Terms and conditions of use
Self-portrait with Saskia
1636
- Medium
- etching
- Measurements
- 10.5 × 9.6 cm (plate) 10.9 × 9.9 cm (sheet)
- 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
- Credit Line
- National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne
Felton Bequest, 1933
This digital record has been made available on NGV Collection Online through the generous support of the Joe White Bequest - Gallery location
- 17th Century & Flemish Paintings Gallery
Level 2, NGV International - About this work
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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’).
