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Lot Essay
For Cynthia Schneider, this is 'one of Rembrandt's richest prints, both in technique and content. He achieved here a perfect synthesis of etching, drypoint, and sulphur tinting. As in other landscape prints from 1650-1652, he established the basic framework in etching, and then went over it with drypoint to emphasize key forms and denote areas of light and dark. [...] Rembrandt supplemented the linear shading with the tonal effects created by sulphur tinting. Tone created by this process is visible in the meadow below and to the right of the horse, in the sky above the farmhouse, and in the horizon on the right.' (Schneider, 1990, no. 24, p. 123-124.) Whether or not Rembrandt actually employed sulphur tinting - a method of creating a fine granular tone by applying a corrosive substance to the plate - is a matter of scholarly disagreement. Hinterding and Stogdon were of the opinion that he did not, and that the effect was accidental rather than intentional. Given that it can mainly be observed in Rembrandt's landscape prints (see for example lot 39), usually in the sky, and that it very effectively suggests meteorological phenomena such as clouds, mist or fog - important elements of the Dutch landscape! - this seems too much of a coincidence. Schneider certainly thought that the artist employed this process very deliberately.
The general topography of the print is based on a sketch (Benesch 1226), today at the Ashmolean Museum, Oxford, which shows the haybarn, copse of trees, the road and another small farm building in the background. Naturally, the print depicts the location in reverse and Rembrandt elaborated the composition by adding the distant prospects at left and right, some trees to the other side of the barn, and various anecdotal details such as the figures on the dyke, the shepherd with his animals, and the horse, cows and more sheep on the meadow at right. Most delightfully, the print conjures up a fleeting moment, as the dust rises from the road above the herd, the horse rolls on its back in the grass, and a flock of birds flies over the bay in the far distance at left.
The general topography of the print is based on a sketch (Benesch 1226), today at the Ashmolean Museum, Oxford, which shows the haybarn, copse of trees, the road and another small farm building in the background. Naturally, the print depicts the location in reverse and Rembrandt elaborated the composition by adding the distant prospects at left and right, some trees to the other side of the barn, and various anecdotal details such as the figures on the dyke, the shepherd with his animals, and the horse, cows and more sheep on the meadow at right. Most delightfully, the print conjures up a fleeting moment, as the dust rises from the road above the herd, the horse rolls on its back in the grass, and a flock of birds flies over the bay in the far distance at left.