Christ crucified between the two Thieves. 'The Three Crosses' (B. 78; H. 270)

The history of Rembrandt's copper plates is an engaging subject, but one which has only recently been thought worthy of scholarly research. The appearance of 78 plates on the market in 1993 sparked interest in the prior history not only of these, but of the other 300 or so attributed to the master. As the value of a printing plate lies not in the raw material, but in the design which can be printed and sold, many plates were re-worked, most notably by Watelet and then Basan. Others were re-cycled, as copper plates have always been, either through being knocked-out and re-etched, or, as the support of an oil painting, as was the case with Abraham entertaining the Angels, 1656, (B. 29) sold in these rooms in 1997. The majority, however, have vanished at variouspoints during the intervening three and a half centuries. The plate whcih Rembrandt so famously and so radically revised, left his ownership (whether before or after his death is not clear) and came into the possession of a little known Amsterdam 'plate printer' Frans Carelse (1631/2-83), who added his name, and printed a few impressions. Gordon Nowell-Usticke, the Rembrandt cataloguer and connossieur, in whose collection this impression once was, stated that impressions of the final state are 'very rare'. Eric Hinterding, who has written so revealingly on this topic, knows of just five impressions, including the present one, and one sold in these rooms in 1971