The Information On: `Rembrandt by Himself'

What Is It?

Rembrandt's late, great self-portrait from the collection of Kenwood House, stars alongside some 30 or so other Rembrandts gathered from around the world and spanning the life and career of art history's most painted face. The National Gallery's exhibition, which also features etchings and drawings, moves from youthful, boastful self-images to the intense and deeply affecting self-scrutiny of his later work.

What They Say About It

"What makes the Rembrandt of the self-portraits an exemplary Me is precisely that he sees the self as something plastic and changeable, sees so many potentialities in one face... In the later ones it's hard to imagine a more commanding pictorial presence. He yields to no one," Tom Lubbock, The Independent.

"I can think of no other room of paintings in the world at this moment (apart from the room of Goya's black paintings in the Prado) so moving and disquieting as the century gallery of the Rembrandt show, containing the self-portraits of the last half of his career," Adrian Searle, The Guardian.

"This unmissable exhibition serves as a cautionary reminder of why we should not simply take his self-portraits at face value," Jane Burton, The Times.

Where You Can See It

Rembrandt by Himself opens today at the National Gallery, Trafalgar Square, London WC2 (0171-839 3321).