National Gallery of Art :: The Collection :: Self-Portrait

Overview

Rembrandt van Rijn painted, drew, and etched so many self–portraits in his lifetime that changes in his appearance tempt us to gauge his mental state by comparing one image to another. Rembrandt painted this self–portrait in 1659, after he had suffered financial bankruptcy that forced him to sell his home and other possessions to satisfy his creditors. Early descriptions of the painting therefore mentioned an aura of melancholy surrounding the artist, yet the removal of dark, discolored varnish in 1992 proved that interpreting paintings on the basis of an artist’s chronological life story is dangerous: the cleaned portrait revealed a rich range of pinks and bright flesh tones, forcing a reassessment of Rembrandt’s "mood." Instead of sadness, the deep–set eyes that bore into those of the viewer seem to express inner strength and dignity.

The light that so effectively illuminates the head also accents Rembrandt’s left shoulder and, to a lesser extent, his broadly executed clasped hands. Rembrandt’s pose was inspired by Raphael’s famous Portrait of Baldessare Castiglione, 1514–1515 (Louvre, Paris) which had appeared in an auction in Amsterdam in 1639, at which time Rembrandt had made a sketch of it. Twenty years later Rembrandt followed Raphael’s prototype for the pose, costume, and expression to present himself as a learned painter.

Inscription

center left: Rembrandt f. 1659

Marks and Labels

null

Provenance

Purchased 1740 by George Brudenell, 4th earl of Cardigan [1712-1790, later George Montagu, duke of Montagu (new creation)], Montagu House, Whitehall, London;[1] by inheritance to his daughter and sole heiress, Elizabeth, duchess of Buccleuch [1743-1827, née Lady Elizabeth Montagu, wife of Henry Scott, 3rd duke of Buccleuch and 5th duke of Queensberry, 1746-1812], Montagu House; by descent through the dukes of Buccleuch and Queensberry to John Charles Montagu, 7th duke of Buccleuch and 9th duke of Queensberry [1864-1935], Montagu House; sold 1928 to (P. & D. Colnaghi & Co., New York), on joint account with (M. Knoedler & Co., New York);[2] sold January 1929 to Andrew W. Mellon, Pittsburgh and Washington, D.C.; deeded 28 December 1934 to The A.W. Mellon Educational and Charitable Trust, Pittsburgh; gift 1937 to NGA.

[1] According to an inventory of Montagu House, Whitehall, made c. 1770, this painting and Rembrandt's An Old Woman Reading (still at the Duke of Buccleuch and Queensberry's Drumlanrig Castle in Dumfriesshire, Scotland) were purchased together for 140 pounds; see the Knoedler prospectus for the painting in NGA curatorial files, and Francis Russell's entry on An Old Woman Reading in Gervase Jackson-Stops, ed., The Treasure Houses of Britain: Five Hundred Years of Private Patronage and Art Collecting, exh. cat., National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C., New Haven and London, 1985: 363-364, no. 292. A mezzotint after the self-portrait, dated 1767, was published by R. Earlom (1743-1822); see John Charrington, A Catalogue of the Mezzotints After, or Said to Be After, Rembrandt, Cambridge, Mass., 1923: no. 49. See also Burton B. Fredericksen, "Leonardo and Mantegna in the Buccleuch Collection," The Burlington Magazine 133 (February 1991): 116.

[2] Nicholas H.J. Hall, ed., Colnaghi in America: A Survey to Commemorate the First Decade of Colnaghi New York, New York, 1992: 24, fig. 24. According to the Getty Provenance Index® Database of Public Collections (J. Paul Getty Trust, Paintings Record 17095), there is no regular entry in Colnaghi’s stockbooks, but transactions for the painting are documented in Colnaghi's Private Ledger; the painting was Knoedler’s number A-409. The 1928 sale of the painting by the 7th duke is also confirmed by a letter of 28 November 1928, from Charles J. Holmes, then director of the National Gallery, London, to Otto Gutekunst of Colnaghi (in NGA curatorial files, received at the time of the 1937 gift). Gutekunst had shown Holmes the painting "in confidence" and Holmes wrote to ask if it could be lent briefly to the Gallery "before it crosses the Atlantic."

Exhibition History

1872
Exhibition of the Works of the Old Masters. Winter Exhibition, Royal Academy of Arts, London, 1872, no. 181.
1898
Rembrandt. Collection des oeuvres des maîtres réunies, à l'occasion de l'inauguration de S. M. la Reine Wilhelmine, Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam, 1898, no. 102.
1899
Exhibition of Works by Rembrandt. Winter Exhibition, Royal Academy of Arts, London, 1899, no. 6.
1930
A Loan Exhibition of Sixteen Masterpieces, Knoedler Galleries, New York, January 1930, no. 8.
1930
The Thirteenth Loan Exhibition of Old Masters: Paintings by Rembrandt, The Detroit Institute of Arts, May 1930, no. 62.
1935
Loan Exhibition of Paintings, Drawings and Etchings by Rembrandt and His Circle, The Art Institute of Chicago, 1935-1936, no. 6.
1935
Rembrandt Tentoonstelling, Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam, 1935, no. 26.
1939
Masterpieces of Art. European Paintings and Sculpture from 1300-1800, New York World's Fair, 1939, no. 307.
1969
Rembrandt in the National Gallery of Art [Commemorating the Tercentenary of the Artist's Death], National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C., 1969, no. 19, repro.
1989
Masterpieces of Western European Painting of the XVIth-XXth Centuries from the Museums of the European Countries and USA, State Hermitage Museum, Leningrad, 1989, no. 13, repro.
1992
Dutch Art and Scotland: A Reflection of Taste, National Gallery of Scotland, Edinburgh, 1992, no. 53, repro.
1996
Rembrandt: His Pupils and Followers, National Gallery of Ireland, Dublin, 1996, unnumbered brochure, repro.
1999
Rembrandt By Himself, The National Gallery, London; Royal Cabinet of Paintings Mauritshuis, The Hague, 1999-2000, no. 73, repro.
2002
Rembrandt: Dipinti, incisioni e riflessi sul '600 e '700 italiano, Scuderie del Quirinale, Rome, 2002-2003, no. 6D, repro. on title page.
2011
Rembrandt in America, North Carolina Museum of Art, Raleigh; Cleveland Museum of Art; Minneapolis Institute of Arts, 2011-2012, no. 34, pl. 9.

Bibliography

1829
Smith, John. A Catalogue Raisonné of the Works of the Most Eminent Dutch, Flemish and French Painters. 9 vols. London, 1829-1842: 7(1836): 88, no. 215.
1868
Vosmaer 1868, 493 (also 1877 ed.: 358, 560).
1883
Bode, Wilhelm von. Studien zur Geschichte der holländischen Malerei. Braunschweig, 1883: 542, 585, no. 197.
1885
Dutuit 1885, 43, 61, 70, no. 165.
1886
Wurzbach, Alfred von. Rembrandtgalerie. Stuttgart, 1886: no. 160.
1887
Champlin, John Denison, and Charles C. Perkins, eds. Cyclopedia of Painters and Paintings. 2 vols. New York and London, 1888: 4:24.
1893
Michel 1893, 2:235 (also 1894 English ed.).
1897
Bode, Wilhelm von, assisted by Cornelis Hofstede de Groot. The Complete Work of Rembrandt. Trans. Florence Simonds. 8 vols. Paris, 1897-1906: 6(1901):13-14, no. 431, repro.
1897
Moes, Ernst Wilhelm. Iconographia Batava. 2 vols. Amsterdam, 1897-1905: 315, no. 60.
1898
Michel, Émile. "L'Exposition Rembrandt à Amsterdam." Gazette des Beaux-Arts 20 (December 1898): 467-480.
1899
Bell, Malcolm. Rembrandt van Rijn and His Work. London, 1899 (2nd. edition, 1907): 83-84, 145 (also 1907 ed.: 79-80, 126).
1899
Hofstede de Groot, Cornelis. Rembrandt. 26 Photogravures naar de beste schilderijen der tentoonstellingen te London en Amsterdam. Amsterdam, 1899: no. 33, repro.
1902
Neumann, Carl. Rembrandt. Munich, 1902: 488 (also 1922 ed., 2:540, 542).
1906
Rosenberg 1906, 404, no. 343, repro. (also 1908 and 1909 eds.: 562, no. 403, repro.).
1906
Veth, Jan. Rembrandt's Leven en Kunst. Amsterdam, 1906: 161-162.
1907
Hofstede de Groot, Cornelis. A Catalogue Raisonné of the Works of the Most Eminent Dutch Painters of the Seventeenth Century.... 8 vols., translated from the German edition. London, 1907-1917: 6(1916):273-274, no. 554.
1909
Knackfuss, Hermann. Rembrandt. Bielefeld and Leipzig, 1909: 158-159, pl. 164.
1914
Graves, Algernon. A Century of Loan Exhibitions, 1813-1912. 5 vols. London, 1913-1915: 3(1914):1010.
1921
Valentiner, Wilhelm R. Rembrandt: wiedergefundene Gemälde (1910-1920). Klassiker der Kunst in Gesamtausgaben. 27. Stuttgart and Berlin, 1921: 403, repro. (also 2nd ed., Berlin and Leipzig, 1923).
1923
Meldrum 1923, 137, 199, pl. 339.
1929
Rutter, Frank. "Notes from Abroad." International Studio 92 (1929): 64-67, repro.
1931
Valentiner 1931, no. 141, repro.
1932
Rijckevorsel, J.L.A.A.M. van. Rembrandt en de Traditie. Rotterdam, 1932: 150.
1935
Bredius, Abraham. Rembrandt, Schilderijen. Vienna, 1935. English ed., Oxford, 1942: 4, 51, repro. (also 1936 English ed.).
1937
Jewell, Edward Alden. "Mellon's Gift." Magazine of Art 30, no. 2 (February 1937): 82.
1941
Borenius, Tancred. Rembrandt Selected Paintings. London and New York, 1941: 35, no. 81, repro.
1941
Preliminary Catalogue of Paintings and Sculpture. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1941: 164.
1942
Book of Illustrations. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1942: 240, repro. 29.
1943
Benesch, Otto. "The Rembrandt Paintings in the National Gallery of Art." The Art Quarterly 6 (Winter 1943): 20-33.
1944
Cairns, Huntington, and John Walker, eds., Masterpieces of Painting from the National Gallery of Art. New York, 1944: 98, color repro.
1946
Favorite Paintings from the National Gallery of Art Washington, D.C.. New York, 1946: 47-49, color repro.
1948
Rosenberg 1948, 30-31, color frontispiece (also 1964 rev. ed.: 47, frontispiece).
1949
Paintings and Sculpture from the Mellon Collection. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1949 (reprinted 1953 and 1958): 87, repro.
1956
Walker, John. National Gallery of Art, Washington. New York, 1956: 42, repro.
1957
Shapley, Fern Rusk. Comparisons in Art: A Companion to the National Gallery of Art, Washington, DC. London, 1957 (reprinted 1959): pl. 78
1960
Baird, Thomas P. Dutch Painting in the National Gallery of Art. Washington, D.C., 1960 (Booklet Number Seven in Ten Schools of Painting in the National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.): 8, 14, color repro.
1960
Roger-Marx, Claude. Rembrandt. Paris and New York, 1960: 13, repro., 64, 96.
1963
Walker, John. National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.. New York, 1963 (reprinted 1964 in French, German, and Spanish): 184, repro.
1965
Summary Catalogue of European Paintings and Sculpture. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1965: 109.
1966
Bauch, Kurt. Rembrandt Gemälde. Berlin, 1966: 17, no. 330, repro.
1966
Cairns, Huntington, and John Walker, eds., A Pageant of Painting from the National Gallery of Art. 2 vols. New York, 1966: 1:232, color repro.
1966
Rosenberg, Jakob, Seymour Slive, and E. H. ter Kuile. Dutch Art and Architecture: 1600-1800. Baltimore, 1966: 71-72, pl. 50 (rev. ed., London, 1984).
1967
Erpel, Fritz. Die Selbstbildnisse Rembrandts. Berlin, 1967: 46, 184, pl. 56.
1968
Gerson 1968, 443, no. 736, repro., 503.
1968
European Paintings and Sculpture, Illustrations. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1968: 97, repro.
1972
Roberts, Keith. "Current and Forthcoming Exhibitions: London." The Burlington Magazine 114 (May 1972): 353-354.
1975
European Paintings: An Illustrated Summary Catalogue. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1975: 284, repro.
1975
Wright, Christopher. Rembrandt and His Art. London, New York, Sydney, and Toronto, 1975: 98-99, pl. 81.
1977
Bolten, J., and H. Bolten-Rempt. The Hidden Rembrandt. Trans. Danielle Adkinson. Milan and Chicago, 1977: 199, no. 486, repro.
1978
Clark, Kenneth. An Introduction to Rembrandt. London, 1978: 30, 31, repro.
1979
Watson, Ross. National Gallery of Art. London, 1979: 69, pl. 54, color repro.
1982
Wright, Christopher. Rembrandt: Self-Portraits. New York, 1982: 32, repro., color pl. 88.
1984
Schwartz 1984/1985, 352, color repro. 417.
1984
Walker, John. National Gallery of Art, Washington. Rev. ed. New York, 1984: 270, no. 351, color repro.
1985
European Paintings: An Illustrated Catalogue. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1985: 328, repro.
1986
Guillaud, Jacqueline, and Maurice Gaullaud. Rembrandt: das Bild des Menschen. Paris, 1986: no. 739, color repro. (English ed., The Human Form and Spirit, trans. Elizabeth Willems-Treeman, New York, 1986).
1986
Sutton, Peter C. A Guide to Dutch Art in America. Grand Rapids and Kampen, 1986: 314, repro.
1986
Tümpel 1986, 368-369, color repro., 427, no. A72.
1991
Kopper, Philip. America's National Gallery of Art: A Gift to the Nation. New York, 1991: 21, color repro.
1992
Williams, Julia Lloyd. Dutch Art and Scotland: A Reflection of Taste. Edinburgh, 1992: no. 53, color repro.
1995
Stokstad, Marilyn. Art History, New York, 1995: 792, no. 19-50, repro.
1995
Wheelock, Jr., Arthur K. Dutch Paintings of the Seventeenth Century. The Collections of the National Gallery of Art Systematic Catalogue. Washington, D.C., 1995: 261-265, color repro. 263.
1996
Tansey, Richard G. and Fred S. Kleiner. Gardner's Art Through the Ages. Tenth Edition. Fort Worth, 1996: 859, color fig. 24.50.
1997
Dworetzky, John P., Psychology, 1997, no. 452-453, repro.
1997
Rembrandt, Rubens, and the Art of their Time: Recent Perspectives, Pennsylvania, 1997, no. 1-5, repro.
1998
Fiero, Gloria K. The Humanistic Tradition: Faith, Reason and Power in the Early Modern World. New York, 1998: no. 22.13, repro.
2004
Hand, John Oliver. National Gallery of Art: Master Paintings from the Collection. Washington and New York, 2004: 198-199, no. 156, color repro.

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