This painting may be identified with the one listed by Hofstede de Groot as having belonged to Count Fraula, Brussels, and sold 21 July 1738, lot 123 for 105 florins (C. Hofstede de Groot, A Catalogue Raisonné, etc., I, London, 1908, p. 437, no. 279b, with the Fraula sale lot number erroneously listed as lot 122; G. Hoet, Catalogus of naamlyst van schilderyen, etc., The Hague, 1752, no. 122, where the size given 'hoog 5 duym breet 3 duym en half' corresponds with the measurements of the present picture), or is either a variant of, or identical to, a picture that has been identified as either a 'Portrait of Rembrandt?' (ibid., no. 310) or a possible self-portrait by Gerard Dou (W. Martin, Gerard Dou, des Meisters Gemälde, Stuttgart and Berlin, 1913, p. 21, illustrated on the left) which was formerly in the E. Warneck Collection, Paris, and exhibited at F. Muller and Co., Amsterdam, 1908, no. 33. Since Martin (ibid., p. 180) found it 'impossible to certify [the Warneck painting's] originality', it may have been only a copy of the present picture, perhaps in a different state. The Warneck picture is larger and rectangular in format, including the finial of the sitter's chair, the capital of the column and the back right, and more of the curtain hanging overhead and to the left. The present painting is on a panel which is bevelled on all sides and appears complete; thus the Warneck painting may only be a copy enlarging its design. The sitter's identification is supported by comparison with Dou's self-portraits in the Residenzgalerie, Salzburg (ibid., illustrated p. 18 left) and the Herzog Anton Ulrich-Museum, Brunswick, no. 303 (ibid., illustrated p. 18 right). The sitter's pose is derived from Rembrandt's Self-Portrait of 1640, in the National Gallery, London, no. 672, which also inspired many other Dutch painters' portraits. The studio props (the shield, globe and tall parasol) which appear at the back beside the easel recur in several other paintings of artist's studios by Dou. The painting on the easel appears to depict the Rest on the Flight into Egypt, a subject which was treated by several Leiden artists in the circle of Dou and of Rembrandt (see, for example, Stichting Foundation Rembrandt Research project, A Corpus of Rembrandt Paintings, I, 1625-1631, 1982, no. C6).

Mr. Willem van de Watering, who from a photograph concurs with the attribution, believes it is a self-portrait datable c. 1645, on the basis of the costume and the age of the sitter.