Rembrandt Harmensz. van Rijn

Details

Rembrandt Harmensz. van Rijn

Christ preaching ('La Petite Tombe') (B., Holl. 67; H. 256; BB 52-2)

etching with drypoint, circa 1652, an extremely fine, carefully wiped 'black sleeve' impression, rich with burr, on fine laid paper, with a Foolscap watermark, with margins (unusually wide at the bottom), a tiny and lightly backed pinhole above the arch upper right, an associated thin area on the reverse, with a pen and ink borderline close to the sheet edges and well away from the subject, three pencil numbers in the margins and on the reverse, old paper hinges at the reverse sheet edges, in very good condition
P. 155 x 207mm., S. 175 x 215mm.

Provenance

A. S Vlassoff (L. 2706)
F. Gawet (cf. L. 1069, 1070) according to an inscription on the old mount
S.S. Scheikevitch (L. 2367): A. Danlos, Paris, 24-28 May 1910, this impression cited by Lugt as 'une magnifique épreuve de la Petite Tombe' (7,000 francs)
A.M. Champernowne (cf. L. 153), according to an inscription on the old mount; Sotheby's London, 1 February, 1911
with P&D Colnaghi Co., June 1911
F. D. Rinder, and thence by descent to the present owner

Lot Essay

"...It is as if the artist has sought to visualize not a physical event but the very essence of human values at the heart of Christ's teachings to depict physically in a scene of the utmost intimacy the most exalted and spititual of human experiences..." (Hilliard T. Goldfarb, A Humanist Vision, The Adolph Weil, Jr. Collection of Rembrandt Prints, Hood Museum of Art, Dartmouth College, 1988)

The present impression is comparable, with the three 'Black Sleeve' examples on laid paper in the British Museum although it is printed fractionally darker in the shadows in the background

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