Self Portrait drawing at a Window (B., Holl. 22; H. 229)

Details

Rembrandt Harmensz. van Rijn
Self Portrait drawing at a Window (B., Holl. 22; H. 229)
etching, engraving and drypoint, 1648, fourth state (of five), on light tan coloured paper apparently without watermark, a fine, richly-inked and atmospheric impression, with traces of burr to the sheaf of paper and the hand holding the etching needle, with 3-4 mm. margins, a stray spot of ink in the left margin, a rust-spot in the right margin, remains of old glue on the reverse at the top sheet edge, an old ink inscription 'cxii' also on the reverse with a very pale indecipherable inscription in red chalk, otherwise in remarkably fine, unpressed condition
P. 158 x 128 mm., S. 165 x 135 mm.

Provenance

Probably Nathaniel Smith, pricing letters cxII, similar to those shown in Lugt 2296-7
A very pale red-chalk inscription on the reverse

Special notice

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Lot Essay

It was nine years before Rembrandt followed his grandiose, Titianesque Self Portrait leaning on a Stone Sill (B. 21) of 1639 and looked again to himself as the subject for portraiture in the Self Portrait drawing at a Window. In the intervening years personal tragedy had marked the artist's life giving this self portrait of 1648 a new feeling of introspection that was to be the hallmark of his series of later painted self portraits. As Christopher White observes 'Earlier (Rembrandt) had depicted himself from the outside in a self-consciously constructed image, but now he studies himself from within.' Rembrandt as an Etcher, Yale University Press, New York, 1999, p.151.

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