A Beggar in a High Cap, standing and leaning on a Stick

In the years 1630-1631, before he moved to Amsterdam for the second time, Rembrandt concentrated his printmaking efforts on studies of beggars and other street characters. Unlike many of his predecessors and contemporaries Rembrandt did not stress their physical deformities or impoverished circumstances, or display the slightest sign of any amusement or censoriousness at their misfortune. Instead he showed these outcasts in a manner imbued with human understanding. In the earliest sheets these beggars are executed in a swift, sketchy way reminiscent of Jacques Callot, whose beggar series Les Gueux of 1622 seems to have been one of his sources of inspiration.

The impression in the British Museum is very similar but cleanly wiped while the present impression shows some tone which Rembrandt may have left deliberately on the beggar's rags.