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Overview
During his lifetime, Rembrandt's extraordinary skills as a printmaker were the main source of his international fame. Unlike his oil paintings, prints travelled light and were relatively cheap. For this reason, they soon became very popular with collectors not only within, but also beyond the borders of the Netherlands. It also explains why, in later centuries, they were affordable for collectors such as Bishop Ditlev Monrad and Sir John Ilott, who both donated Rembrandt prints to the forerunners of Te Papa.
This is the first portrait print that Rembrandt made of himself after the ambitious Self-portrait leaning on a stone sill of 1639 (also in Te Papa's collection, 1869-0001-396) and there is a world of difference between the two. In the earlier work, following the example of Titian and Raphael, Rembrandt had opted for the pose of the proud courtier who, clad in an elegant beret and an opulent 16th-century costume, gazes out self-confidently at the viewer. In this portrait made in 1648. he has depicted himself without pretence, working by an open window. He wears a hat with a narrow brim and a shirt under an ordinary coat, probably his working clothes. Similar garb can be seen in the self-portrait drawing of around 1650, to which an inscription was later added: "drawn by Rembrant van Rhijn after himself as he was attired in his studio".
In the print, Rembrandt appears to fix us with a penetrating gaze, but in fact we are seeing him intently studying his own reflection in a mirror in order to capture it on the copper plate: he sits at a table, etching. He holds the etching needle in his right hand, and the copper plate, unseen by the viewer, lies on a folded cloth in front of him supported on two thick books. The hand in which he holds the etching needle likewise confirms that he was working at a mirror. In the latter he would have seen himself reflected as left-handed, and drew himself thus; as a result of the reversal that takes place during the printing process, he appears right-handed again in impressions from the plate. (He was definitely right-handed.)
Rembrandt depicts himself without any adornment, and yet the print is an impressive example of his skill. The image appears to be built up not so much of lines as of a range of shades of grey. He had tried the same complicated technique a year earlier in the portraits of Ephram Bueno and Jan Six, but in contrast to those prints, in the self-portrait it is possible to reconstruct the way he set to work by looking at the print in its various states.
In the fourth state of the etching, the last that he did in his lifetime, Rembrandt added a landscape view outside the window. This impression dates from the 18th century and has been conclusively identified by Anna Rigg (Te Papa summer research scholar, 2016), as from the seventh state. Two dots, the identifying mark of an unknown publisher, were added in the fifth state (c. 1700). Our print is definitely before 1797 - c. 1809, when Rembrandt's plate belonged to the workshop of Parisian publisher and dealer Henry Louis Basan, which issued the reworked ninth state.
This print formed part of the foundation of Te Papa's art collection, and was presented to the Colonial Museum by Bishop Ditlev Monrad in 1869. Our museum owns another impression from the same state, which was donated to the National Art Gallery by Sir John Ilott (1952-0003-43). The latter is unretouched and is definitely superior to this impression, which was printed from a worn plate and was heavily retouched with ink and wash.
References:
New Hollstein Dutch 240, 7th of 9 states
Hollstein Dutch 22, undescribed state
See:
Dr Mark Stocker Curator, Historical International Art July 2017