Self-portrait with Saskia, Busts (II/IV)

On 22 June 1634 Rembrandt married Saskia van Uylenburgh, the niece of his art dealer Hendrick van Uylenburgh. Born in August 1612, she was six years younger than Rembrandt and came from a wealthy family in Leeuwarden in Friesland. Between 1635 and 1640 Saskia gave birth to two girls and a boy who all died in infancy. Finally, in 1641 she gave birth to another boy, Titus, the only child who survived into adulthood.

Rembrandt is very much the protagonist in this double portrait of himself and Saskia from 1636. He has depicted himself in a very detailed manner in the foreground, holding a drawing instrument and looking out at the viewer. Given Rembrandt's more active pose and Saskia's more passive demeanour, positioned in the background, perhaps with this etching Rembrandt is showing himself in the act of drawing his wife.