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Lot Essay
Aside from the painted double portrait of Rembrandt as the Prodigal Son and Saskia as a whore (Dresden, Gemäldegalerie) - which can hardly be categorised as simple portraiture - this is the only image Rembrandt created as testimony to his marriage to Saskia.
'This etching with husband and wife is not a domestic scene, but an allusion to the significance of marriage to the artist and his art. Love as the nourishing source of artistic creativity is a common theme in literature of the 16th and 17th centuries - a theme encapsulated by the Dutch motto Liefde baart kunst (Love brings forth art). 17th century Dutch painters depicted this motto in family and double portraits, but this is a unique treatment of the subject in 17th century printmaking.'
(Rembrandt by himself, ed. Chistopher White and Quentin Buvelot, National Gallery, London, 1999, cat. 46, pp. 162).
'This etching with husband and wife is not a domestic scene, but an allusion to the significance of marriage to the artist and his art. Love as the nourishing source of artistic creativity is a common theme in literature of the 16th and 17th centuries - a theme encapsulated by the Dutch motto Liefde baart kunst (Love brings forth art). 17th century Dutch painters depicted this motto in family and double portraits, but this is a unique treatment of the subject in 17th century printmaking.'
(Rembrandt by himself, ed. Chistopher White and Quentin Buvelot, National Gallery, London, 1999, cat. 46, pp. 162).