Liverpool artwork of the day – Wednesday April 18 2007. ‘Self-portrait as a young man’ c1630 by Rembrandt van Rijn (1606 – 1669) Oil on panel, 69.7 x 57cm at The Walker.
How cool it is that we can call into our local gallery and see fantastic old paintings like this, we’re very lucky.
Rembrandt used his early self-portraits to explore the effects of light and to experiment with facial gesture.
This self-portrait was the first painting by Rembrandt to enter a British collection. It was presented to Charles I in the early 1630s by one of his courtiers, Sir Robert Kerr, Earl of Ancrum. Sir Robert had acquired it after a diplomatic visit to The Hague in 1629, along with another painting by Rembrandt ‘An old woman: ‘The Artist’s Mother’’, which is still in the Royal Collection today.
The painting remained in the palace at Whitehall until the sale of the Royal Collection after the king’s execution in 1649.
Read a statement about Rembrandt Research Project’s recent reattribution of the painting