Self-Portrait by Rembrandt in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, December 2010

Self-portrait

Rembrandt (Rembrandt van Rijn) (Dutch, Leiden 1606–1669 Amsterdam)

Date: 1660

Medium: Oil on canvas

Dimensions: 31 5/8 x 26 1/2 in. (80.3 x 67.3 cm)

Classification: Paintings

Credit Line: Bequest of Benjamin Altman, 1913

Accession Number: 14.40.618

Gallery Label:

The dozen or more self-portraits that date from each decade of Rembrandt's career vary considerably in composition, expression and technique. In the late examples, the broad applications of paint convey a candid record of the artist's aging features.

Catalogue Entry:

This picture bears an autograph signature and date of 1660. In the summer of that year, the artist turned fifty-four years old. The painting is in good condition, especially in the face, which reveals remarkable quality and candor. Originally, the bust and hat must have imparted a stronger sense of volume, consistent with that still found in the head.

Rembrandt painted the hat over a smaller cap. The flat impression now made by the hat is not, however, the consequence of that repainting (which occurred at an early moment in the course of work) but of natural darkening in the area. Some indications of folds and other modeling in the hat are discernible in autoradiographs. In the coat or gown, the gray ground shows through in areas and there are signs of heavy overcleaning in the brown paint layer. Thus, what might be taken as a very sketchy handling of the bust is misleading. While the painter's work clothes were indeed broadly brushed, with many strokes of color suggesting local highlights, the bust as a whole would have appeared well-rounded, with a consistent fall of light from the upper left, lending substance to the loose folds descending from the shoulders. The fullness of the material suggests a long gown, worn over a doublet with a turned-up collar and a red waistcoat.

Of the approximately forty painted self-portraits by Rembrandt known today, the three-quarter-length standing self-portrait in Vienna, dating from eight years earlier, could be considered the first in which he presents himself in work clothes and, at the same time, with a forthright and confident expression that evokes no other role than that of an artist in his studio. Variations on this theme followed during the 1650s, with the most analogous to this work being the so-called Small Self-portrait of the mid- to late 1650s in the Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna, which is probably cut down; the self-portrait of 165[9?] in the National Gallery of Scotland, Edinburgh; the self-portrait dated 1659 in the National Gallery of Art, Washington; and, despite its more inclusive composition, the Self-portrait at the Easel, dated 1660, in the Musée du Louvre, Paris. [2011; adapted from Ref. Liedtke 2007]


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