Lecture: Rembrandt and the Lure of the Renaissance

Anne T. Woollett, Curator, J. Paul Getty Museum
Sat, December 9, 2017

By 1640, after nearly a decade of extraordinary achievement as a portrait and history painter in Amsterdam, Rembrandt rose to fame and prosperity. Self Portrait at the Age of 34 (London, National Gallery), in which Rembrandt portrays himself in the rich accoutrements of fur and velvet, has often been seen as an index to the master’s status at that time. Anne Woollett examines the ways in which this painting, with its references to Renaissance portraits from both north and south of the Alps, is not only one of the most beautiful of Rembrandt’s many self-portraits but also one of his most sophisticated exercises in self-fashioning.