One of the last privately owned Rembrandt self-portraits up for auction with Sotheby's

One of only three privately held self-portraits by Rembrandt is set to be put up for auction by Sotheby’s.

The painting – Self-portrait, wearing a ruff and black hat – will be offered on July 28 expectation to sell for £12-16 million.

It will be available alongside a number of other works by Old Masters, including a view of Dresden by Bernardo Bellotto, as well as a collection of Impressionist & Modern Contemporary and Modern British works.

The self-portrait’s creation dates to the end of 1632, when he was beginning to enjoy commercial success as an artist in Amsterdam. Experts have been able to pinpoint its point of origin by Rembrandt’s distinctive signature, one he very briefly employed and used to sign another masterpiece The Anatomy Lesson of Dr. Nicolaes Tulp, which was painted at the same time. There has also been analysis of the panel on which it is painted, showing it to be from the same Baltic oak tree as another picture from that precise time period.

Sotheby’s co-chairman of Old Master Paintings Worldwide said: “Rembrandt’s face is instantly recognizable to us at every stage of his adulthood – far more so than any other painter. In each self-portrait he reveals as much of himself as he chooses to, but always in his unique fluency in the handling of paint.

“We know that this painting was created in a remarkably short period of time, because he laid in the background first, but when he signed it upon completion, the background was still wet, so the signature is impressed into it by his brush.”