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拍品专文
This is one of the rarest of Rembrandt’s large landscape etchings, despite the fact that Rembrandt took this plate through four different states.
While the artist in his etched landscapes often deviated from the exact appearance of any specific location, this plate actually began as a remarkably precise record of an existing building, namely the building with the tower at right. In the very rare first and second states, the tower is taller and topped with a slightly exotic cupola and a short spire. It was precisely those characteristics which allowed I. Q. van Regteren Altena (1899-1980) to identify the house as that of the tax collector Jan Uytenbogaert, located on the Amstelveenseweg in the south-western outskirts of Amsterdam (Hinterding, 2008, p. 416). Curiously, either for compositional or commercial reasons, Rembrandt then changed the appearance of the tower in the third state by burnishing out its upper parts, thereby obliterating the true depiction of the place.
Although always interested in meteorological and atmospheric effects, Rembrandt in his landscapes usually refrained from depicting the sky with etched lines. Exceptions are the tiny, early Small Grey Landscape (lot 39) and the famous Three Trees (see lot 17, Old Masters Part I). Generally, he preferred plate tone, wiping marks or sulphur tinting to depict such ethereal phenomena as clouds, mist or rain. In the present landscape however, he aimed for stronger weather effects and covered the left side and part of the lower sky with etched lines to indicate clouds and wind. The trees at left are still overcast and dark, while the rest of the copse and the buildings are bathed in sunshine. The effect is that of the sun suddenly breaking through receding rain clouds. The general idea is not dissimilar from The Three Trees, in which the etched clouds and engraved streaks of rain are even more prominent. The present plate is more understated, less dramatic and allegorical. The almost blank foreground, so evocative of a meadow in bright sunlight, is one of the sparsest - and loveliest – passages in all of his landscape prints. Clifford Ackley remarked on Rembrandt's extraordinary ability to make us see something where there is, in fact, nothing: 'This radical, suggestive use of blank paper as light and space is still one of the most striking characteristics of Rembrandt's drawings and prints.' (Ackley, 2004, p. 14)
While the artist in his etched landscapes often deviated from the exact appearance of any specific location, this plate actually began as a remarkably precise record of an existing building, namely the building with the tower at right. In the very rare first and second states, the tower is taller and topped with a slightly exotic cupola and a short spire. It was precisely those characteristics which allowed I. Q. van Regteren Altena (1899-1980) to identify the house as that of the tax collector Jan Uytenbogaert, located on the Amstelveenseweg in the south-western outskirts of Amsterdam (Hinterding, 2008, p. 416). Curiously, either for compositional or commercial reasons, Rembrandt then changed the appearance of the tower in the third state by burnishing out its upper parts, thereby obliterating the true depiction of the place.
Although always interested in meteorological and atmospheric effects, Rembrandt in his landscapes usually refrained from depicting the sky with etched lines. Exceptions are the tiny, early Small Grey Landscape (lot 39) and the famous Three Trees (see lot 17, Old Masters Part I). Generally, he preferred plate tone, wiping marks or sulphur tinting to depict such ethereal phenomena as clouds, mist or rain. In the present landscape however, he aimed for stronger weather effects and covered the left side and part of the lower sky with etched lines to indicate clouds and wind. The trees at left are still overcast and dark, while the rest of the copse and the buildings are bathed in sunshine. The effect is that of the sun suddenly breaking through receding rain clouds. The general idea is not dissimilar from The Three Trees, in which the etched clouds and engraved streaks of rain are even more prominent. The present plate is more understated, less dramatic and allegorical. The almost blank foreground, so evocative of a meadow in bright sunlight, is one of the sparsest - and loveliest – passages in all of his landscape prints. Clifford Ackley remarked on Rembrandt's extraordinary ability to make us see something where there is, in fact, nothing: 'This radical, suggestive use of blank paper as light and space is still one of the most striking characteristics of Rembrandt's drawings and prints.' (Ackley, 2004, p. 14)