Self-Portrait

Dutch portraits of the 1630s were mostly polished affairs, a clean collar, a combed beard, a sitter on best behaviour. Huygh Voskuyl gave himself none of that. He frowns out of the panel with straggly hair, stubble on his cheeks and an untrimmed moustache, which is simply how he looked in the mirror while he worked.

Behind him is a plain wooden wall, its grain painted so finely it looks real, and on those boards he lettered his signature, the year 1638 and his age. Very few paintings by him survive, which makes this one rare. The Mauritshuis bought it in 1963 and owns it, and it now hangs in the museum's second venue, the Gallery Prince Willem V on the Buitenhof in The Hague.