© 2020 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, 2nd ed.
Edited by Arthur K. Wheelock Jr. New York, 2017–20. https://theleidencollection.com/artwork/self-portrait-3/(archived May 2020).
A PDF of every version of this entry is available in this Online Catalogue's Archive, and the Archive ismanaged by a permanent URL. New versions are added only when a substantive change to the narrative
occurs.

© 2020 The Leiden CollectionSelf-Portrait
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When Constantijn Huygens (1596–1687), secretary to the prince of Orange,

Comparative Figures

traveled from The Hague to Leiden in October 1628 to meet Jan Lievens andRembrandt van Rijn (1606–69), he discovered two young artists whose
striking personalities and artistic 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 of things,” even as helamented the young artist’s stubbornness and excess of self-confidence. He
admired Lievens’s work ethic and his choice of “audacious themes andforms.” 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’sFig 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, SKC-1598

forceful personality. Unlike Rembrandt, who in his early self-portraits ofaround 1629–30 often stared directly at the viewer but with part of his faceobscured in shadow, Lievens sought no such effect. His piercing eyes gazeto the right, suggesting an active and searching mind. He further enlivened
his image by painting his long, flowing brown hair with strikingly free andspontaneous brushstrokes. The light that falls from the upper left also
illuminates his smooth skin, broad cheek bones and strong features, which
he defined with carefully controlled strokes. He defined the proper right eye
socket with a rhythmic sequence of parallel brushstrokes that indicate both
structure and reflective light. The delicacy of his touch is also evident in theway he has articulated the fine hairs of his pencil-thin moustache.
The remarkable expressive qualities of this Self-Portrait raise manyquestions about Lievens’s artistic aspirations at this early stage of hiscareer. They demonstrate a level of personal refinement and eleganceFig 2. Lucas Vorsterman after Sir
Anthony van Dyck, Portrait of Jan
Lievens, ca. 1632, engraving onlaid paper, 24.4 x 15.6 cm,
National Gallery of Art,
Washington D.C., 1990.125.1.59

entirely unexpected from the bold Caravaggist paintings he was making in
the late 1620s. They also differ from the careful descriptive modeling of histronies and other bust-length images from the same period, including hisportrait of Rembrandt (fig 1). One cannot help but think that the character ofthis 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 mannerthat 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, greatlyadmired the paintings of Peter Paul Rubens and Anthony van Dyck. Indeed,© 2020 The Leiden CollectionSelf-Portrait
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Van Dyck came to The Hague to paint the portraits of Prince FrederickHendrick 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 known today
through an engraving that Lucas Vosterman (1595–1675) made for theIconographia (fig 2).[4]The Van Dyckian character of this Self-Portrait led earlier scholars to date
this work around 1632–34, when Lievens was in England; nevertheless, adate of 1629–30 is probable for both stylistic and technical reasons.[5]Dendrochronological examinations have revealed that Lievens used an oakpanel

madefrom

thesametreethat

supplied

thepanelfor

[6]

This

Rembrandt’s Samson and Delilah in Berlin, which dates ca. 1629–30.

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

evidence indicates that Lievens and Rembrandt purchased their panels fromthe same panel maker, and perhaps that they even purchased their panels
jointly.
X-radiographs indicate that Lievens made transformative revisions to hisappearance 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 in emulation of English or Flemish courtly hairstyles. These changes strengthened his presentation into a dashing, almost
aristocratic young man who peers out past the viewer, although he hadalready 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

© 2020 The Leiden CollectionSelf-Portrait
Page 5 of 10Endnotes

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 CharlesI. 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 ArtMuseum; 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. etal., 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, thatthe appearance of the moustache in the second state indicates that Lievens grew hismustache 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 first state.
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 für Holzbiologie, 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 BrodGallery, 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 HistoryLondon, 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,” 26October 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 thepresent 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 [lent by the present owner].
Paris, Museé du Louvre, “Masterpieces of The Leiden Collection: The Age of Rembrandt,” 22February–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 [lentby the present owner].
Moscow, The Pushkin State Museum of Fine Arts, “The Age of Rembrandt and Vermeer:Masterpieces of The Leiden Collection,” 28 March 2018–22 July 2018 [lent by the presentowner].
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 thepresent owner].
Abu Dhabi, Louvre Abu Dhabi, “Rembrandt, Vermeer and the Dutch Golden Age.
Masterpieces from The 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.
© 2020 The Leiden CollectionSelf-Portrait
Page 7 of 10Schneider, Hans. Jan Lievens: Sein Leben und seine Werke. Haarlem, 1932. Reprinted withsupplement 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.
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: SelfPortraits. Stichting Foundation Rembrandt Research Project. Dordrecht, 2005, 166 n. 196,649.
Gudbrod, Helga. Lievens und Rembrandt: Studien zum Verhältnis ihrer Kunst. Frankfurt amMain, 1996, 186 n. 8, 316.
Van de Wetering, Ernst. “Rembrandt’s Beginnings: An Essay.” In The Mystery of the YoungRembrandt. 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. Editedby 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: ADutch 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.”© 2020 The Leiden CollectionSelf-Portrait
Page 8 of 10

In The Passions in the Arts of the Early Modern Netherlands (Nederlands KunsthistorischJaarboek 60). Edited by 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 250Years.” Dutch 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 ofRembrandt. Edited by Blaise Ducos and Dominique Surh, 44, no. 12. Exh. cat. Paris, Muséedu 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 theGolden Age.” In Rembrandt and His Time: Masterpieces from The Leiden Collection. Editedby Lara Yeager-Crasselt, 8; 13, fig. 4. Translated by Li Ying. Exh. cat. Beijing, NationalMuseum of China. Beijing, 2017. A slightly revised version of this essay appears inRembrandt, 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 TheLeiden 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 from The 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 ofRembrandt 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: Masterpiecesof The Leiden Collection. Edited by Polina Lyubimova, 110–11; 236, no. 22. Translated byDaria Babich and Daria 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.
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Yeager-Crasselt, Lara. “The Leiden Collection and the Dutch Golden Age.” In Rembrandt,Vermeer and the Dutch Golden Age. Masterpieces from The Leiden Collection and theMusée du Louvre. Edited by Blaise Ducos and Lara Yeager-Crasselt, 26, 28. Exh. cat. AbuDhabi, Louvre Abu Dhabi. London, 2019. [Exhibition catalogue also published in French andArabic.]
Blanc, Jan. “Being Modern, Being Dutch: The Seventeenth-Century Invention of the GoldenAge.” In Rembrandt, Vermeer and the Dutch Golden Age. Masterpieces from The LeidenCollection and the Musée du Louvre. Edited by Blaise Ducos and Lara Yeager-Crasselt, 42.
Exh. cat. Abu Dhabi, Louvre Abu Dhabi. London, 2019. [Exhibition catalogue also publishedin French and Arabic.]
Savatier Sjöholm, Olivia. “Rembrandt’s Drawings: Pedagogy Lessons and Vehicles ofArtistic 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 YeagerCrasselt, 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 GoldenAge. Masterpieces from The Leiden Collection and the Musée du Louvre. Exh. cat. AbuDhabi, 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 SeventeenthCentury Leiden.” In Anonymous Portraits: Dutch Seventeenth-Century Tronies. Sales cat.
Nicholas Hall. New York, 2019, 10, fig. 1.

Technical Summary
The support, a rectangular composite panel, is made up of two vertically grained oak planks fromthe Baltic-Polish 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 ofcenter and passes through the inner corner 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, a short piece along the left side of thelower 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 groundthat remains visible under the chin, has been applied to the central plank. In the X-radiograph, theground 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.
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Self-Portrait
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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 can be seen along the mouth. Subtle scratches and tiny crosshatches break up thehighlight along the bridge of the nose and the proper right eye.
Minor compositional changes include the lengthening of the figure’s hair, which gave it a morecourtly 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 good state of preservation.[2]Technical Summary Endnotes

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

© 2020 The Leiden Collection