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Original etching printed in black ink on laid paper bearing a “Foolscap with Five-Pointed Collar” watermark (Ash/Fletcher 19.I.b; Hinterding 2006 I.a.a).
Signed in the plate with the artist’s monogram lower left RHL.f.
A strong and richly printed 17th century/lifetime impression of Bartsch, Usticke and New Hollstein’s second state of three. Characterized by G.W. Nowell-Usticke in his 1967 catalogue Rembrandt Etchings: States and Values as “very uncommon,” and assigned his scarcity rating of “R“ [75-125 impressions extant in that year]. Printed after the addition of the heavy diagonal shading beneath the chair to the left but before the plate was cut down to an oval.
Catalog: Bartsch 343 ii/iii, Hind 52, Biorklund-Barnard 31-8, Usticke 343 ii/iii; New Hollstein 91 ii/iii.
5 3/4 x 5 1/8 inches
In fine condition, trimmed down to the platemark.
Rembrandt’s mother, Neeltgen Willemsdochter Zuytbrouch, daughter of a baker, bore nine children, of which Rembrandt was the eighth. Rembrandt seems to have recorded her features in a number of etchings, this one included. However, there is no documentary evidence that the old lady in these works is indeed Rembrandt’s mother. It was during the 1679 inventory of Clement de Jonghe’s estate that these images were assumed to be depictions of the artist’s mother.
