3-016-139 - Heritage Art/Heritage Images

Self-portrait with Saskia, 1636. The artist and his wife are shown wearing historical clothing. Rembrandt wears a fanciful 16th-century style plumed beret tilted at a jaunty angle and a fur-trimmed overcoat, while Saskia wears an old-fashioned veil. In addition to serving as one of many self-portraits, this small etching can also be regarded as an example of a marriage portrait. The young woman shown seated at the table with Rembrandt is his wife, Saskia van Uylenburgh, then in her early twenties. They had married two years before this etching, and remained together for eight years until Saskia's untimely death at the age of 30. Surprisingly, it is the only etching that Rembrandt ever made of Saskia and himself together.