The Artist in his Studio

Catalogue number: Bredius 419.

The theme of the artist in his studio was a popular one in seventeenth-century Dutch art, and Rembrandt returned to it several times in his drawings and etchings. On each occasion he did something original with it. In this early example the image is very striking. In contrast to most Dutch artists who made of the theme a sumptuous, or at least cluttered, genre scene, Rembrandt depicts a bare room with the plaster cracked and peeling from its walls and with a large panel on the easel, its back evocatively turned towards the spectator. Several feet away from this, the tiny artist stands muffled in a long winter coat and wearing a hat, as if literally posing for his picture.