today, it stands as a testament to his early fascination with human expression and the senses, offering a glimpse of the psychological insight that would define his later masterpieces. The painting is now held in a private collection, rarely exhibited, but its importance in tracing Rembrandt’s artistic evolution is widely acknowledged.