Self-Portrait in a Velvet Cap with Plume

Created two years after the Self-Portrait with Saskia (see lots 129-130), Rembrandt with this print continued a small series of self-portraits in which he presented himself very confidently dressed in extravagant 16th-century attire, such as his famous Self-Portrait leaning on a Stone Sill (see lot 132), 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 had by now achieved an astonishing mastery of the etching technique, in the modelling, shading, the alternation of stronger and more delicate lines, as well as the subtle rendering of light.