Autoportrait à l'âge de 34 ans

In 1639 Rembrandt went to an Amsterdam auction and saw a portrait by Raphael, the celebrated likeness of the courtier Castiglione, and he jotted a quick sketch of it. A famous Titian portrait was living in the city too, in a wealthy merchant's house. A year later Rembrandt painted himself in exactly their manner. The turn of the body, the arm resting along a ledge, the heavy folded sleeve caught in the light, all of it is lifted from those two Italian masters. That was a bold claim to make. Painters in Holland were treated as skilled tradesmen, not gentlemen, and here Rembrandt dresses himself in the pose and rich costume of a Renaissance nobleman and quietly sets himself alongside the greatest names in art. He was 34 and at the height of his success in Amsterdam. He looks straight out at you, entirely sure of the comparison he is inviting.