Master Copy Detail of Rembrandt Self Portrait 1643

Rembrandt Van Rijn ("of the Rhine") lived a rollercoaster life from modest beginnings, becoming a popular painter of the Dutch emerging middle class while still young, losing his first wife and the one child who lived to adulthood from either the plague or tuberculosis, himself dying bankrupt at 63.  His self portraits done over the span of his life are some of the most evocative and humane of his works; the bold prodigy posing in historic garb transforms into a wiser and sadder man.