By 1660 Rembrandt had lost nearly everything that a successful Amsterdam painter was supposed to have. He had been declared insolvent in 1656, and the sale of his house and his collection of art and curiosities followed. He moved to a smaller rented home, and his companion Hendrickje Stoffels and his son Titus set up a business to handle his work so that his creditors could not take his earnings.
This self-portrait, painted when he was in his mid-fifties, makes no attempt to hide the damage. He sits with his hands clasped, in a dark cap and plain clothes, and looks straight out of the canvas. The face is built with thick, rough paint. The light picks out the forehead, nose and cheek and leaves the rest of the picture in a warm, dark brown.
Rembrandt painted himself throughout his career, from a young man in curls to this tired and direct old master. The series is among the most searching in Western art because he looks at himself without flattery and without self-pity.
The painting is in the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York. It belongs to the last decade of his life, when his style grew broader and more free, and when he made some of his greatest works.
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