Show me:
and
Clear all filters

  • 35 items
  • 25 items Explore
  • 89 items
  • 1 items
  • 3,435 items Explore
  • 97 items Explore
  • 872 items
  • 4 items
  • 220 items
  • 13,062 items Explore
  • 209 items Explore
  • 1,225 items Explore
  • 8,489 items Explore
  • 5,043 items Explore
  • 2 items Explore
  • 167 items Explore
  • 12,981 items Explore
  • 13,621 items Explore
  • 4,807 items Explore
  • 1 items
  • 5 items
  • 153 items Explore
  • 2,009 items Explore
  • 2 items
  • 4,757 items Explore
  • 17 items Explore
  • 437 items Explore
  • 266 items
  • 19,939 items Explore
  • 34 items Explore
  • 1,924 items Explore
  • 1,083 items Explore
  • 5 items
  • 2,051 items Explore
  • 449 items Explore
  • 917 items Explore
  • 1 items Explore
  • 5 items
  • 7 items
  • 20,310 items Explore
  • 800 items Explore
  • 19 items
  • 73 items Explore
  • 33 items
  • 797 items
  • 20 items
  • 4 items
  • 26 items
  • 61 items
  • 28 items
  • 319 items Explore
  • 6 items
  • 44 items Explore
  • 1 items
  • 2 items
  • 2 items
  • 7 items
  • 1 items
  • 121 items Explore
  • 119 items
  • 1 items
  • 975 items Explore
  • 812 items
  • 95 items
  • 27 items
  • 107 items
  • 37,006 items Explore
  • 1 items
  • 3,869 items Explore
  • 1,527 items Explore
  • 403 items
  • 125 items Explore
  • 11,191 items Explore
  • 9,684 items Explore
  • 4 items
  • 1 items
  • 38 items
  • 3 items
  • 4 items
  • 6,778 items Explore
  • 7,357 items Explore
  • 4,536 items Explore
  • 1,885 items Explore
  • 1,192 items Explore
  • 22,423 items Explore
  • 3,663 items Explore
  • 17 items
  • 5 items
  • 334 items
  • 1 items
  • 1 items
  • 3,367 items Explore
  • 23 items Explore
  • 352 items Explore
  • 796 items Explore
  • 1,088 items Explore
  • 513 items Explore
  • 1,144 items Explore
  • 89 items
  • 125 items Explore
  • 6,950 items Explore
  • 76 items
  • 310 items
  • 4 items
  • 2 items
  • 63 items
  • 2 items
  • 2,937 items Explore
  • 1,582 items Explore
  • 1 items
  • 203 items
  • 91 items
  • 22,078 items Explore
  • 1,245 items Explore
  • 138 items
  • 843 items Explore
  • 32 items
  • 132 items Explore
  • 40 items
  • 20 items
  • 281 items
  • 313 items
  • 685 items Explore
  • 346 items Explore
  • 2,429 items
  • 2,535 items
  • 3 items
  • 1 items
  • 1 items
  • 4,394 items Explore
  • 41,548 items Explore
  • 1 items
  • 3,293 items Explore
  • 275 items Explore
  • 8,656 items Explore
  • 31 items
  • 25 items
  • 304 items Explore
  • 777 items Explore
  • 3 items
  • 65 items
  • 161 items
  • 51 items
  • 52 items
  • 22,614 items Explore
  • 917 items
  • 66 items
  • 22,577 items Explore
  • 2 items
  • 2,338 items Explore
  • 1 items
  • 1,028 items Explore
  • 4 items
  • 3 items
  • 759 items
  • 499 items
  • 4 items
  • 3,306 items Explore
  • 179 items
  • 59 items
  • 454 items Explore
  • 3 items
  • 21 items
  • 90 items Explore
  • 76 items
  • 281 items Explore
  • 1 items
  • 6 items
  • 128 items
  • 295 items
  • 447 items
  • 285 items
  • 1 items
  • 906 items Explore
  • 271 items Explore
  • 11,294 items Explore
  • 755 items Explore
  • 6,044 items Explore
  • 2 items
  • 8,015 items Explore
  • 27 items
  • 1 items
  • 5,878 items Explore
  • 4 items
  • 3,724 items Explore
  • 9,194 items Explore
  • 7,809 items Explore
  • 185 items
  • 19 items
  • 142 items
  • 7 items
  • 852 items Explore
  • 19 items
  • 2,433 items Explore
  • 7 items
  • 1,096 items Explore
  • 270 items
  • 1 items
  • 3,492 items Explore
  • 695 items Explore
  • 18 items
  • 134 items
  • 6,750 items Explore
  • 93 items
  • 18,927 items Explore
  • 3,142 items Explore
  • 1 items
  • 7 items
  • 10,982 items Explore
  • 37 items
  • 2 items
  • 21,543 items Explore
  • 38 items
  • 13,287 items Explore
  • 3,462 items Explore
  • 5,753 items Explore
  • 33 items
  • 48,082 items Explore
  • 645 items Explore
  • 417 items
  • 26,676 items Explore
  • 217 items
  • 3 items
  • 3 items
  • 1 items
  • 35 items
  • 27 items
  • 435 items Explore
  • 636 items
  • 217 items Explore
  • 13 items
  • 13,146 items Explore
  • 1,357 items Explore
  • 3 items
  • 10,260 items
  • 9 items
  • 10 items
  • 14 items
  • 25 items
  • 1 items
  • 4,482 items Explore
  • 912 items Explore
  • 1 items
  • 1 items
  • 317 items
  • 699 items Explore
  • 42 items
  • 4 items
  • 2,286 items Explore
  • 1,662 items Explore
  • 15 items
  • 1,876 items Explore
  • 150 items
  • 81 items
  • 757 items Explore
  • 3,054 items Explore
  • 44 items
  • 17 items
  • 12 items
  • 10,676 items Explore
  • 23,199 items Explore
  • 3 items
  • 1 items
  • 41 items
  • 1,374 items
  • 179 items Explore
  • 8 items
  • 92 items
  • 1 items
  • 13,568 items Explore
  • 3,581 items Explore
  • 2,899 items Explore
  • 4,810 items Explore
  • 22 items
  • 42 items
  • 6,911 items Explore
  • 4,841 items Explore
  • 256 items Explore
  • 2,300 items Explore
  • 2,976 items Explore
  • 2 items
  • 1,691 items Explore
  • 193 items
  • 223 items Explore
  • 466 items Explore
  • 6,121 items Explore
  • 8,735 items Explore
  • 1,864 items Explore
  • 3 items
  • 1 items
  • 5,795 items Explore
  • 3,355 items Explore
  • 11,136 items Explore
  • 1 items
  • 84 items
  • 11 items
  • 1,968 items Explore
  • 7 items
  • 24 items
  • 51 items
  • 6 items
  • 1 items
  • 4,208 items Explore
  • 610 items Explore
  • 72 items
  • 17 items
  • 154 items Explore
  • 1 items
  • 95 items Explore
  • 460 items
  • 4 items
  • 996 items Explore
  • 3,553 items Explore
  • 4 items
  • 5 items
  • 9,497 items Explore
  • 48 items Explore
  • 3 items
  • 7 items
  • 42 items
  • 3 items
  • 13,789 items Explore
  • 1,161 items Explore
  • 92 items
  • 10,557 items Explore
  • 1,920 items
  • 18 items
  • 7,884 items Explore
  • 21 items
  • 12,949 items Explore
  • 1,418 items Explore
  • 8 items
  • 9,691 items Explore
  • 14,838 items Explore
  • 4 items
  • 1,667 items Explore
  • 181 items Explore
  • 4 items
  • 5,687 items Explore
  • 12,228 items Explore
  • 48 items
  • 25 items
  • 2 items
  • 3 items
  • 7,215 items Explore
  • 357 items Explore
  • 13 items
  • 4 items
  • 6 items
  • 103 items Explore
  • 7 items
  • 5 items
  • 485 items
  • 665 items Explore
  • 8,375 items Explore
  • 58 items
  • 7,347 items Explore
  • 5 items
  • 26 items
  • 4,525 items Explore
  • 428 items
  • 339 items Explore
  • 12,702 items Explore
  • 55 items
  • 20 items
  • 7 items
  • 4 items
  • 325 items Explore
  • 434 items
  • 458 items
  • 3,704 items Explore
  • 27 items
  • 1,238 items Explore
  • 2,503 items Explore
  • 733 items Explore
  • 36 items
  • 1,136 items Explore
  • 97 items Explore
  • 24 items
  • 228 items Explore
  • 79,867 items Explore
  • 3,135 items Explore
  • 2,875 items Explore
  • 25 items
  • 5,349 items Explore
  • 1,831 items Explore
  • 4 items
  • 17,515 items Explore
  • 4,785 items Explore
  • 1 items
  • 7 items
  • 631 items Explore
  • 85 items
  • 1 items
  • 31 items
  • 1 items
  • 76 items
  • 29 items
  • 86 items
  • 3 items
  • 1,178 items Explore
  • 109 items
  • 805 items
  • 12,246 items Explore
  • 27 items
  • 13 items
  • 1,588 items Explore
  • 214 items
  • 17,038 items Explore
  • 85 items
  • 17 items
  • 1 items
  • 8 items
  • 324 items
  • 2 items
  • 625 items Explore
  • 1,593 items Explore
  • 8 items
  • 1,130 items Explore
  • 2 items
  • 307 items

Select a time period

Or choose a specific year

Clear all filters

Self-portrait, wearing a Feathered Bonnet

Rembrandt van Rijn (Leiden 1606 – Amsterdam 1669)

Category

Art / Oil paintings

Date

1635 (signed and dated)

Materials

Oil on poplar panel

Measurements

912 x 719 mm

Place of origin

Amsterdam

Order this image

Collection

Buckland Abbey, Devon

NT 810136

Caption

One of the most famous artists of all time, Rembrandt van Rijn (1606–69) repeatedly used his own face to practise and demonstrate his craft. Many of his self-portrait paintings and drawings survive, and this one was painted in 1635, when he had recently moved from Leiden to Amsterdam and begun a successful career. Here we see him dressing up as a wealthy adventurer. He wears a flamboyant plumed hat, a short velvet cloak embroidered with gilt and jewelled adornments, and (bizarrely) a military metal neckband (gorget) from a suit of armour. The lighting is as theatrical as the outfit, and Rembrandt appears to be experimenting with the use of angled light and looming shadows to create a sense of brooding or impending drama. Although the portrait is signed and dated, its attribution was once considered doubtful. However, it has recently been subjected to cleaning and scientific analysis and has been confirmed as a work by the master’s hand.

Summary

Oil painting on poplar panel, Self-portrait, wearing a Feathered Bonnet by Rembrandt van Rijn (Leyden 1606 – Amsterdam 1669), signed and dated, at the lower right background: Rembrant / f (followed by three dots in a triangular pattern) 1635. A half-length portrait of the artist with a white and golden feathered bonnet. He is also wearing a sumptuously embroidered velvet cloak, a gorget (metal neckband) and gold chains from which is suspended a medallion, seemingly fashioned from a Spanish doubloon or real. His jewelled beret has elegant golden and white plumes, attached theatrically in the centre with a large gem. He is standing in a starkly-lit studio and his shadow with the feathers is playfully depicted on the wall behind. The portrait was painted in 1635, after the artist had settled in Amsterdam from his native Leiden and had married Saskia van Uylenburgh, cousin of his art-dealer friend.

Full description

Rembrandt painted, drew and engraved his own portrait many times, but although we recognise his features in this picture, it is not a straightforward self-portrait. Instead, it is an example of a tronie, a popular form of figurative art in the Netherlands, in which the subject played a character, wore fancy dress, or pulled exaggerated facial expressions. Tronies were intended to show off an artist’s skill in characterisation and illusionism. The portrait was painted in Amsterdam in 1635, at a time of great prosperity for the artist and his is family. His fanciful costume lends the picture a feeling of timelessness, luxury and flamboyance; he wears a velvet cape richly embroidered with gold, an old-fashioned velvet bonnet decorated with two vertical ostrich feathers, a gorget from a suit of armour around the base of his neck and a gold chain across the chest, from which is suspended a coin, probably a Spanish real, salvaged from a shipwreck. Acquired as a genuine Rembrandt by Prince Joseph-Wenzel von Liechtenstein (1696-1772), the picture was considered as such by Rembrandt scholars until 1968 when the art historian Horst Gerson suggested it was possibly by a member of the artist’s studio or by one of his favourite pupils, Govaert Flinck (1615-60). However, the high quality of the picture and the fact that it does not reproduce any other known self-portrait by Rembrandt suggest that it is in fact a prototype. Technical examination at the Hamilton Kerr Institute, Cambridge, in 2013 and 2014, included visual inspection under magnification, infra-red reflectography, x-radiography, raking light photography and pigment and medium analysis. Cleaning and removal of yellowed varnish revealed more of the original colours and painting style. It was found that the signature was contemporary with the creation of the portrait. The infra-red and x-ray images showed how the composition was changed during the execution of the work. The artist altered the position of the left arm, which would not be consistent with it being a copy. The unusually mechanical execution of the feathers on the bonnet suggests that they may have been painted by an assistant. The wood of the panel was identified as being from the poplar/willow family, and the pigments were found to include azurite, smalt and bone black, typical of Rembrandt’s palette. In 2013 the portrait was reattributed to Rembrandt by Ernst van de Wetering. At least three copies are known in Wiesbaden, in the Galleria Nazionale d'Arte Antica (Palazzo Baberini), Rome, and formerly in the Cook collection, Doughty House, Richmond.

Provenance

Acquired by Prince Joseph Wenzel of Liechtenstein (1696-1772), Vienna; collection of the Princes of Liechtenstein, Vaduz, until at least 1948 (when exhibited at Lucerne); with Edward Speelman, London, 1960s; Harold Samuel, Baron Samuel of Wych Cross (1912 - 1987); acquired by the National Trust as a gift from the estate of the late Edna, Lady Samuel of Wych Cross (1918-2008), 2010.

Credit line

Buckland Abbey (given from the estate of Edna, Lady Samuel of Wych Cross (1918-2008) to the National Trust in 2010)

Marks and inscriptions

Verso: White exhibition label: Kunstmuseum Luzern 1948 Meisterwerke aus den Sammlungen des Fursten von Liechtenstein Katalog Nr. 104 Verso: In black ink: 1635 and more crossed out with blue chalk across Verso: White label, maekedin blue in: 84 corresponds to its inventory number when it was in the Galerie Liechtenstein in Vienna and stamp

Makers and roles

Rembrandt van Rijn (Leiden 1606 – Amsterdam 1669), artist Rembrandt van Rijn (Leiden 1606 – Amsterdam 1669) (and studio?), artist previously catalogued as studio of Rembrandt van Rijn (Leiden 1606 – Amsterdam 1669), artist previously catalogued as possibly Govaert Flinck (Cleves 1615 - Amsterdam 1660), artist previously catalogued as attributed to Rembrandt van Rijn (Leiden 1606 – Amsterdam 1669), artist previously catalogued as by Rembrandt van Rijn (Leiden 1606 – Amsterdam 1669), artist

Exhibition history

Young Rembrandt/Jonge Rembrandt, Museum De Lakenhal, Leiden, 2019 - 2020 Young Rembrandt/Jonge Rembrandt, Ashmolean Museum, Oxford, 2019 - 2020

References

Vosmaer 1868: C. Vosmaer, Rembrandt Harmensz. Van Rijn, sa vie at ses oeuvres, Le Haye 1868, p. 508 Dutuit 1881-85: E. Dutuit, L'Oeuvre Complet de Rembrandt, Paris 1881-85, vol. III, p. 50, no. 141 Bode 1883: W. Bode, Studien zur Geschichte der holländischen Malerei, Braunschweig 1883, pp. 411, 576, no. 131 Wurzbach 1886: A. von Wurzbach, Rembrandt Galerie, Stuttgart 1886, no. 26 Michel 1893: E. Michel, Rembrandt. Sa vie, son oeuvre et son temps, Paris 1893, pp. 215, 560 Moes 1897-1905: Ernst Wilhelm Moes, Iconographia Batava, 2 vols., Amsterdam 1897-1905, no. 6693, p. 33 Bode & Hofstede de Groot 1898: W. Bode and C. Hofstede de Groot, Rembrandt, Paris 1898 - 1900, vol. III, 1899, no.168 Hofstede de Groot 1907-28: C. Hofstede de Groot, A Catalogue Raisonné of the Most Eminent Dutch Painters of the Seventeenth Century, 8 vols., London 1907-28, vol. VI, 1916, pp. 285-6, no. 584 Valentier 1908: W. R. Valentier, Rembrandt des Meisters Gemälde, Berlin 1908, p. 150, no. 174 Bredius 1935: A. Bredius, Rembrandt Gemälde, Vienna 1935, no. 25 Gerson 1968: H. Gerson, Rembrandt Paintings, London 1968, no. 171 Lecaldano 1969: P. Lecaldano, The Complete Paintings of Rembrandt, London 1969, p. 103, no. 164 Wright 1982: Christopher Wright, Rembrandt Self-Portraits, London 1982, no. 24, p. 41, pl. 51 Tümpel 1986: Christian Tümpel, Rembrandt in Selstzeugnissen und Bilddokumenten, Amsterdam 1986, no. A 64 Bruyn 1989: Josua Bruyn (ed.), A Corpus of Rembrandt Paintings, 1635 - 1642, Rembrandt Research Project, volume III, Dordrecht, Boston, and London 1989, no. C 92 Slatkes 1992: L. J. Slatkes, Rembrandt, Catalogo Completo dei Dipinti, Florence 1992, p. 378, no. 251 Duffy-Zebellos & Fletcher 2005: Lisa Duffy-Zebellos and Sharon Fletcher, 'Three Questioned Rembrandts re-enter the Canon: More to Come', International Foundation for Art Research (IFAR) Journal, vol. 15, no. 2, 2014, pp. 32-39 Wetering 2005: Ernst van de Wetering (ed.), A Corpus of Rembrandt Paintings, Self-portraits, Rembrandt Research Project, vol. IV, Dordrecht, Boston, and London 2005, p. 234 Prized Possessions: Dutch Paintings from National Trust Houses (exh. cat.), Holburne Museum, Bath 25 May - 16 Sep 2018; Mauritshuis, The Hague, 11 Oct 2018 - 6 Jan 2019; Petworth House, West Sussex, 26 Jan - 24 Mar 2019., pp. 154-7, no. 18 Brown, Van Camp, Vogelaar 2019: Christopher Brown, An Van Camp and Christiaan Vogelaar, Young Rembrandt, Rising Star, exh. cat., Museum De Lakenhal, Leiden 2019 and Ashmolean Museum, Oxford 2020, p. 276, no. 143

View more details

Related articles