Rembrandt was 24 when he painted this self-portrait. It is executed on copper, a material he used for his etchings. Unusually, the artist has employed a ground of white lead covered with gold leaf, probably to impart a greater radiance to the colours. The self-portrait is painted with fine, careful brushstrokes, typical of Rembrandt’s early works, in which he was still strongly influenced by the fijnschilders (“fine painters”) of his native Leiden.