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Self-portrait with Saskia
1636
Medium
etching
Measurements
10.5 × 9.6 cm (plate) 10.9 × 9.9 cm (sheet)
Credit Line
National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne
Felton Bequest, 1933
Gallery location
Not on display
About this work
Rembrandt was thirty years old when he made this self-portrait with his wife, Saskia, two years after they were married. It is one of only two known works in which he depicted himself together with her. He etched the figure of Saskia first, then added his own portrait in the foreground. Both figures are shown in historical costume – Rembrandt in a sixteenth-century hat and Saskia in old-fashioned veil and clothes. Rembrandt’s image is not a domestic or everyday scene, but rather an allusion to the common theme of love as the nourishing source of artistic creativity, encapsulated in the Dutch maxim ‘Liefde baart kunst’ (‘Love brings forth art’).
Artwork Details
Catalogue/s Raisonné
Bartsch 19; Hind 144 iii/iii; White & Boon 19 iii/iii; NHD 158 iii/iv
Edition
3rd of 4 states
Inscription
printed in ink u.l.: Rembrandt. f / 1636
Accession Number
14-4
Departments
International Prints / International Prints and Drawings
This digital record has been made available on NGV Collection Online through the generous support of the Joe White Bequest