Rembrandt in Velvet Cap,

1638

During his forty-year career, Rembrandt painted, etched, and drew more than seventy-five self-portraits. These introspective works reveal a complex quest for identity that is tied to the growth of individualism in seventeenth-century Holland. In these two etchings, which date from Rembrandt’s first decade in Amsterdam, he dons a luxurious, old-fashioned costume—selected from his large collection of studio props—to fashion himself as an imagined Renaissance monarch or courtier. In doing so, he set himself apart from conventional self-portraiture, which featured contemporary gentlemanly attire, at a time when he was intent on establishing himself as a successful portraitist and virtuoso artist.