Autorretrato con dos círculos

Rembrandt painted this around 1665, near the end, in his late fifties and financially ruined, having gone bankrupt a few years earlier and buried the woman he loved. It is one of the largest self-portraits he ever made, and he faces you head on, palette and brushes in hand, dressed for work. Behind him, on the wall, are two large pale circles, and nobody is certain what they mean. One old idea ties them to a story about the painter Giotto, who supposedly proved his skill to a papal messenger by drawing a perfect circle freehand. Others read them as a map's hemispheres or a symbol of ideal art. Rembrandt left no explanation. What is not in doubt is the handling of the face, worked wet and thick and unsparing, an old master looking at himself without flattery.