Portrait of a Young Man - Self-Portrait?

In the 1640s Christopher Paudiss worked in the studio of Rembrandt van Rijn and later on, he achieved fame as an author of large moralizing rustic scenes. His few portraits include the Prague one, which was created during the painter´s sojourn in Vienna between 1661 and 1662 and ranks among his most successful. This is almost certainly the painter himself, represented after Rembrandt´s model in a beret with plumes and a tunic, which from the 16th century were popular in the depictions of scholars and philosophers. Thus he expressed that painting is more than a craft. The young man´s mouth is halfopen as if he was talking and accompanied his speech by an urgent gesture of his left hand. Obviously, Paudiss has involved yet another statement in this painting. The half-open mouth expresses the fact that a painting can speak without the use of words, in the spirit of Horace´s ut pictura poesis (poems are like pictures). The gesture of his hand can find explanation in emblematic literature - (more specifically, in the Iconology by Cesare Ripa, emblem no. 42: Poverty presses, yet my talent supports me) - most probably reflects Paudiss´s complicated personal situation.