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Lot Essay
The Clump of Trees with a Vista is one of the most freely drawn and spontaneous of Rembrandt’s landscape prints, the least anecdotal and most ‘impressionistic’. One of only two executed entirely in drypoint (the other being the Landscape with a Road beside a Canal, circa 1652; B. 221; New Holl. 273), the print exists in two states: of the first, unfinished state only seven impressions in public collections are known and must be considered trial or working proofs. It only shows a few lines of the tall trees at left and some preliminary lines indicating the upper silhouette and some of the trunks of the clump of trees towards the centre of the scene. The little cabin or boathouse in front of the copse is described in more detail, as is the foliage behind it. The plate is larger than in the finished, second state and some first-state impressions are printed with heavy, selectively wiped plate tone. The overall effect is that of a very swiftly drawn sketch. In fact, the landscape and the little cabin may be based on an existing locality and related to a small group of drawings by Rembrandt and his followers (see Hinterding 174a, pp. 411-12; and Schneider, nos. 26 & 28). Already in the first state, the farmhouse to which the little shed belongs is almost entirely hidden by the trees. The actual location of this house under the trees has never been found, but some commentators such as Frits Lugt and Cynthia Schneider have suggested that Rembrandt may have etched the first state in situ. Others, such as L. J. Slatkes and also Adrian Eeles, have disagreed on the grounds that drypoint is too arduous a process to be performed en plein air and argued that the print would have been executed after a drawing in the studio.
In the present second state, Rembrandt elaborated the tall trees at right, added considerable shading and details to the clump of trees, defined the foreground with a low bridge and a few lines to indicate the meadow on which the viewer appears to stand. Further back, a tiny crouching figure, perhaps a woman washing, gives a sense of scale. The far distance is only hinted at in the sparsest possible manner: perhaps a lake with a taller tree and a house beyond, at the horizon. Nearly one half of the sheet is left empty; a masterly example of the artist’s use of blank paper. Most of it is dedicated to a high, open sky, marked only with a light plate tone and a dense layer of fine vertical wiping scratches, which are present in all impressions and very pronounced in the present example, especially at right. As in most of his landscape prints, these subtle, seemingly accidental marks in the sky, which tend to disappear in later impressions, are not descriptive of any real weather phenomena, such as rain or fog, but add substance and depth to the air and atmosphere to the entire scene.
In the present second state, Rembrandt elaborated the tall trees at right, added considerable shading and details to the clump of trees, defined the foreground with a low bridge and a few lines to indicate the meadow on which the viewer appears to stand. Further back, a tiny crouching figure, perhaps a woman washing, gives a sense of scale. The far distance is only hinted at in the sparsest possible manner: perhaps a lake with a taller tree and a house beyond, at the horizon. Nearly one half of the sheet is left empty; a masterly example of the artist’s use of blank paper. Most of it is dedicated to a high, open sky, marked only with a light plate tone and a dense layer of fine vertical wiping scratches, which are present in all impressions and very pronounced in the present example, especially at right. As in most of his landscape prints, these subtle, seemingly accidental marks in the sky, which tend to disappear in later impressions, are not descriptive of any real weather phenomena, such as rain or fog, but add substance and depth to the air and atmosphere to the entire scene.