Self-Portrait with Shaded Eyes

1634

Rembrandt van Rijn
(Leiden 1606 – 1669 Amsterdam)oil on panel
71.1 x 56 cm
signed and dated in dark paint, lower rightquadrant: “Rembrandt. f. / 1634”
RR-110© 2017 The Leiden CollectionSelf-Portrait with Shaded Eyes
Page 2 of 10

How To Cite
DeWitt, David. "Self-Portrait with Shaded Eyes." In The Leiden Collection Catalogue. Edited by Arthur K.
Wheelock Jr. New York, 2017.
https://www.theleidencollection.com/archive/.
This page is available on the site's Archive. PDF of every version of this page is available on the Archive,
and the Archive is managed by a permanent URL. Archival copies will never be deleted. New versions areadded only when a substantive change to the narrative occurs.

© 2017 The Leiden CollectionSelf-Portrait with Shaded Eyes
Page 3 of 10

This image of the young Rembrandt van Rijn, proud in bearing as heComparative Figures

gazes directly out at the viewer from within an oval framing device, is noteasily forgotten. With eyes gently shaded by his beret’s soft brim,
Rembrandt’s gaze is compelling in its directness, yet one senses a
restless mind that is only partially revealed. One cannot help but stareback, and thus become engaged in silent communication with the artist. It
is a strange phenomenon, but suddenly, without recognizing the momentin which it occurs, the physical reality of the painted image blurs, and thepsychological rapport between the viewer and Rembrandt begins.
Rembrandt’s expression reinforces the impression that he was not only aself-assured young man, uncompromising in his approach to the world, butalso an enigmatic individual whose true personality he kept largely tohimself. The painting seems so characteristic of Rembrandt’s work fromFig 1. Rembrandt van Rijn, SelfPortrait, 1634, oil on panel, 63.5 ×
46.3 cm, Glasgow Museums, The
Burrell Collection, inv. 35.600

the early 1630s that it is easy to overlook how striking its psychologicalambiguity must have appeared to his contemporaries. Twenty-first-century
viewers have come to judge Rembrandt’s character and artistic
personality through the sum total of his life and work. Numerous paintings,
drawings and etchings, as well as documents, stories and myths, have left
an indelible impression of his extraordinary artistic achievements through along, memorable career. Therefore, it is difficult to place oneself in
Amsterdam in 1634, imagining how such an image would have been
received by contemporaries familiar with a far more descriptive portrait
tradition.
Rembrandt began exploring the expressive character of self-portraits in
Leiden in the late 1620s, and he continued to depict himself in paintings,

Fig 2. Photograph of Self-Portrait
with Shaded Eyes, RR-110, ca.
1935, with additions (photographcourtesy of Martin Bijl)

drawings and etchings throughout his career. Indeed, self-portraiture
constitutes around one-tenth of his total surviving oeuvre.[1] Heincorporated a wide range of pictorial effects and devices in these works,
far more so than he did in his commissioned portraits. The endless variety
and invention of his self-portraits is such that no two look quite alike.
A number of Rembrandt’s early self-portraits relate to the tronies that heand Jan Lievens (1607–74) developed in Leiden, and they feature thekinds of emotional expressions, fancy costumes, loose paint handling, andstriking light effects evident in those works. Echoes of Rembrandt’s earlytronies are seen here in the artist’s expression, the strong lighting effects,
and his imaginative costume, all of which differ from the formal

Fig 3. Rembrandt van Rijn, SelfPortrait with Raised Sabre, 1634,
etching, state 2 of 2, 125 × 103© 2017 The Leiden CollectionSelf-Portrait with Shaded Eyes
Page 4 of 10

presentation of his Self-Portrait of 1632 in Glasgow (fig 1).[2] Whereas inthat Self-Portrait Rembrandt closely followed the fashion among

mm, British Museum, London, inv.
1973-U-840, © Trustees of the
British Museum

Amsterdam’s burghers by wearing a wide-brimmed hat and a flat ruff overa black coat, in the self-portrait in the Leiden Collection he has donned aberet, which by the 1620s was considered old-fashioned, although it
continued to be favored by artists.[3] The fur-trimmed robe he wears here
also descends from sixteenth-century dress and relates to the tabbaard, atype of fur-lined cloak favored by scholars.[4]This combination of beret and fur-trimmed robe may indicate that
Rembrandt sought to portray himself within the framework of a scholarly
and artistic tradition. Given that he painted Self-Portrait with Shaded Eyesin the year of his marriage to Saskia van Uylenburgh, it is likely that hewanted to present himself as a sincere and legitimate artist-suitor, of a
type different from artists who were characterized by such slurs as “hoeschilder hoe wilder” (the more of a painter the wilder he is).[5] Rembrandt’s

Fig 4. Photograph of Self-Portrait
with Shaded Eyes, RR-110, ca.
1950, with additions partly
removed (photograph courtesy ofMartin Bijl)

restrained modeling of his features in this painting also speaks to thethoughtfulness of his self-representation. As Ernst van de Wetering hasemphasized, Rembrandt carefully modeled his flesh tones to capture theeffects of reflected light in shaded areas, such as around the eyes.[6]Remarkably, despite its compelling qualities, Rembrandt’s self-portrait
was entirely overpainted by another hand soon after its completion, and it
was only in the late twentieth century that the master’s original image wasrevealed once again. A photograph from the mid-1930s indicates that the
overpainted image depicted an exotic middle-aged man with long, dark,
curly hair, a moustache, and a thin beard (fig 2).[7] He wore a fur coat anda tall Polish-style fur hat, a so-called kalpac trimmed with gold, similar to
Rembrandt’s 1634 etched Self-Portrait with Raised Sabre (fig 3).[8] Healso wore a golden chain wound twice over his mantle, in a manner similar

Fig 5. Photograph of Self-Portrait
with Shaded Eyes, RR-110, ca.
1980, with further additions
removed (photograph courtesy ofMartin Bijl)

to that in Rembrandt’s Self-Portrait in the Wallace Collection, also from the1630s.[9]From the 1950s to the 1980s some of the overpainting was removed(fig4), which revealed the existence of the beret under the kalpac. Technicalresearch undertaken by the Rembrandt Research Project in the 1990s
posited that the additions had likely been made in Rembrandt’s workshop
around 1636/37, only a few years after the creation of the original painting.
The remaining areas of overpaint were subsequently taken off with a© 2017 The Leiden CollectionSelf-Portrait with Shaded Eyes
Page 5 of 10

scalpel by conservator Martin Bijl (fig 5).
Just why this repainting of Self-Portrait with Shaded Eyes was undertaken

Fig 6. Govaert Flinck, Rembrandt
as a Shepherd with Flute andStaff, 1636, oil on canvas, 74.5 ×
64 cm, Rijksmuseum,
Amsterdam, inv. SK-A-3451

is not known, but it may have occurred if Rembrandt’s painting had not
immediately found a buyer. In any event, it seems unlikely that the masterwould have authorized this repainting. A more probable scenario would bethat the panel remained in the workshop of Hendrick van Uylenburgh after
Rembrandt’s departure in 1635, and that Van Uylenburgh decided to
update the image. Van Uylenburgh may well have charged his new head
painter Govaert Flinck with the task of turning this Rembrandt self-portrait
into a tronie of an exotic figure.[10] Flinck clearly knew Rembrandt’s selfportrait in its original format, for in 1636 he used it as a basis for an imageof his former master as an amorous shepherd, as part of a pair with ashepherdess (fig 6).[11] The loose handling of the repainting on
Rembrandt’s Self-Portrait with Shaded Eyes corresponds to Flinck’s
stylistic development around 1637. The fascinating transformation of thissensitive self-portrait into an exotic and somewhat frightening individual,
and back again, serves as a powerful reminder of how works of art often
have long and complicated lives that reflect differences of taste and values
over the years.

-David DeWitt© 2017 The Leiden CollectionSelf-Portrait with Shaded Eyes
Page 6 of 10

Endnotes
1. More than 80 self-portraits by Rembrandt are known today, including some 40 paintings,
30 etchings, and 7 drawings; Ernst van de Wetering, “Rembrandts verborgen
zelfportretten/Rembrandt’s Hidden Self-Portraits,” Kroniek van het Rembrandthuis 1 (2002):
2. On Rembrandt’s self-portraits, see Christopher White and Quentin Buvelot, eds.,
Rembrandt by Himself (Exh. cat. London, National Gallery; The Hague, Mauritshuis)(London, 1999), and Stichting Foundation Rembrandt Research Project, A Corpus of
Rembrandt Paintings, vol. 4, Self-Portraits, ed. Ernst van de Wetering (Dordrecht, 2005),
Addendum IV. See also H. Perry Chapman, Rembrandt’s Self-Portraits: A Study inSeventeenth-Century Identity (Princeton, 1990), and the reassessment of her analysis inMarieke de Winkel, Fashion and Fancy: Dress and Meaning in Rembrandt’s Paintings(Amsterdam, 2006), passim, as well as in White and Buvelot, Rembrandt by Himself,passim, and A Corpus of Rembrandt Paintings, vol. 4, passim.
2. See Stichting Foundation Rembrandt Research Project, A Corpus of Rembrandt Paintings ,vol. 2, 1631–1634, ed. Josua Bruyn et al. (Dordrecht, Boston, and Lancaster, 1986), no. A
58.
3. Marieke de Winkel, Fashion and Fancy: Dress and Meaning in Rembrandt’s Paintings(Amsterdam, 2006), 164f. Although Rembrandt may have worn berets on occasion, he alsotended to include them in self-portraits in combination with fanciful or imaginary componentsof dress, such as the Asian patterned silk scarf and heavy gold chains. See, for example, his
1629 Self-Portrait in The Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, Boston, oil on panel, 89.7 ×
73.5 cm, acc. P21n6.
4. Marieke de Winkel, “‘Eene der deftigsten dragten’: The Iconography of the Tabbaard andthe Sense of Tradition in Dutch Seventeenth-Century Portraiture,” in Beeld en zelfbeeld inde Nederlandse kunst, 1550–1750/Image and Self-Image in Netherlandish Art,
1550–1750, Nederlands Kunsthistorisch Jaarboek 46 (Zwolle, 1995): 145–67.
5. It is possibly significant that Rembrandt’s assistant at this time, Govaert Flinck (1615–60),
had confronted this stigma as he sought to become an artist: see Arnold Houbraken,Degroote schouburgh der Nederlantsche konstschilders en schilderessen , 3 vols. (Amsterdam
1718–21; rev. ed., The Hague, 1753; reprint, Amsterdam, 1976), 2:18–19.
6. Ernst van de Wetering, “Rembrandts verborgen zelfportretten/Rembrandt’s Hidden SelfPortraits,” Kroniek van het Rembrandthuis 1 (2002): 15.
7. See the account of the assessment and removal of these additions in Stichting Foundation
Rembrandt Research Project, A Corpus of Rembrandt Paintings , vol. 4, Self-Portraits, ed.
Ernst van de Wetering (Dordrecht, 2005), 617–26, no. IV Addendum 2; first published as anarticle: Ernst van de Wetering, “Rembrandts verborgen zelfportretten/Rembrandt’s Hidden© 2017 The Leiden CollectionSelf-Portrait with Shaded Eyes
Page 7 of 10

Self-Portraits,” Kroniek van het Rembrandthuis 1 (2002): 16–25.
8. On the Polish character of this head covering, see Michael Zell, Reframing Rembrandt:
Jews and the Christian Image in Seventeenth-Century Amsterdam (Berkeley, Los Angeles,and London, 2002), 46–48, and Alfred Rubens, A History of Jewish Costume , 2nd ed.
(London, 1973), 104–5.
9. Rembrandt van Rijn, Self-Portrait, second half of the 1630s, oil on panel, 64 × 49 cm, The
Wallace Collection, London, inv. no. P 52; see: Stichting Foundation Rembrandt Research
Project, A Corpus of Rembrandt Paintings , vol. 4, Self-Portraits, ed. Ernst van de Wetering(Dordrecht, 2005), 604, Corrigenda III C 96.
10. This assessment draws support from Joachim von Moltke’s attribution of the painting in its
overpainted state to Flinck. See Joachim Wolfgang von Moltke, Govaert Flinck, 1615–1660(Amsterdam, 1965), 246–47, under no. 101. A somewhat similar painting by Flinck is his
Bust of a Young Man in a Plumed Beret, 1637, oil on canvas, 73 × 57.5 cm, The State
Hermitage Museum, St. Petersburg, inv. 782 (see Portrait of Antonie Coopal, RR-103, fig.
6).
11. This painting is a pendant to Flinck’s Shepherdess, 1636, oil on canvas, 74.5 × 63.5 cm,
Herzog Anton Ulrich-Museum, Braunschweig, inv. 252; Werner Sumowski, Gemälde derRembrandt-Schüler in vier Bänden, 6 vols. (Landau, 1983), 2:1030–31, nos. 655, 656.
Sumowskirightly

dismisses

thetraditional

identification

of

the

Braunschweig

Shepherdess as Saskia van Uylenburgh.

Provenance
Christian Gottlob Frege, Leipzig (1715–81), possibly by descent to his son Christian Gottlob
Frege (1747–1816), and to his son Christian Gottlob Frege (1778–1855).
Private collection, Paris, as of 1935, possibly André de Hevesy.
Paul Page, Moulins, France, by 1956, and thence by descent (sale, Sotheby’s, London, 10
July 2003, no. 19).
Steve Wynn Collection, Las Vegas.
From whom acquired by the present owner in 2008.

Exhibition History© 2017 The Leiden CollectionSelf-Portrait with Shaded Eyes
Page 8 of 10

Amsterdam, Museum Het Rembrandthuis, “Rembrandt’s Hidden Self-Portraits,” 31January–16 March 2003 [lent by a private collection, France].
Norfolk, Virginia, Chrysler Museum, on loan with the permanent collection, 22 June 2009–22
January 2010 [lent by the present owner].
Oxford, Ashmolean Museum, on loan with the permanent collection, January–December
2010, [lent by the present owner].
Tokyo, National Museum of Western Art, “Rembrandt: The Quest for Chiaroscuro,” 12March–12 June 2011; Nagoya, Nagoya City Art Museum, 25 June–4 September 2011, no.
13 [lent by the present owner].
Raleigh, North Carolina Museum of Art, “Rembrandt in America,” 30 October 2011–22
January 2012; Cleveland, Cleveland Museum of Art, 19 February–28 May 2012;
Minneapolis, Minneapolis Institute of Arts, 24 June–16 September 2012, no. 17 [lent by thepresent owner].
Brooklyn, Brooklyn Museum of Art, on loan with the permanent collection, March
2013–December 2014 [lent by the present owner].
Detroit, Detroit Institute of Arts, on loan with the permanent collection, January
2015–January 2016 [lent by 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].

References
Von Moltke, Joachim Wolfgang. Govaert Flinck, 1615–1660. Amsterdam, 1965, 246–47,
under no. 101, as by Rembrandt and basis for copy attributed to Govaert Flinck.
Van de Wetering, Ernst. “Rembrandt’s Hidden Self-Portraits/Rembrandts verborgen
zelfportretten.” Kroniek van het Rembrandthuis (2002): 2–3, 8–25, nos. 1–2, 16–27.
Stichting Foundation Rembrandt Research Project. A Corpus of Rembrandt Paintings . Vol.
4, Self-Portraits. Edited by Ernst van de Wetering. Dordrecht, 2005, 139–40, nos. 73–75,
212, no. 197, 214, no. 199, 616–25, Addendum IV 2, 615–25, nos. 1–12, 15–16.
Schwartz, Gary. The Rembrandt Book. New York, 2006, 198, no. 336, 371.
Van de Wetering, Ernst. “The Various Functions of Rembrandt’s Self-Portraits.” In
Rembrandt: Three Faces of the Master. Edited by Benedict Leca, 61–63, nos. 25–26. Exh.
cat. Cincinnati, Cincinnati Art Museum. Cincinnati, 2008.
© 2017 The Leiden CollectionSelf-Portrait with Shaded Eyes
Page 9 of 10

Hirschfelder, Dagmar. Tronie und Porträt in der niederländischen Malerei des 17.
Jahrhunderts. Berlin, 2008, 165–67, no. 89, 423, 424.
Van de Wetering, Ernst. Rembrandt: A Life in 180 Paintings. Amsterdam, 2008, 212–13.
Van den Boogert, Bob. In Rembrandt: The Quest for Chiaroscuro. Edited by Akira Kofuku,
344–45, no. 13. Exh. cat. Tokyo, National Museum of Western Art; Nagoya, Nagoya City Art
Museum. Tokyo, 2011.
Stichting Foundation Rembrandt Research Project. A Corpus of Rembrandt Paintings . Vol.
5, Small-Scale History Paintings.

Edited by Ernst van de Wetering. Dordrecht, 2011,

317–19, nos. 13–14.
Rassieur, Tom. “Rembrandt in the Seventeenth Century.” In Rembrandt in America:
Collecting and Connoisseurship. Edited by George S. Keyes, Tom Rassieur, and Dennis P.
Weller, 43–44, no. 7, 50. Exh. cat. Raleigh, North Carolina Museum of Art; Cleveland,
Cleveland Museum of Art; Minneapolis, Minneapolis Institute of Arts. New York, 2011.
Weller, Dennis P. “Rembrandt Paintings in America.” In Rembrandt in America: Collecting
and Connoisseurship. Edited by George S. Keyes, Tom Rassieur, and Dennis P. Weller,
27, 182, no. 17. Exh. cat. Raleigh, North Carolina Museum of Art; Cleveland, Cleveland
Museum of Art; Minneapolis, Minneapolis Institute of Arts. New York, 2011.

Versions
Versions and Copies
1. Attributed to Govaert Flinck, copy of Self-Portrait with Shaded Eyes in unrestored(pre-1966) state, oil on panel, 69 x 55 cm, present location unknown. Formerly with art
dealer J. Boehler in Munich in 1929; with art dealer A. G. Luzern in 1934; and with an
unknown art dealer in Berlin in 1962.

Versions Notes

Technical Summary
The support, a rectangular composite panel, comprises three vertically grained Eastern Baltic
oak planks, a wide central plank flanked by two identical width narrow planks. The planks derive© 2017 The Leiden CollectionPowered by TCPDF (www.tcpdf.org)

Self-Portrait with Shaded Eyes
Page 10 of 10

from at least two different trees felled after 1626, with a first use date of between 1626 and
1658.[1] The left vertical panel join runs through the left side of the black cap, the right join
through the background to the figure’s right.[2] Narrow wood shims have been secured to bothvertical edges.[3] The panel has bevels along all four sides and is unthinned and uncradled. The
panel reverse has two identical red wax seals along the central plank but no paper labels, importstamps or obvious panel maker’s mark.
A warm, light-colored ground has been thinly and evenly applied. The portrait has been painted
in a feigned oval on the rectangular panel support. The paint along the four outer corners has
been applied thinly as a glaze with lively brushstrokes that allow the light-colored ground to show
through. The brushwork along the brown paint applied to the lower right quadrant of the oval
where the signature has been applied also allows the ground to show through. The remainder ofthe composition within the confines of the oval—the gray background, the face, and the dark
garments—has been applied in a paste consistency with low brushwork and low impasto. Undermagnification, the hairs that make up the left side of Rembrandt’s moustache appear to havebeen scratched into the wet paint.
In 2000 Martin Bijl restored the painting and removed major restorations that had been applied,
presumably by one of Rembrandt’s pupils, soon after it was executed, which had altered the halflength self-portrait of Rembrandt as a 28-year-old man into one resembling a Russian aristocrat
by adding earrings, a goatee, shoulder length hair, and a velvet cap. Bijl’s restoration revealed
the original portrait of Rembrandt with the round chin and gentle eyes common in other selfportraits.
No underdrawing or compositional changes are readily apparent in infrared images captured at
780–1000 nanometers.
The painting is signed and dated in dark paint along the lower right quadrant of the feigned oval.
The painting has not undergone conservation treatment since its acquisition in 2008 and remains
in a good state of preservation.

Technical Summary Endnotes

1. The characterization of the wood is based on Ian Tyers’s 2003 and 2011
dendrochronology reports. The panel underwent dendrochronology by Peter Klein in 1995.
2. The narrow left and right planks are 13 cm wide.
3. With black tape applied to the panel reverse.

© 2017 The Leiden Collection