tondo with wide and narrow gilt edging, the lip with gold blossoms and acanthus leaf tendrils on cobalt blue ground, inside rim with wide bright and matte gold edge, the well with painted bust in diverse shades of brown, light-coloured flesh tones in the face and hands, white headscarf and blouse, gold jewellery, brown fur-lined hood, coat with fur collar and fur sleeves on red-brown background, on the left side of the picture poorly legible painter’s signature and ‘Wien’, diameter 54.5 cm
porcelain, probably Bohemia, unmarked, late 19th century, (Ru)

This tondo was painted after “Rembrandt's Mother”, on oak panel, by Rembrandt Harmensz van Rijn, Leiden 1606-1669 Amsterdam. Trimmed to oval shape 79.5 cm x 61.7 cm, image size 78.8 cm x 60.8 cm x 3 cm. It is signed Rembrandt f. 1639 on the lower left and is preserved in the Kunsthistorisches Museum Vienna, Picture Gallery, Room 18, inv. no. 408.

Provenance:
Moved Bratislava Castle to Vienna in 1772.

Rembrandt, R. Harmensz van Rijn, Dutch painter, draughtsman and etcher, the son of a miller, he attended Latin school and went to university for a short time, was apprenticed in Leiden and in Amsterdam to P. Lastman. In 1631 he married Saskia van Uylenbruch, and purchased a large house (today a museum) in 1639. The prosperity and self-confidence of the successful artist are documented in his self-portraits in fantastic or mythological self-aggrandisement.