Fourteen Rembrandt paintings are held in collections in Southern California. This accumulation began with J. Paul Getty's purchase of the Portrait of Marten Looten in 1938, and is now the third-largest concentration of Rembrandt paintings in the United States. Portrait of Marten Looten is in the Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA).

The Rembrandt Club of Pomona College in Claremont, California was established in 1905 for the promotion and encouragement of the arts. It predates all of the major art museums of Southern California and remains active today.

In 1907, Arabella Huntington, whose Southern California home is now the Huntington Library, Art Collections, and Botanical Gardens, purchased Rembrandt's Aristotle Contemplating a Bust of Homer (1653) for her house in Paris. After her death, the painting was inherited by her son Archer M. Huntington. He sold it in 1928, the year that the Huntington Library, Art Gallery, and Botanical Gardens was established. Aristotle was eventually purchased by the Metropolitan Museum of Art of New York in 1962, for 2.3 million dollars. At the time this was the highest amount ever paid for a painting at a public or private sale.

In 1913, the Los Angeles County Museum of History, Science, and Art opened in Exposition Park. The inclusion of the three divisions had been determined in part by the Smithsonian's configuration, and there was very little art to display. In order to meet the deadline of the formal dedication ceremonies on November 6, 1913, the fine arts wing was not only hung with loans from Southern California collectors, but also with a number of works borrowed from East Coast owners. The opening of the museum was timed to coincide with the completion of the Owens Valley aqueduct—it was part of the celebratory festivities. The ready availability of water made the development of Southern California possible.

In the 20th century, collections of art that included paintings by old masters such as Rembrandt were highly sought after by many of America's business elite. Accounts in the Los Angeles Times trumpet the earliest arrivals of professed Rembrandt paintings in the Southland in 1928 and 1932.

An Elderly Jew in Fur Cap (1645) was purchased by Mr. and Mrs. Fred E. Keeler of Hollywood in 1928. President and major stockholder of the Lockheed Corporation, Keeler informed the press that he and his wife hoped to build a gallery to house their pictures adjoining their home, and open it to the public. During the fall and winter of 1934-35, the Los Angeles Sunday Times published a series entitled "Southern California's One Hundred Finest Privately Owned Paintings." The Keeler's "Rembrandt" was featured in the first edition of the series. When Mary Keeler died in 1939, she left their collection of art to the County Museum of History, Science, and Art, without restrictions.

Another purported Rembrandt, Portrait of a Woman with Oriental Headdress (1635), was acquired by Mr. and Mrs. Willitts J. Hole of Hancock Park in 1932. An early twentieth century Southern California real estate developer, Hole built a private art gallery adjoining his residence, in which the collection was arranged by nationality and lit by artificial light. In 1938, the Willitts J. Hole collection was donated by his daughter Agnes Hole Rindge to the University of California, Los Angeles. Soon after, on January 8, 1940, the Hole Rembrandt and many other paintings from the collection were installed in the UCLA Library.

Supported by scholars as genuine works by Rembrandt's hand at the time, both the Keeler and Hole pictures have since been reconsidered.