© 2024 The Leiden CollectionSelf-Portrait
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Self-Portrait
Jan Lievens(Leiden 1607 – 1674 Amsterdam)ca. 1629–30
oil on panel
42 x 37 cm
signed with initials in dark paint, upper rightcorner: “IL”
JL-105

How to cite
DeWitt Lloyd, and Arthur K. Wheelock Jr.. “Self-Portrait” (2017). In The Leiden Collection Catalogue, 3rd ed. Edited by
Arthur K. Wheelock Jr. and Lara Yeager-Crasselt. New York, 2020–23. https://www.theleidencollection.com/archive/(archived December 2023).
A PDF of every version of this entry is available in this Online Catalogue's Archive, and the Archive is managed by apermanent URL. New versions are added only when a substantive change to the narrative occurs.

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When Constantijn Huygens (1596–1687), secretary to the prince of Orange, traveled

Comparative Figuresfrom The Hague to Leiden in October 1628 to meet Jan Lievens and Rembrandt van
Rijn (1606–69), he discovered two young artists whose striking personalities andartistic predilections he perceptively characterized in the diary entry he wrote shortly
thereafter. As for Lievens, Huygens celebrated him as a prodigy and admired his“vigorous, untamable spirit” and “acute and profound insight into all manner ofthings,” even as he lamented the young artist’s stubbornness and excess of selfconfidence. He admired Lievens’s work ethic and his choice of “audacious themes
and forms.” If Huygens felt that Rembrandt was superior to Lievens in his“inventiveness, his sure touch and liveliness of emotions,” he also felt that Lievens
was the better of the two in painting the human countenance, where “he wreaks
miracles.”[1]In this striking Self-Portrait, which Lievens probably began shortly after Huygens’s
visit, one can understand entirely the power of the young artist’s forceful personality.

Fig 1. Jan Lievens, Portrait ofRembrandt van Rijn, ca. 1628, oil on
panel, 57 x 44.7 cm, Rijksmuseum,
Amsterdam, on loan from a private
collector, SK-C-1598

Unlike Rembrandt, who in his early self-portraits of around 1629–30 often stared
directly at the viewer but with part of his face obscured in shadow, Lievens sought nosuch effect. His piercing eyes gaze to the right, suggesting an active and searchingmind. He further enlivened his image by painting his long, flowing brown hair withstrikingly free and spontaneous brushstrokes. The light that falls from the upper left
also illuminates his smooth skin, broad cheek bones and strong features, which hedefined with carefully controlled strokes. He defined the proper right eye socket witha rhythmic sequence of parallel brushstrokes that indicate both structure andreflective light. The delicacy of his touch is also evident in the way he has articulated
the fine hairs of his pencil-thin moustache.
The remarkable expressive qualities of this Self-Portrait raise many questions about
Lievens’s artistic aspirations at this early stage of his career. They demonstrate a levelof personal refinement and elegance entirely unexpected from the bold Caravaggist
paintings he was making in the late 1620s. They also differ from the careful
descriptive modeling of his tronies and other bust-length images from the sameFig 2. Lucas Vorsterman after Sir
Anthony van Dyck, Portrait of Jan
Lievens, ca. 1632, engraving on laid
paper, 24.4 x 15.6 cm, National
Gallery of Art, Washington D.C.,
1990.125.1.59

period, including his portrait of Rembrandt (fig 1). One cannot help but think that thecharacter of this painting, which has unmistakable affinities to Van Dyck’s fluid style,owes something to the Leiden artist’s desire to evolve his style in a manner that would
appeal to a courtly culture, whether in The Hague or London.[2] Constantijn Huygens,
who was the arbiter of taste at the Dutch court, greatly admired the paintings of PeterPaul Rubens and Anthony van Dyck. Indeed, Van Dyck came to The Hague to paintthe portraits of Prince Frederick Hendrick and his consort Amalia van Solmes shortly
after Lievens painted this Self Portrait.[3] While in The Hague he also painted a
portrait of Lievens, an indication of their mutual esteem. The portrait, now lost, is© 2024 The Leiden CollectionSelf-Portrait
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known today through an engraving that Lucas Vosterman (1595–1675) made for the
Iconographia (fig 2).[4]The Van Dyckian character of this Self-Portrait led earlier scholars to date this workaround 1632–34, when Lievens was in England; nevertheless, a date of 1629–30 isprobable for both stylistic and technical reasons.[5] Dendrochronological examinations
have revealed that Lievens used an oak panel made from the same tree that supplied
the panel for Rembrandt’s Samson and Delilah in Berlin, which dates ca. 1629–30.[6]This evidence indicates that Lievens and Rembrandt purchased their panels from thesame panel maker, and perhaps that they even purchased their panels jointly.
X-radiographs indicate that Lievens made transformative revisions to his appearance

Fig 3. X-radiographof Self-Portrait (JL-105)

during the course of the painting’s execution (fig 3). Lievens eliminated a hat,probably a painter’s beret, that he initially had placed tilted slightly forward on his
head, and in its place added freely rendered, flowing locks at the left, perhaps inemulation of English or Flemish courtly hair styles. These changes strengthened his
presentation into a dashing, almost aristocratic young man who peers out past theviewer, although he had already left behind his Leiden persona in anticipation of the
career he hoped would soon unfold at the court of King Charles I in London.

- Lloyd DeWitt and Arthur K. Wheelock Jr., 2017

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Endnotes
1. For Huygens’ text, see Arthur K. Wheelock Jr., ed., Jan Lievens: A Dutch Master Rediscovered (Exh. cat.
Washington D.C., National Gallery of Art; Milwaukee, Milwaukee Art Museum; Amsterdam, Museum
Het Rembrandthuis) (New Haven, 2008), 286–87.
2. By April 1629 Lievens had already considered going to London to paint at the court of Charles I. See
Arthur K. Wheelock Jr., Jan Lievens: A Dutch Master Rediscovered, ed. Arthur K. Wheelock Jr. (Exh.
cat. Washington D.C., National Gallery of Art; Milwaukee, Milwaukee Art Museum; Amsterdam,
Museum Het Rembrandthuis) (New Haven, 2008), 9.
3. For a discussion of Van Dyck’s presence in The Hague, see Arthur K. Wheelock Jr. et al., Anthony van
Dyck (Exh. cat. Washington D.C., National Gallery of Art) (Washington, D.C., 1990), 236–38, no. 59.
4. A unique impression of the very sketchy first state of the print in the Institut Néerlandais, Paris, depicts
Lievens without a moustache. It seems unlikely, as some have suggested, that the appearance of the
moustache in the second state indicates that Lievens grew his mustache only after Van Dyck had drawn
or painted his model. It is more probable that Vosterman merely overlooked the existence of this slight
growth on Van Dyck’s model. Vorsterman probably made his revisions after Van Dyck had seen the firststate.
5. See Rüdiger Klessmann, Jan Lievens: Ein Maler im Schatten Rembrandts (Exh. cat. Brunswick, Herzog
Anton Ulrich-Museum) (Brunswick, 1979), 100, no 32.
6. The dendrochronological examination of these works was undertaken by Dr. Peter Klein, Ordinariat fürHolzbiologie, Universität Hamburg. For the dating of Rembrandt’s painting, see Josua Bruyn et al., A
Corpus of Rembrandt Paintings, vol. 1: 1625–1631, Stichting Foundation Rembrandt Research Project(The Hague, 1986), 1: 249–57, cat., A24.

Provenance(Possibly sale, Sotheby’s, London, 22 July 1953, no. 116 [£1,400 to Welker]; [Alfred Brod Gallery,
London, 1957].
Private collection, England [Thomas Agnew and Sons, London, 2006; Johnny van Haeften, Ltd.,
London, 2006].
From whom acquired by the present owner in 2006.

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Exhibition History
London, Alfred Brod Gallery, “Winter Exhibition,” 6 December 1957–4 January 1958, no. 32.
Brunswick, Herzog Anton Ulrich-Museum, “Jan Lievens: Ein Maler im Schatten Rembrandts,” 6
September–11 November 1979, no. 32.
Washington, National Gallery of Art, “Jan Lievens: A Dutch Master Rediscovered,” 26 October
2008–11 January 2009; Milwaukee, Milwaukee Art Museum, 7 February–26 April 2009; Amsterdam,
Museum Het Rembrandthuis, 17 May–9 August 2009, no. 18 [lent by the present owner].
Washington, National Gallery of Art, on loan with the permanent collection, August 2009–August 2012[lent by the present owner].
New York, Metropolitan Museum of Art, on loan with the permanent collection, September 2012–April
2013 [lent by the present owner].
Washington, National Gallery of Art, on loan with the permanent collection, June 2013–June 2016 [lentby the present owner].
Paris, Museé du Louvre, “Masterpieces of The Leiden Collection: The Age of Rembrandt,” 22
February–22 May 2017 [lent by the present owner].
Beijing, National Museum of China, “Rembrandt and His Time: Masterpieces from The Leiden
Collection,” 17 June–3 September 2017 [lent by the present owner].
Shanghai, Long Museum, West Bund, “Rembrandt, Vermeer and Hals in the Dutch Golden Age:
Masterpieces from The Leiden Collection,” 23 September 2017–25 February 2018 [lent by the present
owner].
Moscow, The Pushkin State Museum of Fine Arts, “The Age of Rembrandt and Vermeer: Masterpiecesof The Leiden Collection,” 28 March 2018–22 July 2018 [lent by the present owner].
St. Petersburg, The State Hermitage Museum, “The Age of Rembrandt and Vermeer: Masterpieces of
The Leiden Collection,” 5 September 2018–13 January 2019 [lent by the present owner].
Abu Dhabi, Louvre Abu Dhabi, “Rembrandt, Vermeer and the Dutch Golden Age. Masterpieces fromThe Leiden Collection and the Musée du Louvre,” 14 February–18 May 2019 [lent by the present
owner].

References
Alfred Brod Gallery. Winter Exhibition. Sales cat. London, Alfred Brod Gallery. London, 1957, no. 32.
Schneider, Hans. Jan Lievens: Sein Leben und seine Werke. Haarlem, 1932. Reprinted with supplement
by Rudolf Otto Ekkart, Amsterdam, 1973, 352, no. S371, fig. 56.
Klessmann, Rüdiger. Jan Lievens: Ein Maler im Schatten Rembrandts. Exh. cat. Brunswick, Herzog
Anton Ulrich-Museum, Brunswick, 1979, 100–01, no. 32.
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Michalkowa, Janina. “Nie tylko w cieniu Rembrandta, O. Brunszickiej Wystawie jana Lievensa.”
Biuletyn Historii Sztuki 42 (1980): 206.
Sumowski, Werner. Gemälde der Rembrandt-Schüler. 6 vols. Landau and Pfalz, 1983–94. 3: 1804, 1912,
no. 1273.
Brown, Christopher. “Jan Lievens in Leiden and London.” Burlington Magazine 125 (November 1983):
668, 670, no. 15.
Van de Wetering, Ernst, et al. A Corpus of Rembrandt Paintings. Vol. 4: Self-Portraits. Stichting
Foundation Rembrandt Research Project. Dordrecht, 2005, 166 n. 196, 649.
Gudbrod, Helga. Lievens und Rembrandt: Studien zum Verhältnis ihrer Kunst. Frankfurt am Main, 1996,
186 n. 8, 316.
Van de Wetering, Ernst. “Rembrandt’s Beginnings: An Essay.” In The Mystery of the Young Rembrandt.
Edited by Ernst van de Wetering and Bernhard Schnackenburg, 44, 56 n.76. Exh. cat. Kassel, Staatliche
Museen Kassel, Gemäldegalerie Alte Meister, Schloss Wilhelmshöhe; Amsterdam, Museum Het
Rembrandthuis. Wolfratshausen, 2001.
DeWitt, Lloyd. “Evolution and Ambition in the Career of Jan Lievens (1607–1674).” PhD diss.
University of Maryland, College Park, 2006, 73–74, no. 31.
Wheelock, Arthur K., Jr. “Self-Portrait.” In Jan Lievens: A Dutch Master Rediscovered. Edited by Arthur
K. Wheelock Jr., 116–17, no. 18; 99, under nos. 9–10; 114, under no. 17. Exh. cat. Washington, D.C.,
National Gallery of Art; Milwaukee, Milwaukee Art Museum; Amsterdam, Museum Het
Rembrandthuis. New Haven, 2008.
Gifford, E. Melanie. “Lievens’ Technique: Wonders in Smeared Paint, Varnishes, and Oils.” In Jan
Lievens: A Dutch Master Rediscovered. Edited by Arthur K. Wheelock Jr., 44, 47, 52; 148, under no. 34.
Exh. cat. Washington, D.C., National Gallery of Art; Milwaukee, Milwaukee Art Museum; Amsterdam,
Museum Het Rembrandthuis. New Haven, 2008.
DeWitt, Lloyd. “‘I believe I have already mentioned Lievens’ character in passing…’: Personality as the
Key to the Career and Artistic Vision of Jan Lievens.” In Jan Lievens: A Dutch Master Rediscovered.
Edited by Arthur K. Wheelock Jr., 283; 146, under no. 33; 148, under no. 34. Exh. cat. Washington,
D.C., National Gallery of Art; Milwaukee, Milwaukee Art Museum; Amsterdam, Museum Het
Rembrandthuis. New Haven, 2008.
Van der Goes, Bernadette. “De herontdekking van Jan Lievens.” Collect: Kunst & Antiek Journal 14, no.
4 (April 2009): 34–35.
Chapman, H. Perry. “Reclaiming the inner Rembrandt: passion and the early self-portraits.” In The
Passions in the Arts of the Early Modern Netherlands (Nederlands Kunsthistorisch Jaarboek 60). Editedby Stephanie Dickey and Herman Roodenburg, 253–54, fig. 4. Zwolle, 2010.
Korevaar, Gerbrandt. “Jan Lievens ontsnapt aan Rembrandts schaduw.” Museum Tijdschrift 22, no. 4(June–July 2009): 23.
Coutré, Jacquelyn N. “Vanquishing the Shadow: Jan Lievens Comes to Light after 250 Years.” Dutch© 2024 The Leiden CollectionSelf-Portrait
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Crossing 33 (October 2009): 135–51, no. 2.
Schnackenburg, Bernhard. Jan Lievens: Friend and Rival of the Young Rembrandt. Petersberg, 2016,
123, 379, no. 186.
Surh, Dominique.

“Self-Portrait.” In Masterpieces of The Leiden Collection: The Age of

Rembrandt. Edited by Blaise Ducos and Dominique Surh, 44, no. 12. Exh. cat. Paris, Musée du Louvre.
Paris, 2017.
Journal of National Museum of China 169, no. 8 (2017): back cover.
Yeager-Crasselt, Lara. “Rembrandt and His Time: China and the Dutch Republic in the Golden Age.” In
Rembrandt and His Time: Masterpieces from The Leiden Collection. Edited by Lara Yeager-Crasselt, 8;
13, fig. 4. Translated by Li Ying. Exh. cat. Beijing, National Museum of China. Beijing, 2017. A
slightly revised version of this essay appears in Rembrandt, Vermeer and Hals in the Dutch Golden Age:
Masterpieces from The Leiden Collection. Exh. cat. Shanghai, Long Museum, West Bund. Shanghai,
2017, 30, fig.4.
Yeager-Crasselt, Lara. “Self-Portrait.” In Rembrandt and His Time: Masterpieces from The Leiden
Collection. Edited by Lara Yeager-Crasselt, 38–39; 174, no. 9. Translated by Li Ying. Exh. cat. Beijing,
National Museum of China. Beijing, 2017.
Long Museum, West Bund. Rembrandt, Vermeer and Hals in the Dutch Golden Age: Masterpieces fromThe Leiden Collection. Exh. cat. Shanghai, Long Museum, West Bund. Shanghai, 2017, 58.
Yeager-Crasselt, Lara. “The Leiden Collection and the Dutch Golden Age.” In The Age of Rembrandt
and Vermeer: Masterpieces of The Leiden Collection. Edited by Polina Lyubimova, 18, 21; 29, 31.
Translated by Daria Babich and Daria Kuzina. Exh. cat. Moscow, The Pushkin State Museum of Fine
Arts; St. Petersburg, The State Hermitage Museum. Moscow, 2018.
Yeager-Crasselt, Lara. “Self-Portrait.” In The Age of Rembrandt and Vermeer: Masterpieces of The
Leiden Collection. Edited by Polina Lyubimova, 110–11; 236, no. 22. Translated by Daria Babich andDaria Kuzina. Exh. cat. Moscow, The Pushkin State Museum of Fine Arts; St. Petersburg, The State
Hermitage Museum. Moscow, 2018.
Groschner, Gabriele. Zwei Junge Wilde der Malerie und die Überwindung der Bildfläche: Figurenporträts
von Rembrandt van Rijn und Jan Lievens aus der Sammlung Residenzgalerie Salzburg. Salzburg, 2018,26.
Yeager-Crasselt, Lara. “The Leiden Collection and the Dutch Golden Age.” In Rembrandt, Vermeer andthe Dutch Golden Age. Masterpieces from The Leiden Collection and the Musée du Louvre. Edited by
Blaise Ducos and Lara Yeager-Crasselt, 26, 28. Exh. cat. Abu Dhabi, Louvre Abu Dhabi. London, 2019.
[Exhibition catalogue also published in French and Arabic.]
Blanc, Jan. “Being Modern, Being Dutch: The Seventeenth-Century Invention of the Golden Age.” In
Rembrandt, Vermeer and the Dutch Golden Age. Masterpieces from The Leiden Collection and the Muséedu Louvre. Edited by Blaise Ducos and Lara Yeager-Crasselt, 42. Exh. cat. Abu Dhabi, Louvre Abu
Dhabi. London, 2019. [Exhibition catalogue also published in French and Arabic.]© 2024 The Leiden CollectionSelf-Portrait
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Savatier Sjöholm, Olivia. “Rembrandt’s Drawings: Pedagogy Lessons and Vehicles of Artistic
Dialogue.” In Rembrandt, Vermeer and the Dutch Golden Age. Masterpieces from The Leiden Collection
and the Musée du Louvre. Edited by Blaise Ducos and Lara Yeager-Crasselt, 46, 47, n. 12. Exh. cat. Abu
Dhabi, Louvre Abu Dhabi. London, 2019. [Exhibition catalogue also published in French and Arabic.]
Ducos, Blaise, and Lara Yeager-Crasselt, eds. Rembrandt, Vermeer and the Dutch Golden Age.
Masterpieces from The Leiden Collection and the Musée du Louvre. Exh. cat. Abu Dhabi, Louvre Abu
Dhabi. London, 2019, 53, 69–70, no. 11. [Exhibition catalogue also published in French and Arabic.]
Wheelock, Arthur K., Jr. “Making Faces: The Development of the Tronie in Seventeenth-Century
Leiden.” In Anonymous Portraits: Dutch Seventeenth-Century Tronies. Sales cat. Nicholas Hall. New
York, 2019, 10, fig. 1.
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International Research Project on a Rembrandt’s Portrait. Rome, 2020, 30, fig. 13.

Technical Summary
The support, a rectangular composite panel, is made up of two vertically grained oak planks from the BalticPolish region, of which board 2 originates from the same tree as boards 2 and 3 from Rembrandt’s Samson
Betrayed by Delilah in Berlin-Dahlem.[1] The vertical panel join is left of center and passes through the innercorner of the figure’s proper right eye. The panel has been thinned and has no bevels. All four edges may
have been trimmed before three wood additions were added: an L-shaped addition along the right side, ashort piece along the left side of the lower edge, and a piece along the left side. The enlarged panel has been
cradled.
A double ground, a lightly toned chalk-glue lower ground followed by a lead-based upper ground thatremains visible under the chin, has been applied to the central plank. In the X-radiograph, the ground applied
to the three wood additions appears less radio-opaque.
A brown monochrome sketch is visible as lines in the shadowed portions of the eyes and along the jawline.
Modifications were made to the left jawline and chin in a second black painted sketch.
The paint appears to have been applied in two stages along the face: in a blended handling along the
shadowed side and in a more vigorous handling along the lighter side. In the X-radiograph, the two stages canbe seen along the mouth. Subtle scratches and tiny crosshatches break up the highlight along the bridge of thenose and the proper right eye.
Minor compositional changes include the lengthening of the figure’s hair, which gave it a more courtly
appearance.
The painting is signed with initials in dark paint along the upper right corner but is undated.
The painting has not undergone conservation treatment since its acquisition in 2006 and remains in a goodstate of preservation.[2]© 2024 The Leiden CollectionPowered by TCPDF (www.tcpdf.org)

Self-Portrait
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Technical Summary Endnotes

1. The identification of the wood is based on Peter Klein’s May 1993 dendrochronology report. BerlinDahlem inventory number B 812-A, RRP Corpus I A 24.
2. Entry based on 2007 examination report by E. Melanie Gifford, Scientific Department, National Galleryof Art, Washington.

© 2024 The Leiden Collection