Male Nude, seated and standing ('Het Rolwagentje')

As early as 1631, Rembrandt had created etchings of female nudes (see lot 84), but it was not until 1646 that he turned to the naked male body as a subject for prints. Within short succession, he etched three studies of male nudes, two of single figures (B. 193 & 196; New Holl. 232 & 234) and the present one, showing the naked young man twice, in different poses, with other figures in the background. These three etchings, together with a number of drawings by Rembrandt and his pupils, offer an important insight into the teaching practice at his workshop. Several drawings, including one attributed to Samuel van Hoogstraten (1627-1678) and one by an anonymous pupil which Rembrandt retouched, show the youth, naked apart from a loincloth, standing with his head turned to his right and the left arm leaning on a ledge. Another very closely related, unattributed drawing is at the Albertina, Vienna (Benesch 709). It is the same pose we see in the present etching. These works must have been created during the same life study session, with the pupils presumably sitting in a semi-circle around the model. While the pupils presumably all drew onto paper, it seems likely that Rembrandt drew directly onto the prepared copperplate to sketch the figures. Other drawings show the young man in a variety of poses, sitting on a chair, sitting on a pillow on the ground with one leg stretched out, as he does here in the foreground, or reclining on his back, suggestive of a dead Christ, as in another drawing attributed to Hoogstraten at the British Museum. It has been suggested that for these life study classes Rembrandt's pupils themselves took turns in modelling. This however seems highly unlikely, as the youth depicted twice here and in the other two etchings of male nudes by Rembrandt, as well as in a considerable number of drawings by his pupils, is always the same person. This raises the question of his identity: was he just a boy from the neighbourhood and therefore readily available? Or was it difficult to persuade models to pose naked and therefore easier to stick with the same model, once an arrangement had been found? The same question applies to the series of the etchings of female nudes created about twelve years later, at the end of Rembrandt's career as a printmaker (see lots 87, 88 & 89).
For many years, the relationship between the two figures in the foreground and the scene in the background of this print went unnoticed. However, a walking frame was a common emblem for learning, as an Italian print of the 16th century, attributed to Girolamo Faccioli, demonstrates: it shows an old man in a walking frame beneath a text scroll reading ANCHORA IMPARO ('I am still learning'). As a backdrop to the two life studies, this lightly etched and seemingly incidental domestic scene was undoubtedly intended as an exhortation to young artists that they can only master their art by constant practice. Male Nude, seated and standing thus served a lesson to Rembrandt's pupils, both practically and metaphorically.
The present impression is a fine example of the rare first state, which still shows the technical imperfections such as foul-biting and blank patches which occurred in this plate, which lend it the 'unfinished', sketchy charm of a drawing.