Because some people think his earlobe looks “deformed” in self-portraits, some people believe that Rembrandt (as in the artist), suffered from a “botched ear piercing“, but I think that story is probably bunk and I don’t see evidence of it in his self portraits. In fact, the only self portrait that I know of that clearly and without ambiguity shows a pierced lobe is his self-portrait done in 1650, not long after his wife and two children died, and a few years before his bankruptcy and then death and burial in an unmarked grave. During that period he also painted other men (such as his portrait of Aristotle) with earrings… maybe his depression put him on a piercing kick, ha?