Self-Portrait in a Velvet Cap with Plume

Created two years after the Self-Portrait with Saskia (see previous lot), Rembrandt with this print continued a small series of self-portraits in which he presented himself very confidently dressed in extravagant 16th-century dress, thereby placing him in the tradition of the great painters of the previous century: Raphael, Titian, but also Albrecht Dürer. The plumed cap may be a reference to the soldiers' and halberdiers' costumes found in some of Dürer's prints.
Rembrandt's had by now achieve an astonishing mastery of the etching technique. In the present print, the modelling and shading of his face and hair with the most delicate lines is particularly remarkable and can only be fully appreciated in early impressions such as the present one.