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

Self-Portrait

1640
Oil on canvas, 102 x 80 cm
National Gallery, London

Catalogue number: Bredius 34.

Substantial things came out of Rembrandt's experience with nature. The softer chiaroscuro of the 1640s was probably formed upon his open-air studies, and their atmospheric qualities soon appear throughout his work. Even the portraits begin to gain in spaciousness and transparency of tonality, and in so doing they show a deeper understanding of the sitter within his environment. The Self-Portrait leaning on a Stone Sill of 1640 shows the new mood of the period as well as the new stylistic tendency. The artist still represents himself in precious attire, as he did formerly. He wears a richly embroidered shirt and an old-fashioned, heavy fur-trimmed velvet coat.

More important, however, is the seriousness and reserve of the man who has abandoned all signs of sensational appeal to the spectator. The illumination serves to achieve a more objective rendering of his face. The arrangement of the figure is also changed. It is no longer close to the front plane, but recedes behind a stone sill. The figure has a firmer outline and can almost be inscribed into a pyramidlike shape having the sill as a base. Instead of stressing the sweeping curvilinear silhouettes of the 1630s, here Rembrandt repeatedly emphasized the horizontal: in the sill, the position of the arm leaning on it, the main accent of the face, and even the position of the cap. These repeated horizontals lend the picture stability, firmness, and calm.

This is the period when classical influence makes a pronounced appearance in Dutch painting, and in this particular portrait we know of definite links with Italian Renaissance art. There are reminiscences of Raphael's portrait of Baldassare Castiglione, now in the Louvre, which Rembrandt had seen at an auction in Amsterdam in 1639. He made a quick pen sketch of it (Vienna, Albertina) and noted the price the picture fetched, as well as the total amount of the sale. In the same year Rembrandt based an etched self portrait on that sketch, but the London Self-Portrait of 1640 comes closer to the essence of Raphael's style than either the immediate sketch made after the Castiglione portrait or the etching.

The buyer of Raphael's painting at the Amsterdam auction in 1639 was Alphonso López, who worked as an agent in Holland for the French crown. In 1641 López also owned Titian's so-called Ariosto (London, National Gallery) and Flora (Florence, Uffizi). There can be little doubt that Rembrandt had a chance to study both these pictures, as well as the Raphael. Titian's so-called Ariosto was as important as Raphael's Castiglione for his etched self portrait of 1639 and the London picture of 1640: the leaning posture on the sill and the prominence of the sleeve in both works are derived from it. As for López's Flora by Titian, distinct traces are in Rembrandt's lovely Portrait of Saskia with a Flower of 1641 (Dresden, Gemäldegalerie).