Self-Portrait

Catalogue number: Bartsch 21.

This is a self-portrait leaning on a stone sill. In this self-portrait, Rembrandt takes on a guise that his contemporaries would have associated with a poet. Rembrandt emulates a pose bestowed by Titian on a sitter thought at the time to be the Ferrara court poet Ludovico Ariosto

Freely adapting the composition of portraits by Raphael and Titian that he knew well, Rembrandt presents himself as an imposing creator in a sumptuous cape and beret. As always, he uses the fine line of the etching tool in a variety of ways, yet with exceptional economy, leaving two-thirds of the sheet blank and pursuing the effect of bright daylight. The meaning of light here is almost literal: devoid of any mysticism, it produces a vivid impression of a flourishing life and career.