REMBRANDT VAN RIJN Self Portrait in a Cap and Scarf with the Face Dark: Bust.
Etching, 1633. 123x103 mm; 4 7/8x4 1/8 inches. Biörklund's third state (of 3); Usticke's second state (of 5), before the Watelet and Basan rework; White and Boon's second state (of 2). The lower portion, with the three balls, of a Foolscap watermark (Ash/Fletcher 18-19; they note similar watermarks on impressions of this subject in the National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C., and the Library of Congress, Washington, D.C.). With thread margins 3 sides, trimmed inside the plate mark with 2 mm of blank space above the top of the cap upper edge. A superb, dark, richly-inked impression with little to no sign of wear, consistent with early impressions of this.
Rembrandt (1606-1669) etched some 30 self portraits, with 27 singular images of himself and several others of himself in different guises or grouped with other portrait studies (see also lots 113, 136, 140, 157 and 161). This self portrait, at the age of 27, created two years after he had moved to Amsterdam from Leyden to establish himself as a successful (and independent) artist, and months before he married Saskia van Uylenburgh, is among Rembrandt's most introspective self renderings. The dark shading covering much of his face (which rapidly disappears in later impressions), the deep-set eyes and his quiet, hunched pose give him an almost shy, reserved appearance, which is markedly different from the proud, bright, frontal poses of his self portraits from the mid- to late-1630s. Bartsch 17; Biörklund 33-G; Hollstein (White and Boon) 17.
