Object NP-RMB-001
Self-Portrait in a Velvet Cap with Plume
Rembrandt Harmenszoon van Rijn, 1606–1669 · 1638 · Etching, possibly with drypoint
One impression of a print that exists in many. This is its research record: what is known, what is only reported, and — at greater length — what nobody has established yet.
What the record establishes
The plate is Rembrandt's, and it was worked in 1638.
Corroborated across more than twenty institutional collection records, which cite it as Bartsch 20 and New Hollstein 170 and record the plate signed and dated “Rembrandt f. 1638”.
The plate has four states in the current standard catalogue.
Independently corroborated: the Rijksmuseum encodes its impressions as 170-1(4), 170-2(4) and 170-4(4); the British Museum catalogues a second state “with jaw delineated” and a fourth “with signature redrawn”.
This sheet was acquired at auction in New York in 2023.
Documented by invoice — the only claim on this record backed by a primary document the project itself holds.
What it does not
When this sheet was printed.
The plate is from 1638. The impression could have been pulled at any point across the next two and a half centuries. Nothing currently in the record narrows it.
Which of the four states this is.
The acquisition paperwork says the third. Nobody has checked that against the catalogue, and a neighbouring statement in the same paperwork is contradicted by an institutional record.
Who owned it before 2023.
Three hundred and eighty-five years with no evidence at all. The back of the sheet has not been photographed, and that is where the answer usually is.
Questions a specialist could answer
Each is scoped small enough to finish. Several need nothing but a photograph.
Does this impression carry the signature “Rembrandt f. 1638”, and if not, why not?
low difficulty· suits a student projectRQ-02Which of the four New Hollstein states is this impression, and what distinguishes state III from state IV?
medium difficulty· suits a student projectRQ-03What are the plate and sheet dimensions, and does a plate mark survive on any edge?
low difficultyA census of the impressions, not of one impression
27 records of this print in public collections and on the art market, each transcribed from the holding institution’s own published record, each with the source URL against it. Institutions disagree with one another about the state division and the dimensions; where they do, the disagreement is recorded rather than resolved.
It is the part of this project that is useful to someone with no interest at all in a privately held sheet.
Open the census- Rijksmuseum
- Staatsgalerie Stuttgart, Graphische Sammlung
- Victoria and Albert Museum
- Harvard Art Museums / Fogg Museum
- National Gallery of Art
- National Gallery of Victoria
- Statens Museum for Kunst (SMK)
- The British Museum
- The Morgan Library & Museum
- Art Institute of Chicago
- Cleveland Museum of Art
- Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco (Achenbach Foundation for Graphic Arts)
- Herzog Anton Ulrich-Museum
- Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen
- Museum of Fine Arts, Boston
- Princeton University Art Museum
- RISD Museum (Rhode Island School of Design)
- Swann Auction Galleries (sale 2566, 'Old Master Through Modern Prints', 6 May 2021, lot 87)
Recent changes
Full changelog- 2026-08-12
Record published at version 0.9
release
- 2026-08-12
Working record's dimensions flagged as internally inconsistent
correction
- 2026-08-12
Working record's description 'without signature' contradicted by an institutional record
correction
- 2026-08-12
Four-state division for New Hollstein 170 corroborated by two independent sources
new evidence
Available for supervised study and for exhibition loan
To museums, universities and non-profit institutions, subject to conservation review and to the sheet being genuinely relevant to what you are doing. There is no lender fee for scholarly projects.
Study and loan termsBuilt to be reused
Metadata is CC0 1.0 and machine-readable from day one: a read-only JSON API, a IIIF manifest, JSON-LD, CSV and BibTeX exports. Take the data and check it.