Self-portrait

In July 1656 Rembrandt went to the Amsterdam insolvency court and asked to hand his property over to his creditors. A clerk walked through the house on the Breestraat listing everything in it, room by room, and over the next two years the contents and then the house itself were sold. Vienna dates this small panel to about 1657, right at the end of that. He sits in a brown coat and a red woollen shirt, with none of the gold chains, fur and studio costume he used to put on for his earlier self-portraits. Part of the reason it is so small is that the walnut panel was cut down at some point after he painted it. It is recorded in the imperial gallery in Vienna by 1783, which is as far back as it can be traced.