Self-portrait with Tousled Hair

Watermark: Crown (fragment), close to Churchill, no. 274 (1622); Heawood, no. 546 (1607)

Light foxing throughout¹¹Typical of most drawings formerly in the collection of Hofstede de Groot, which at some point during his ownership were stored in unfavourably damp conditions.

...; ? collection Sir Joshua Reynolds (1723-92), London;²²According to the catalogue for the sale, William Esdaile (1758-1837, London), London (Christie’s), 17 June 1840, possibly no. 58. ? his sale, London (A.C. de Poggi), 26 May 1794, possibly one of the drawings by Rembrandt in Album QQ, nos. 960-85, or Album RR, nos. 987-1009 (drawings not specified); or his sale, London (H. Phillips), 5 March 1798 sqq. (drawings not specified); ...; collection Sir Thomas Lawrence (1769-1830), London (L. 2445); from whom, en bloc, £16,000, to the dealer Samuel Woodburn (1786-1853), London, 1835;³³According to L. 2445; note RMA. ? from whom, with 99 other drawings by Rembrandt, £1,500, to William Esdaile (1758-1837), London, 1835;⁴⁴According to L. 2445; note RMA. ? his sale, London (Christie’s), 17 June 1840, no. 58 (‘Rembrandt’s portrait, a slight sketch; from Sir Joshua Reynolds’s collection’), £0.13.0, to the dealer Samuel Woodburn, London;⁵⁵Copy RKD. ...; collection Rudolph Hirsch Kann (1845-1905), Paris;⁶⁶Note RMA. ...; purchased from Edith Louise Ida Mendelssohn Bartholdy (1882-1969), Leipzig, by Dr Cornelis Hofstede de Groot (1863-1930), The Hague (L. 561), 1924;⁷⁷Hofstede de Groot notes, KB. his sale, Leipzig (C.G. Boerner), 4 November 1931, no. 160 (‘Jugendliches Selbstbildnis mit krausem Haar und kleinem Schnurrbart. Brustbild, leicht nach links, den Beschauer anblickend. 127:95. Feder in Braun und Pinsel in Schwarz. Aufgezogen.’), 7,000 DM, to the dealer Van Diemen & Co., Berlin;⁸⁸Copy RKD. ...; collection Isaac de Bruijn (1872-1953) and his wife, Johanna Geertruida de Bruijn-van der Leeuw (1877-1960), Spiez and Muri, near Bern, by 1932;⁹⁹According to Amsterdam 1932, no. 223. by whom donated to the museum, 1949, but kept in usufruct; transferred to the museum (L. 2228), 1960

ObjectNumber: RP-T-1961-75

Credit line: De Bruijn-van der Leeuw Bequest, Muri, Switzerland

Artists made self-portraits for various reasons, but few artists chose their own face as a model as often as Rembrandt. His pupil Samuel van Hoogstraten, in his treatise on painting entitled Inleyding tot de hooge schoole der schilderkonst (1678), recommended the following: ‘You can derive the same benefit from studying your own emotions, namely in front of a mirror, where you are at once both the performer and the viewer.’¹⁰¹⁰S. van Hoogstraten, Inleyding tot de hooge schoole der schilderkonst, Rotterdam 1678, p. 110: ‘Dezelve baet zalmen ook in’t uitbeelden van diens hartstochten, die gy voorhebt, bevinden, voornaemlijk voor een Spiegel om tegelijk vertooner en aenschouwer te zijn.’ Self-portrait drawings generally served as studies for paintings and etchings, and indeed during his Leiden period (1625-31) Rembrandt made a series of etched self-portraits with extremely varied facial expressions. These were not only independent exercises in the representation of emotions; they could also be used as studies for figures in historical scenes. Some of his painted self-portraits had a similar function, while others were made as studies for later portraits or as models for his pupils.

Besides the Amsterdam drawing, there is another early, Leiden-period drawn self-portrait, now in the British Museum in London (inv. no. Gg,2.253).¹¹¹¹Benesch, no. 53; M. Royalton-Kisch, Catalogue of Drawings by Rembrandt and his School in the British Museum, coll. cat. (online 2010), no. 1. Some experts date these two drawings differently, but their similar style and technique (despite the presence of the beginnings of a beard and small moustache in the Amsterdam sheet) indicate that they were made at approximately the same time, circa 1628-29. In both cases, the head was first sketched with thin pen lines, then worked up with a brush and grey wash – an unusual combination of media that creates striking contrasts between light and shade and is typical of Rembrandt’s Leiden period. This combined technique also occurs in a few Leiden-period drawings previously attributed to Rembrandt, but now considered to be works by his friend Jan Lievens.¹²¹²RRP I (1982), under no. C 1. These include the Trumpeter on Horseback, also in the Rijksmuseum (inv. no. RP-T-1947-50),¹³¹³Benesch, no. 21a; B. Schnackenburg, Jan Lievens: Freund und Rivale des jungen Rembrandt, mit einem kritischen Katalog des Leidener Frühwerks, 1623-32, Petersberg 2016, no. 55 (as 1627-28). and the Foot Operation, in the Uffizi in Florence (inv. no. 1067 E).¹⁴¹⁴Benesch, no. 51; B. Schnackenburg, Jan Lievens: Freund und Rivale des jungen Rembrandt, mit einem kritischen Katalog des Leidener Frühwerks, 1623-32, Petersberg 2016, no. 67 (1628).

In both drawn self-portraits, Rembrandt represented himself wearing a cloak with frogging down the front, which would have had military associations for contemporary viewers. The left half of the face in the British Museum drawing is cast in deep shadow, as if seen by candlelight, and the artist portrayed himself with a half-open mouth, a motif that also appears in some of the early painted self-portraits, such as those in the Alte Pinakothek in Munich (inv. no. 11427), dated 1629,¹⁵¹⁵RRP I (1982), no. A 19; RRP VI (2015), no. 31 (1629). and the Indianapolis Museum of Art (inv. no. C10063).¹⁶¹⁶RRP I (1982), no. A 22, copy 1 (now regarded as the original version rather than that in Japan); RRP VI (2015), no. 19 (c. 1627-28). The raised eyebrows in the London drawing strengthen the intensity of his gaze, and the open mouth seems to depict the artist while speaking. The Amsterdam drawing, by contrast, is more straightforward in character and thus closer to a rare etched Self-portrait of 1629 (e.g. inv. no. RP-P-OB-723),¹⁷¹⁷B. 338; New Hollstein: Rembrandt, no. 14. for which it has long been considered a preparatory study. Despite the close resemblance, there are subtle differences that have led more recent writers to exclude such a direct preliminary function. The drawing shows how Rembrandt actually saw himself in the mirror, with a hint of a scowl in the eyebrows. For the etching, he added a ‘lovelock’ or cadenette, a fashionably long lock of hair behind his left shoulder, reflecting a hairstyle worn by the aristocratic dandies of the day. This was no doubt the public persona that the ambitious young artist wished to convey to others.

Peter Schatborn, 2017

W.R. Valentiner, Rembrandt: Die Meisters Handzeichnungen, 2 vols., Stuttgart and elsewhere 1925-34, II (1934), no. 658 (c. 1630); O. Benesch, The Drawings of Rembrandt (rev. edn. by E. Benesch), 6 vols., London 1973 (orig. edn. 1954-57), no. 54, fig. 62 (c. 1628-29); P. Schatborn, Catalogus van de Nederlandse tekeningen in het Rijksprentenkabinet, Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam, IV: Tekeningen van Rembrandt, zijn onbekende leerlingen en navolgers/Drawings by Rembrandt, his Anonymous Pupils and Followers, coll. cat. Amsterdam 1985, no. 1, with earlier literature; H.P. Chapman, Rembrandt’s Self-portraits: A Study in Seventeenth-century Identity, Princeton 1990, p. 24, fig. 24; H. Bevers, P. Schatborn and B. Welzel, Rembrandt, the Master and his Workshop: Drawings and Etchings, exh. cat. Berlin (Kupferstichkabinett) and elsewhere 1991-92, pp. 32-33, fig. 4a, and no. 1; M. Royalton-Kisch, Drawings by Rembrandt and his Circle in the British Museum, exh. cat. London 1992, p. 29, under no. 1, fig. 1a; E. Starcky, Rembrandt: Les Figures, Paris 1999, p. 24; C. White, Rembrandt as an Etcher: A Study of the Artist at Work, New Haven/London 1999 (orig. edn. 1969), p. 119, fig. 145; C. White and Q. Buvelot (eds.), Rembrandt by himself, exh. cat. London (National Gallery)/The Hague (Mauritshuis) 1999-2000, no. 12; A. Chong (ed.), Rembrandt Creates Rembrandt: Art and Ambition in Leiden, 1629-1631, exh. cat. Boston (Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum) 2000-01, p. 85, fig. 1a; E. Hinterding, G. Luijten and M. Royalton-Kisch, Rembrandt, the Printmaker, exh. cat. Amsterdam (Rijksmuseum)/London (British Museum) 2000-01, p. 88, fig. b; E. Hinterding et al., Rembrandt: Dipinti, incisioni e riflessi sul ‘600 e ‘700 italiano, exh. cat. Rome (Azienda Speciale Palaexpo/Scuderie del Quirinale) 2002-03, p. 68, under no. 4, fig. a; C.S. Ackley et al., Rembrandt’s Journey: Painter, Draftsman, Etcher, exh. cat. Boston (Museum of Fine Arts)/Chicago (Art Institute of Chicago) 2003-04, no. 12; R. van Straten, Rembrandts Leidse tijd, 1606-1632, Leiden 2005, p. 129, fig. 177; RRP IV (2005), pp. 48, 145, 148-50, fig. 95; M. Schapelhouman, Rembrandt and the Art of Drawing, Amsterdam 2006, pp. 44 and 46, fig. 42; G. Schwartz, De grote Rembrandt, Zwolle 2006, p. 73, fig. 119; S. Slive, Rembrandt Drawings, Los Angeles 2009, p. 2, fig. 1.2; M. Royalton-Kisch, Catalogue of Drawings by Rembrandt and his School in the British Museum, coll. cat. (online 2010), under no. 1; P. Sutton and W.W. Robinson, Drawings by Rembrandt, his Students and Circle from the Maida and George Abrams Collection, exh. cat. Greenwich (CT) (Bruce Museum) 2011, p. 15, fig. 1; G. Rubinstein, ‘Brief Encounter: The Early Drawings of Jan Lievens and their Relationship with those of Rembrandt’, Master Drawings 49 (2011), no. 3, p. 366 from pp. 352-70, fig. 32; M. Royalton-Kisch, The Drawings of Rembrandt: A Revision of Otto Benesch’s Catalogue Raisonné (online), no. 0054, with further literature

P. Schatborn, 2017, 'Rembrandt van Rijn, Self-portrait with Tousled Hair, Leiden, c. 1628 - c. 1629', in J. Turner (ed.), Drawings by Rembrandt and his School in the Rijksmuseum, online coll. cat. Amsterdam: hdl.handle.net/10934/RM0001.COLLECT.28117