Self-portrait with architectural elements in the background

In 1639 a great Raphael, the portrait of the courtier Baldassare Castiglione, came up for auction in Amsterdam. Rembrandt went, made a quick pen sketch of it, and clearly kept it in mind. That same year he cast himself in the same relaxed, self-possessed pose the Italian masters had used for noblemen, one arm resting, the body turned, the gaze steady and appraising. He was 33, newly successful and married to Saskia, and living in the grand house that would later help ruin him. Setting himself against a plain architectural background, he all but claims a place beside Raphael and Titian. This is one of a run of self-portraits from those confident years, and it now hangs in the Louvre in Paris.