Self Portrait at the Age of 34

Rembrandt rests his arm on a ledge and turns his face towards us. The fur, velvet and broad cap give the portrait a rich surface, but they also place him in an earlier age. These clothes would already have looked old-fashioned in Amsterdam in 1640. At 34, the Dutch painter had a flourishing workshop and a reputation as a fashionable portraitist. He chose to show himself in the manner of a Renaissance gentleman, borrowing from portraits made more than a century before. The turning pose and prominent sleeve recall Titian’s Portrait of Gerolamo (?) Barbarigo, also in this collection. Raphael and Dürer offered other models for this presentation. Rembrandt’s self-portrait pays respect to those artists while suggesting that his own work belongs in their company. Look at the way the arm crosses the painted ledge. It helps bring the figure towards our space, while shadow softens parts of the clothing behind him. This is both an image of a particular face and a carefully constructed claim about the painter’s place in art.