Girl with a Basket

Although this endearing etching of a servant girl with a basket has all the charm and immediacy of a life sketch, taken of a person seen in an Amsterdam market and swiftly drawn onto the plate in the moment, it is in fact a work of historical imagination. 'Her clothes are German in origin and were certainly long out of date by Rembrandt’s day. She wears a bodice with front lacing, and around her shoulders she has a typically German sixteenth century garment known as a ‘Goller’ (partlet). An old fashioned sixteenth century wide purse hangs from her belt. The girl wears a flat beret on her head and has a chin-clout around her chin. This is an item of medieval dress that had not been worn in Holland for centuries, but did still form part of German regional costumes’ (Hinterding, 2008, p. 595). A precise source for Rembrandt’s etching has not been identified, though Eric Hinterding cites costume prints of a similar type by Jost Amman (1539-91) and Hans Weigel (1549-77). Examples of the present second state of the etching, with the rough plate edge at left and before the reworking of the shadow on her forehead below the beret, are rare.