Pasquale Iannetti Art Gallery - Rembrandt van Rijn

Rembrandt van Rijn

Self Portrait with Saskia, 1636
Inventory # 51831

Original etching printed in black ink on wove paper. Signed and dated in the plate upper left "Rembrandt f. 1636." A P.F. Basan impression of Usticke’s third state of six, Bartsch’s third and final state, showing the acid spot to the right of Rembrandt’s collar and a faded vertical scratch 1/8" from the left end of Rembrandt's hat.

Platemark: 4 1/8" x 3 11/16", Sheet size: 4 3/4" x 4 3/16"
Catalogue reference: Bartsch 19; Hind 144; Biörklund-Barnard 36-A; Usticke 19 iii/vi.

Rembrandt's vast production of self-portraits is unparalleled in the 17th century - in all the history of art, for that matter. About one-tenth of all the paintings he produced in the course of his career are self-portraits (the etched self-portraits are not as numerous or as chronologically continuous as the painted ones but still number well over twenty). Although it is useless to try to explain this unique phenomenon, it can surely be assumed with safety that the artist, whose profound interest in the human face is amply proved by the rest of his work, found a constant and reliable model in himself.

This etching is a true self-portrait, not the sort of egalitarian double portrait of a man and his wife that Rembrandt and his colleagues were often commissioned to paint. Here Saskia, the artist's wife of two years, is relegated to the background, where she is duly recorded along with such of the artist's fancy effects as his fancy hat, his expensive garments and his skilled hand. The restrained mood is achieved in part by the formality of the composition: the weave of the horizontals and verticals is enlivened only by the slants of the etching tool, sleeve and hat. In the same year, 1636, Rembrandt painted himself in jubilant spirits, with Saskia observing him (from her background position) with demure bemusement.