Rembrandt  Harmensz. van Rijn (1606-1669), The Sleeping Herdsman, 1643-44, etching and engraving, Bartsch, Hollstein 189, Hind 207, only state. In excellent condition, with small margins all around, 4 1/8 x 2 1/4, the sheet 4 5/16 x 2 1\2 inches.

Provenance:

Kennedy Galleries (with their stock number, a66794, verso)

Albertina, Vienna (with their duplicate stamp verso, Lugt 5g)

A very good/fine impression, crisply printed with the lines on the forehead of the boy distinct and burr discernible on the shading near the right border to the right of the sleeping shepherd.

Nowell-Eusticke noted that this is a “rare little plate” (RR+); the plate is not in existence and posthumous impressions are not known.

This was one of a small number of prints, each rare and probably just for limited distribution to his friends,  Rembrandt made of salacious subjects (including The Flute Player, A Man Making Water, A Woman Making Water, The Monk in the Cornfield).  Here a young couple engage in sexual play while an old shepherd just to their left covers his eye and (perhaps!) sleeps; a cow looks on.

Rembrandt Sleeping Shepherd - Detail

Rembrandt  Harmensz. van Rijn (1606-1669), The Cavalry Fight, etching, ca. 1632. Reference: Bartsch 117 [unsigned, undated], second state (of 2), in good condition, 4 3/16 x 3 1/4 inches.

Provenance: ex. Coll Earl of Aylesford, London and Packington (Lugt 58). One of the most distinguished Rembrandt collections.

A fine clear impression of this very rare little plate.  (The plate is not known to have survived Rembrandt.)

Rembrandt van Rijn (1606-1669), Three Oriental Figures (Jacob and Laban), etching, 1642, [signed and dated in reverse in the plate].h: 5.8 x w: 4.4 in / h: 14.7 x w: 11.2 cm

References: Bartsch, Hollstein 118, second state of two. In very good condition, two tiny (oil?) dots in matrix, with thread margins all around. With a Seven Provinces watermark (characteristic of numerous lifetime impressions of Rembrandt prints). Archival mounting.

Provenance: J.B. de Graaf (Lugt 1120), with the chop mark recto bottom edge

A very fine clear impression, with the drypoint work at the right of the porch, the man’s hat at center, and the pointing hand clear, with faint traces of burr on the latter. Still with lines in the sky. This is not an uncommon print, but it is unusual to encounter the Three Oriental Figures in such a fine impression.

In the second state light drypoint work was added to the foliage at the right opposite the porch and elsewhere, but the essential composition was unchanged from the first state.

A very fine early impression, with substantial burr from the drypoint work, especially in the tree at the right but also in the boat, shoreline and ground toward the left.

Provenance: Collection of Otto Schaefer, sold in his sale of Rembrandt prints at Sothebys New York May 13 1993, lot 71.  The sale of Dr. Schaefer’s collection was a landmark event in the history of great collections of Rembrandt prints coming onto the market, perhaps never to be equaled again as such high quality prints become increasingly unobtainable.

Nowell-Eusticke notes that this is “A scarce little landscape”; rating it “R+” (“R” is “scarce or very uncommon”).  Impressions with much burr such as this one are quite early, since the burr is known to wear off after a few dozen impressions are made.

Rembrandt appears to have made only the basic structure of the print, with some details (such as a series of compartments in the boat) in etching; then he worked the plate with the drypoint needle to give this appealing composition rich complexity and atmosphere – its shadows, the rich foliage in the tree, the cross hatching in the field, the dark and light patches of grass along the river bed.

Rembrandt van Rijn (1606-1669), Christ Carried to the Tomb, etching and drypoint, 1645. Reference: Bartsch 84, only state [signed in the plate].  In good condition apart from a repaired tear at the plate mark (weakened when printed on the unburnished plate and continuing in the margin lower left), with unusually wide margins, on an old laid paper with a Foolscap with Five Pointed Collar watermark (cf. Hinterding 231, dated to about 1651). 5 1/4 x 4 3/8, the sheet 7 1/4 x 6 1/4 inches, archival matting with window mat.

A fine clear impression, with a few touches of burr at bottom left and on figures.  We estimate that this fine lifetime impression was printed (consistent with the watermark) somewhat after the earliest printings. Rembrandt ordinarily printed plates over the course of a long period. This print is rare; there are no records of posthumous printings of this plate, and the plate is not known to have existed after Rembrandt’s death.

In this stately funeral procession the stretcher bearers carry the body holding strips of cloth that loop around their shoulders and pass under the stretcher to support it. They move toward a rocky tomb - the cave on the left, where women mourners can be seen in this impression through a weave of cross-hatching which tends to obscure them. The cave was provided by the wealthy Joseph of Arimathea – all four evangelists describe his claiming of Christ’s body, his wrapping of the body in fine linen, and its burial in the cave/tomb.

Provenance:

Ex. Coll: Georg Rath (Lugt 1206)

H. Weber (Lugt 1383)

G. Bjorklund (Lugt 1138c)

A fine, strong sharp and clear impression.

Cataloguers White and Boon, Hind and Nowell Eusticke refer to square corners (as found in this impression) as characterizing the early first state impressions.  But in the recent (2000) volume Rembrandt the Printmaker Hinterding et al identify a new first state (cf. catalogue number 74) in which dots appear above the child, to be burnished in the next state, and the man at the right turning has yet to have his rounded shoulder straightened. And in their (Amsterdam) impression this new first state also has rounded corners.  In the present impression the dots above the child have been mostly burnished, the shoulder straightened, there is evidence of burnishing next to the “turning man,”  and the corners are square. (The rounded corners issue is not referred to in the Hinterding volume.) So given the latest research, this impression would be a second state after the newly discovered first. (I must confess that I find it odd that this new first state has rounded corners, which become square in the second state, then rounded again in the last state – how is this physically possible?!)

In White and Boon’s final (second) state the blank spaces in the upper middle and the upper far left were filled in; Hinterding et al note that that is probably a posthumous state, and that all the watermarks found in the White and Boon second state impressions have been posthumous.

The literature on Rembrandt watermarks indicates that the Foolscap watermark  was found frequently on Rembrandt prints printed (by him) at about 1650.

The iconography for this print is a bit unusual, for generally the circumcision of Christ was depicted in a Temple, and indeed Rembrandt showed the circumcision in a Temple in an earlier etching, and in a drawing and a (now lost) painting. But theologians have pointed out that it was forbidden for a newborn’s mother to enter a Temple for 40 days after giving birth.

The strong shadowing lines at the right recall the dramatic lines of Rembrandt’s drypoint the Three Crosses, done the prior year.

Rembrandt Harmensz. Van Rijn (1606-1669), The Artist’s Mother Seated at a Table Looking Right: Three-Quarters-Length, etching, c. 1631 [signed in the plate left]. References: Bartsch, Hollstein 343, Hind 52. White Boon II (of III),  before the plate was cut down to an oval. In very good condition, with thread margins; faint stain upper edge, minor thin spot lower left corner reverse, 150 x 133 mm; 5 15/16 x 5 1/4 inches, archival matting.

A fine early example, with the exquisite detailing of the face and hands especially distinct, and the extensive etching and cross-hatching lines on her fur-trimmed coat,  headscarf and chair black and clear.

Provenance: Kupferstichkabinett det Staatliche Museen, Berlin (L. 1633), with sale stamp (L. 2482)

ex Collection: Adam Gottlieb Thiermann, Berlin (Lugt 2434)

The first state of this print is known in only one impression, in Amsterdam. In the second state Rembrandt added lines strengthening the shadows to the left and under the chair.

Erik Hinterding (Rembrandt The Printmaker) has illuminated the stages Rembrandt  traversed in creating this print. He must have started with the head, creating the details from life directly onto the plate; then added the rest of the figure later. It is apparent that the scarf, for example, is more deeply bitten than the face, and appears darker. After completing the scarf, coat, skirt and chair he bit the plate in acid; later he added the table at the right. One can see that the table was added later because the figure of the skirt is still evident on the face of the table, but of course the table would hide the skirt if it were made at the same time.  Rembrandt must have felt that the first state of the print was a bit unbalanced, however, with the dark table forcing the eye to the bottom right. So he added some lines darkening the shadows below and to the left of the chair; he did these in burin so he would not need to re-etch the plate. All this elaborate layering and detail is quite clear in an examination of this splendid impression.

Rembrandt Harmenz. Van Rijn (1606-1669), Christ Driving the Money Changers from the Temple, etching and drypoint, 1635 [signed and dated in the plate]. References: Bartsch 69, White/Boon first state (of 2); Nowell-Usticke first state (of 7). In excellent condition, trimmed outside of the borderline inside the platemark all around, 5 7/16 x 6 3/4 inches, archival mounting.

A superb black impression, with exquisite detailing.  Although common in worn, clotted late impressions, lifetime impressions of this quality (as attested to by the distinguished provenance shown below) are of the utmost rarity.

Printed on old laid paper with a Strasbourg Bend variant A.c. watermark; this watermark is also found in the fine impression of the same print in the Museum of Fine Arts Boston collection (#151, the show Rembrandt’s Journey, MFA, Boston).

Provenance:

Johann Andreas Boerner, Nuremberg (Lugt 269) with an inscribed date of 1815

Wilhelm Edouard Drugulin, Leipsiz (Lugt 2612)

Dr. August Strater, Aachen (Lugt 787)

P. von Baldinger-Seidenberg, Stuttgart (Lugt 212)

Frederick Keppel and Co., New York

The etching shows the state of pandemonium in the Temple as Christ, in a scene described by all four evangelists, drives out the moneychangers, wielding a “scourge of small cords” (John 2: 15). In the Temple Christ had found “money changers sitting” as well as those who sold “oxen and sheep and doves”; in the print we can see a man being dragged across the floor by an ox at the right, another diving after a dove (lower right). As his bench falls over a man grasping a bag of money looks up at Christ; at the end of the table change falls to the floor. At the left men finish up their trading, one carries a basket of doves on his head as he and others rush out. In the background, in peaceful contrast to the foreground riot, a religious service – perhaps a Bar Mitzvah (a small boy prays before a group of men) - continues unabated.

Rembrandt borrowed the figure of Christ from Durer’s engraving of the same subject (in the Small Passion); it is a close reverse copy. In the engraving light emanates from a candle; in Rembrandt’s etching the light comes from Christ’s raised hand.

Rembrandt, Harmenz Van Rijn (1606-1669), Christ Preaching (La Petite Tombe), etching, burin and drypoint, c. 1652. References: Bartsch, Hollstein 67, Hind 256, only state; Nowell Usticke’s first state (early) of three.  In excellent condition, with small margins all around, a tiny tear on left lower margin, some nicks in lower left margin, very faint foxing. On a thin laid paper, 6 1/8 x 8 1/8 inches.

A fine balanced “black sleeve” impression, with strong burr on the drypoint, especially on the sleeve and garment of the man at the left, the garment of Christ, the arch, the wall and column upper right, beard of the man upper left, etc.

Provenance: Gerd Rosen, Berlin, sale 23 (1954), lot 1986

Dr. Otto Schäfer, Schweinfurt (with his stamp verso, not in Lugt)  his sale, Sotheby’s New York, May 13, 1993, lot 21

Exhibits (and Publications):

Radierungen von Rembrandt in Ingelheim am Rhein, exhibition Ingelheim 1964, cat. no. 13

Kunst und Können. Drei Graphische Techniken und ihre Meister aus der Sammlung Otto Schäfer, exhibition Martin von Wagner Museum der Universität Würzburg / Städtische Sammlungen Schweinfurt, 1985-86, p. 240, cat. no. R-25, p. 241 ill.

The early impressions of La Petite Tombe are sometimes referred to as “black sleeve” impressions because of the burr on the sleeve of the man standing left front, which creates a black effect; in later impressions this area whitens. In such impressions there is also burr on the beard of the man in the top left corner, and on Christ’s garments.

Rembrandt printed impressions of La Petite Tombe on both European papers (as in our example) and Japan papers. The latter, which tend to be less absorbent, produce washlike patches of tone where the drypoint burr would otherwise be absorbed by the paper, and the resulting look is painterly, soft and fluid. The European paper impressions have a clearly defined, structural, architectural look.  This impression is particularly well balanced, adding to the sense of calm reflectiveness among the listeners (as well as the child playing in the foreground).