Self-Portrait in a Dress of the 17th Century, study

Albert Edelfelt's self-portrait in seventeenth-century costume reflects the widespread late nineteenth-century fascination with Old Master dress and identity, a mode of self-fashioning in which artists aligned themselves with the golden age of European painting. Edelfelt was deeply admired for his command of historical genres, and adopting Baroque-period attire locates him in the tradition of Rembrandt-era self-portraiture. The study character of the work suggests it was an exploratory exercise in costume and self-presentation. The painting rests at the Ateneum among the artist's surviving sketches and studies, where it illuminates his ongoing dialogue with seventeenth-century Northern painting.

The handling is free and sketch-like: paint is applied with visible spontaneity in the costume details while the face receives somewhat more careful attention. The seventeenth-century dress is suggested through broad strokes of dark fabric and white lace. Warm ground tonality recalls Dutch Old Master practice.