Large Self-Portrait

This self portrait has special significance among Rembrandt’s works. In all, the artist painted more than sixty self-portraits, thus documenting not only the conditions of his life but also, and in particular, his artistic development. In a manner different from that of his early successful years, when the artist portrayed himself disguised or in splendid clothing, here we see him in a simple brown artist’s smock in a confident posture, his hands on his hips and his thumbs in his belt.