He returned to Leyden and for seven years in his father’s house continued a course of self-study. It was based on direct study from life, his models being himself and his relations, and included (where again one may trace the influence of Lucas van Leyden) the practice of etching. The earliest date recorded of any of these products of his needle is 1628, which appears on _An Old Woman’s Head_, _Full Face, seen only to the Chin_, and _Bust of an Old Woman_.[B] In 1624 appeared another dated etching, _Rembrandt, a Bust_, and the following year a series of small plates for which he himself was the model: _Rembrandt with an Open Mouth_; _with an Air of Grimace_; _with Haggard Eyes_, and _Laughing_. These prints give a remarkable clue to a phase of Rembrandt’s personality that has not been sufficiently emphasized. They show that it included the instinct and faculty of an actor; the consciousness that in his body he possessed a muscular instrument capable of expressing the emotions of the mind; and, moreover, the capacity to play upon it. This throws a new light upon the habit, exhibited at intervals throughout his life, of making portraits of himself and frequently in costume. The latter particular is apt to be dismissed as a harmless pleasantry, whereas it should rather be considered extraordinarily suggestive. For he was not merely “dressing up,” but enacting a part in his own person; actually realizing in his body the idea that possessed his mind. That he could do this and needed to do it for the satisfaction of his own mental and physical impulses, helps to explain his extraordinary facility and power as a draftsman. For the virtue of great drawing consists in its quality of expression, in its ability to infuse feeling into a gesture or movement and so correlate the latter to the mood of mind, presumed to be dominating the subject. This virtue cannot be gained at second hand from a model; it must be inherent in the artist himself, and will be efficient according to the degree in which the artist can feel the emotion in himself and is capable of physically expressing it; in a word, to the degree in which he possesses the instinct of an actor. Viewed in this light Rembrandt’s habit of grimacing before a mirror, dressing up and posturing, gives a most illuminating clue to the source of his amazing versatility and capacity of expression as a draftsman. In the same year, 1630, which produced the small prints, appeared also two “serious” etchings of himself; also two Biblical subjects, _Jesus Disputing with the Doctors_ and _The Presentation with the Angel_; and, further, several fine portrait studies. In this year he moved to Amsterdam.