Rembrandt painted himself so often because his own face cost nothing to paint, because buyers wanted that face, and because it changed as he aged. Counts vary, but roughly 80 self-portraits survive in paint, etching and drawing.
The Dutch painter began around 1630 with a mirror and a copper plate, and he was still painting himself in 1669, the year he died, an old man who had lost his house and his fortune.
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The story begins in Leiden, the Dutch town where Rembrandt was born, the son of a miller. In his early twenties he shared a studio there with another young painter, Jan Lievens.
Around 1630, Rembrandt spent long sessions in front of a mirror, pulling faces. On small copper plates, about three inches wide, he etched himself scowling, wide-eyed with fright, smiling, and once with his mouth hanging open as if he were shouting.
Nobody had ordered these little heads, and nobody had to be paid to sit for them. The model was always there, at any hour, and it could hold a scowl for as long as the study required.
A mirror in Leiden
The idea was not his own. A handbook printed in 1604, two years before his birth, told young painters to do exactly this, and Rembrandt took it at its word.
What You'll Discover
Which book sent him to the mirror.
How one of his early faces reached a king.
Why he dressed as a gentleman in 1640.
Who bought his face after he lost everything.