tour 2 of 11
Rembrandt the printmaker
Rembrandt van Rijn, Self-portrait in a soft hat, an etching
In 1631 Rembrandt moved from Leiden to
Amsterdam in order to work for Hendrick van Uylenburgh, and
established himself as a portrait painter. Over the previous three
years he had made some experimental portrait
etchings,
but this self-portrait is more formal. Rembrandt was conscious of
the fame achieved by Rubens and van Dyck, his older colleagues in
the southern Netherlands. He has adopted the pose and hat of
Rubens'
Self-portrait, which was
engraved by Pontius, and wears highly fashionable clothes. However,
the manner of etching with irregular scratched marks is entirely
his own and far removed from the style of Pontius'
engraving.
The lace collar
and cloak are added by Rembrandt in black chalk, as are the
signature, the date and his age, given as 27. He then corrected the
age to 24, as he was in 1631. He did not adopt this form of
signature, using his full name, until 1633, so it is possible that
in 1631 he had printed from the copper plate before it was
finished, showing his head isolated on the page in the manner of
van Dyck's etched
Self-portrait of about
1630. Only in 1633-34 would he have then added the black chalk
sketch, perhaps as he was working on his painted
Self-portrait, now in
Glasgow, which is dated 1634 and resembles the composition of this
etching.
There are eleven
known
states
of the plate, which is among the most courtly images of himself,
made by Rembrandt at a time when he was in contact with the court
of the Prince of Orange in The Hague.