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Lot Essay
Jan Cornelius Sylvius (1564-1638) was a respected preacher at the Oude Kerk in Amsterdam and a prominent figure in Rembrandt’s personal life. A cousin by marriage to Saskia van Uylenburgh, Sylvius officiated at the couple’s wedding and stood proxy at their betrothal. His theological stature and moral authority made him a natural subject for Rembrandt’s first etched portrait of a person other than himself, produced in 1633. The composition shows Sylvius seated at a table with an open book but his gaze turned inwards, a pose that conveys both intellectual depth and spiritual introspection.
This is a densely worked plate which tends to look rather heavy and flat in later impressions, but the present brilliant, luminous example of the rare first state prints with astonishing nuance and depth. The contrasts are intense yet finely modulated, and the tonal precision of this impression reveal the technical finesse he was already capable of as an etcher, and does justice to the virtuosity of Rembrandt’s early portraiture.
This is a densely worked plate which tends to look rather heavy and flat in later impressions, but the present brilliant, luminous example of the rare first state prints with astonishing nuance and depth. The contrasts are intense yet finely modulated, and the tonal precision of this impression reveal the technical finesse he was already capable of as an etcher, and does justice to the virtuosity of Rembrandt’s early portraiture.