# Self-Portrait [View the canonical artwork record]() ## Artwork - Artist: [REMBRANDT Harmenszoon van Rijn]() - Date: 1601-1650 - Technique: Oil on canvas, 86 x 71 cm ## Commentary <a href="\#" onClick="w=window.open \('/database/glossary/note03.html', 'newWin', 'scrollbars=yes,status=no,dependent=yes,screenX=0,screenY=0,width=300,height=400'\);w.opener=this;w.focus\(\);return false">Catalogue number:</a> Bredius 55. No one in the 17th century played the game of literary and social roles so extravagantly and with so much variety as the Dutchman Rembrandt. In almost 90 self-portraits, he proved how autobiographical interest and the insatiable curiosity of staging could, time and again, bring forth different variations on the theme of self-depiction. Rembrandt's visual casting plan ranges between lofty personal dignity \(representation as apostle or ruler\) and base characters \(beggar, fool, executioner\). And at the focus of all his appearances facial expression is the dramatic, and often enough experimentally exploited field of constant metamorphosis. Role-play and existential profundity need not contradict each other in any way in this process. What that means, is demonstrated by this late self-portrait. ## Related artworks - [A black drummer and commander mounted on mules; riding in profile]() - [A child being taught to walk]() - [A cottage beneath trees]() - [A girl sleeping]() - [A Man Laughing]() - [A man making water]() - [A Peddler Selling Spectacles \(The Allegory of Sight\)]() - [A Polish Nobleman]() - [A Scholar]() - [A two-humped camel]() - [A woman in Zeeland costume, from the back]() - [A woman in Zeeland costume, from the front]() ## Attribution [Web Gallery of Art]()