Self-Portrait

In 1629 Rembrandt was 23, still living in Leiden, the town where he was born, and still entirely unknown outside it. He had no fame, no grand commissions, and no cheaper model than himself. This is among the earliest of the more than 40 self-portraits he would make across his life, possibly the very first. He painted his own face half-lost in shadow, the head tilted and the lips just parted, as if caught mid-motion. Look at the hair on the lit side: he scratched into the wet paint with the butt of the brush to pull out single curling strands. He signed it with the monogram RHL, the initials he used in those Leiden years before he was simply Rembrandt.