Selbstbildnis

Rembrandt painted this in 1669, the year he died, and it may be the last of three self-portraits he made in those final months. By then his life had gone badly wrong. He had been declared insolvent years before, sold his house and his collection, and outlived both his partner and his son. He looks straight out at us, older than his 63 years, the face heavy and lined, the hair gone grey beneath a plain cap. Yet the paint is anything but tired. He laid it on thick and loose, building the flesh in rough strokes so it seems modelled rather than drawn. It is one of roughly 40 painted self-portraits he made across his life, and among the last things he ever painted.