自画像

Rembrandt painted this in the worst year of his life. He had gone bankrupt in 1656, and through 1657 and 1658 his grand Amsterdam house and his whole collection of art and curiosities were sold off at forced auction to pay his creditors. You would never guess it from the picture. He sits facing us head on, larger than life, in a golden jerkin and a red sash, a cane held across his knees like a sceptre, filling the canvas as if enthroned. It is the largest of his roughly 80 self-portraits. The paint is thick and dragged with the knife in his late manner, the face lit while the rest sinks into shadow. He was 52 when he made it, and he would keep painting for another 11 years, until his death.