A Beggar with a wooden Leg (B., Holl. 179; H. 12)

Whilst Rembrandt's studies of beggars are generally free from the caricatural aspects of his contemporaries, he did not fall into the opposite trap of over-romanticising them. Here he depicts a beggar pretending to be a cripple by tying one leg behind him. In the inventory of Clement de Jonghe of 1679 the print appears under the title of Capteijn eenbeen (Captain One-leg), perhaps the name of a real-life denizen of the Amsterdam streets.