Why a Rembrandt self-portrait broke a world record

In a bout of furious phone bidding during Sotheby’s Rembrandt to Richter online sale at the end of July, a striking 1632 self-portrait by Rembrandt sold for a colossal £14.5m against an estimate of £12-£16m. The small-scale painting is thought to have been created by the artist when he was just 26 and had moved to Amsterdam in order to establish himself in the art world. The portrait is one of 80 or so paintings and drawings Rembrandt made of himself throughout his life, and shows him clad in a smart black jacket and hat with a white ruff – an outfit more typical of one of his wealthy sitters than the painter himself. This sale set a world-record hammer price for a self-portrait by the Dutch master.

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