Rembrandt Laughing

Rembrandt Harmensz. van Rijn

about 1628

Oil on copper, Oil, Copper

J. Paul Getty Museum

A man with curly hair and a wide smile looks directly at the viewer, his head tilted slightly. He wears a dark, textured garment with a high collar. A man with curly hair and a wide smile looks directly at the viewer, his head tilted slightly. He wears a dark, textured garment with a high collar. Intently interested in the expression of human emotion, Rembrandt often used himself as his own model in his early years as an independent master in Leiden. Here, in a small and freely painted work, he appears in the guise of a soldier, relaxed and engaging the viewer with a laugh. For this sophisticated self-portrait, painted at age twenty-one or twenty-two, Rembrandt combines a study of character and emotion (known in Dutch as a tronie) with a rare jovial self-presentation. The lively