REMBRANDT Harmenszoon van Rijn
(b. 1606, Leiden, d. 1669, Amsterdam)

Self-Portrait

1668-69
Oil on canvas, 82,5 x 65 cm
Wallraf-Richartz-Museum, Cologne

Catalogue number: Bredius 61.

This work comes at the end of a long series of self-portraits, of which the painter never seemed to tire. Painting shortly before his death in 1669, Rembrandt depicts himself as a laughing grey old man at the easel. The uneven preservation and the dark colour - what the objects at the edges are can only be guessed at - make the interpretation very difficult. Most likely is the explanation that Rembrandt has portrayed himself in the role of the ancient painter Zeuxis, who died laughing while painting an ugly woman, a story that Rembrandt's pupil, Aert de Gelder certainly knew and contrasted with the better-known legend that Zeuxis had combined the best features of the five most beautiful girls he could find in order to produce a still more beautiful image of Helen of Troy.

The dim bust in the left side of the painting is probaly Herakleitos. According to the inventory of Rembrandt's property, he had a sculpture of Herakleitos.