Rembrandt has left us more self-portraits than any other artist in the world, around eighty (around forty paintings, nearly thirty engravings and seven drawings), not including the many pictures in which he depicted himself as a character.
This painting is unique in that it is the only self-portrait showing Rembrandt standing up. X-rays of the panel have shown us that Rembrandt, unhappy with the position of his legs, shortened them and then later hid them totally behind a dog. He also changed his hair. A copy attributed to one of his pupils, Isaac de Jouderville (1612/1613 - 1645/1647), shows us how he looked originally.
The more or less fantastical Oriental costume was frequently used by Rembrandt and other artists of his time in biblical scenes or figures of fantasy to create an image that evoked distant and exotic lands, for which there was growing interest in Holland.
A. R.
Discover the painting in very high definition thanks to its digitization in gigapixel as part of the Paris Musées Second Canvas project!
City of Paris municipal collection's website
The collections portal can be used to search the collections of Paris’s 14 municipal museums (approximately 336,000 works, including 43,000 belonging to the Petit Palais).
It is also possible to download around 12,000 images of the museum’s works free of charge.
Access the Museums of the City of Paris collections portalExtern databases
Discover a selection of databases online presenting works from the Petit Palais or documents concerning the history of the museum.