Rembrandt was one of the most important and influential artists of the Baroque. As a painter, etcher and draughtsman, he focused on religious and mythological themes, landscapes and portraits. Already during his lifetime, his paintings reached the whole of Europe by means of prints and copies. In the course of his life, Rembrandt produced about eighty self-portraits (paintings, drawings, etchings). On 29 June 1669, Cosimo III de' Medici himself bought a self-portrait from Rembrandt for the Uffizi collection. The effigy, which is still in the Uffizi Gallery, was the model for the present painting by Roland Schauls.