A valuable Rembrandt self-portrait heads to auction

New Delhi, June 22 life) Rembrandt has been one of the most recognisable face in art. From sketches of an ambitious and self-confident youth of 22, to detailed and sobering self-depictions of a careworn and? ?prematurely aged old man of 63, the Dutch-born artist recorded his own physiognomy in some 80 paintings, etchings and? ?drawings, documenting his enduring captivation with his own image throughout almost the entire span of his career.

Almost all of Rembrandt's painted self-portraits are by now in major museum collections, and only three? ?remain in private hands. One of these, discovered and sold at Sotheby's in London in 2003, is in the Leiden? ?collection in New York, while another is on long-term loan to the National Gallery of Scotland.

The third - the earliest in date of the three, and in some ways the most revealing - will be offered with an estimate of £12-16 million

( With inputs from IANS )