Landscape with a Cottage and a large Tree (B., Holl. 226; H. 178)

Details

Rembrandt Harmensz. van Rijn
Landscape with a Cottage and a large Tree (B., Holl. 226; H. 178)
etching, 1641, a very good impression showing only slight wear to the dark hatching in the tree trunk, with narrow margins, a repaired area in the sky at upper right, occasional pale foxmarks mostly visible on the reverse, remains of old tape on the reverse (with associated spotting showing through), laid on a thin support
P. 129 x 320 mm., S. 137 x 331 mm.

Provenance

An unidentified stamp, dated 1864 verso.
With P. & D. Colnaghi, London, according to an inscription on th4e backboard.

Special notice

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Lot Essay

Here Rembrandt addresses a subject that had been tackled by other, near-contemporary hands. The juxtaposition of rather dilapidated buildings, complete with a broken wheel in the foreground (a common Vanitas symbol in Dutch landscapes), with an orderly townscape on the horizon might have been a fairly straightforward moral commentary on the fruits of industry and idleness. Both Jacques de Gheyn II (1565-1629) and Jan van de Velde II (1593-1641) painted and engraved images that sharply contrasted virtue and vice in this way. However, Rembrandt is more compassionate, and clearly had much sympathy with the older, bucolic way of life. He was probably preoccupied above all by representational skill and compositional harmony.

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