Portrait of a Man (1632)

Rembrandt (1606-1669)

Portrait of a Man
1632
Oil on wood, 75.6 x 52.1 cm
Metropolitan Museum of ArtNew York

Painted just after Rembrandt’s arrival in Amsterdam, this well-preserved portrait reveals the talent that enabled the young artist to quickly make a name for himself in the Dutch Republic’s largest and most artistically competitive city. The oval format was fashionable at the time, and the linen folds of the man’s ruff offered Rembrandt the chance to display his signature vigorous brushwork. Nothing is known about the man’s identity, and the inscription giving his age as forty is most likely by a later hand. (MET)