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Lot Essay
The setting for this intriguing work is a peninsula bordered on one side by the Amstel River, known then and now as De Omval, after a ruin that had once stood there (omvallen means 'falling down' in Dutch). It is directly south of the centre of Amsterdam and would have been familiar to Rembrandt from his many walks beyond the bounds of the old city. Apart from this important etching, he sketched this location in at least three drawings, all from the early 1650s.
The scenery is complex, almost busy, as one’s eye shifts from the prospect of a shipyard and a windmill on the far bank, to the enigmatic figure with a stylish hat seen from behind in the middle ground, and finally to the ancient, gnarled tree in the foreground to the left. Easily overlooked are the two lovers hidden in the dense foliage to the left of the tree’s base. Cynthia Schneider, amongst other commentators, linked hidden erotic subjects to events in the artist’s personal life during the early 1640s. Shortly after the death of his wife Saskia in 1642, Rembrandt had an affair with his son Titus' nursemaid Geertje Dircx, who was soon succeeded both as nanny and lover by Hendrickje Stoffels (Schneider, 1990, pp. 196-9). It is also possible that this was known as a meeting place for lovers, at the edge of town and with less of a risk of being seen, and that the artist's local contemporaries would have understood the reference and found it amusing.
Either way, we can agree with Schneider that with this print 'Rembrandt combined the idyllic and the industrial, the rural and the urban, to create a thoroughly modern pastoral. The couple, lost in their own world, provide a poignant counterpart to Rembrandt's slice of Amsterdam scenery… In The Omval he literally created a Dutch Arcadia.’ (ibid.)
The scenery is complex, almost busy, as one’s eye shifts from the prospect of a shipyard and a windmill on the far bank, to the enigmatic figure with a stylish hat seen from behind in the middle ground, and finally to the ancient, gnarled tree in the foreground to the left. Easily overlooked are the two lovers hidden in the dense foliage to the left of the tree’s base. Cynthia Schneider, amongst other commentators, linked hidden erotic subjects to events in the artist’s personal life during the early 1640s. Shortly after the death of his wife Saskia in 1642, Rembrandt had an affair with his son Titus' nursemaid Geertje Dircx, who was soon succeeded both as nanny and lover by Hendrickje Stoffels (Schneider, 1990, pp. 196-9). It is also possible that this was known as a meeting place for lovers, at the edge of town and with less of a risk of being seen, and that the artist's local contemporaries would have understood the reference and found it amusing.
Either way, we can agree with Schneider that with this print 'Rembrandt combined the idyllic and the industrial, the rural and the urban, to create a thoroughly modern pastoral. The couple, lost in their own world, provide a poignant counterpart to Rembrandt's slice of Amsterdam scenery… In The Omval he literally created a Dutch Arcadia.’ (ibid.)