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拍品專文
Arnout Tholinx, Inspector is by far the rarest of Rembrandt's great portrait prints of the 1650s, and the most captivating. Its rarity is such that it has remained little known beyond a small circle of connoisseurs but, as Nick Stogdon so succinctly said, 'once seen, never forgotten.' The impression offered here – arguably the most brilliant of all - is the last to remain in private hands.
Exactly one hundred and one years ago the present sheet was sold in these rooms, and no other example has appeared on the market since. Today’s re-emergence from the Josefowitz Collection is a landmark event in the history of print collecting, and very likely the last opportunity to acquire this magnificent, intriguing and most elusive of Rembrandt's prints.
Before his death in 1846, the English botanist and antiquarian Edward Rudge had decreed that his collection be stored away for two generations, and only released once his heir of the third generation reached adulthood. Thus John Edward Rudge, on his 21st birthday in 1924, came into possession of his great-grandfather's outstanding collection of prints. He contacted Christie's on the very day and Alec Martin, later managing director of the firm, went to the bank and was handed two strongboxes filled with hundreds of fine prints, the Tholinx amongst them. The news of the 'discovery' of this forgotten collection spread quickly, as did that of the reappearance of a Tholinx - which by then had attained the aura of a unicorn amongst collectors and scholars alike. The collection was sold at Christie’s over two days in December 1924. In a sale replete with masterpieces the present sheet sold for £3,760 - then the highest price ever paid for a print at auction. In his review of the auction, Harold Wright of Colnaghi's called the print the 'pièce de resistance, the clou, the gem, the miracle of this collection…' (quoted in: Stogdon, p. 232). History might be repeating itself today!
Rembrandt created the majority of his printed portraits in two distinct periods, around 1639, at the time of the purchase of the large house on Sint Anthoniesbreestraat, and in the 1650s when he got into financial difficulties (see White, p. 113). The portrait of Arnout Tholinx, Inspector belongs to the latter period and marks the highpoint of a small series of exceptionally fine and highly original portraits of friends, acquaintances or patrons, including Jan Lutma and Pieter and Thomas Haaringh (see lots 20, 19, 17 & 18). None of these sitters belonged to the highest echelons of Dutch society, but were well-to-do craftsmen, administrators, collectors and academics, many of whom had personal connections to Rembrandt and to each other. Their commissions of the 1650s may, at least in part, have been motivated by their desire to help the struggling artist. Ever since he had painted the celebrated Anatomy Lesson of Dr Tulp in 1632 (Mauritshuis, The Hague), members of the medical establishment seem to have been particularly loyal to Rembrandt. In 1647, he had painted and etched a portrait of his neighbour, the physician Ephraim Bueno (B. 278; New Holl. 237). That same year he produced a very refined portrait etching of Jan Six (see lot 16), and in 1654 an astonishing painting of the same sitter. Six was married to Margaretha Tulp, daughter of the surgeon Nicolaes Tulp. Arnout Tholinx was also married to a Tulp daughter, Catharina. Six and Tholinx were thus brothers-in-law. The Tholinxes lived next door to Tulp himself, on the Keizersgracht. To complete the circle, when Tholinx retired from his position as inspector of the Medical Colleges of Amsterdam in 1655, he was succeeded by Dr Jan Deijman, the protagonist of Rembrandt's second painting of an anatomy lesson, created in 1656. (The painting was severely damaged in a fire in 1723; the remaining fragment is today at the H’ART Museum in Amsterdam). It was this sophisticated and highly educated milieu which supported Rembrandt and for which the portrait of Arnout Tholinx, Inspector was made.
Although the exact date of the print cannot be determined, we can assume it was shortly preceded by Rembrandt’s painted portrait of the same man, dated 1656, which is today at the Musée Jacquemart-André in Paris. The painting, considerably larger than the oil sketch of Ephraim Bueno (Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam), cannot strictly speaking be considered a preparatory study for the print. Although Rembrandt focused entirely on the sitter's face and wasted no effort on his dress or surroundings, it is too large and 'finished' to have been made for this purpose alone. His features are depicted in rapid but perfectly measured brushstrokes, and would have certainly helped Rembrandt to capture the look and aura of the man. Within the dimensions of a mid-sized etching plate, the pictorial space of the print is more expansive than that of the painting. In the tradition of the Venetian High Renaissance portrait, and very much in line with Rembrandt’s other portraits of the 1650s, Tholinx is shown in a three-quarter-length pose, seated on an armchair (see White, p. 159). The chair with the lion-head finials is the same on which Jan Lutma and the two Haaringhs (see lots 20, 17 & 18, 19) had posed for Rembrandt. The placement of the sitters, as if encountered in their own environment, is thus an illusion and we can assume that it was in fact they who came to the artist’s studio. In the case of Tholinx, Rembrandt presents him seated at a table surrounded by accoutrements of his science: a large, presumably medical book in front of him and a small still-life of medicinal bottles and flasks to his left. Within the platemark but below the image is a border, which was probably reserved for a handwritten dedication by the sitter to the person he gave the print to. Sadly, no such dedicated impression has survived. This also hints at the likely reason for the scarcity of impressions: it is likely that Rembrandt printed only a small number of 'presentation copies', which he then handed over to Arnout Tholinx together with the copper plate. It was never reprinted and the plate itself eventually lost, discarded or destroyed.
What then, apart from its insider reputation as an almost unobtainable rarity, makes the portrait of Arnout Tholinx, Inspector so unforgettable, so miraculous? Scholars of Rembrandt’s prints have been unequivocal in their praise of this print: Stephanie Dickey saw in it ‘the decisive product of a printmaker at the top of his game’ (Dickey, p. 142); Christopher White called it ‘one of the artist’s most superbly pictorial prints, as well as one of his most penetrating studies’ (White, p. 162), and in the eyes of Ger Luijten ‘The Portrait of Arnout Tholinx is an incomparable work of art’ (Luijten, p. 332).
When it came to analyzing the particular qualities of the print, most authors remarked on the use of drypoint and burr on this plate, and it is worth quoting the same three scholars once again. Stephanie Dickey wrote that ‘as early collectors knew, the special value of the Tholinx lies less in its content than in its scarcity and virtuosity. One senses that this portrait came together quite quickly, essentially resolved in the first state and forcefully marked with drypoint.’ (Dickey, p. 142). Despite his superlative accolade of the portrait – and possibly in defence of the Rijksmuseum’s second-state impression - Ger Luijten felt that ‘The impression of the first state exhibited here [the British Museum's impression] has an abundance of drypoint effects, so many in fact that they overshoot the mark and have the effect of spots, or create ambiguity. […] Obviously the accents on the coat suggest texture, but on the left side it looks as if black ink has been poured over his shoulder… In the best impressions of the second state […] this superfluity has been repressed to the benefit of the legibility of particular areas…’ (Luijten, p. 329 & 332). Christopher White, apparently unaware of the existence of the present example, was more appreciative of the first state: ‘Rembrandt turned to a subtle blend of etching and drypoint in his portrait of Tholinx, employing the latter sparingly, but with marvelous effect, to describe the darkest shadows in a rich velvety black, which can only be appreciated to the full in the three [sic!] known impressions of the first state.’ (White, p. 160-161).
It is clear that all three authors were aware of the unusual presence of burr in this print but one feels that both Luijten and White understated its impact or partially misunderstood the artist's intentions. Especially in the presence of the Josefowitz impression, one has a sense that Rembrandt was not only aiming to ‘describe the darkest shadows’ (White) or ‘suggest texture’ (Luijten), but attempting something altogether more radical. The prints of the mid-1650s are testament to Rembrandt's ongoing exploration of three fundamental challenges he set himself throughout his career as a painter and printmaker: the handling of light and shade; the rendering of textures and surfaces; and the evocation of a person's presence and character. The portrait of Arnout Tholinx is the culmination of this life-long development. To take just two examples illustrated in this catalogue, the portraits of Jan Lutma, Goldsmith and of Thomas Haaringh (lots 20, 17 & 18) are both deeply moving depictions of each sitter, conveying a strong sense of their personality and manner. They are also astonishing displays of Rembrandt's masterful handling of light and shade, and his ability to imbue a scene with intangible atmospheric effects. His great discovery of those years is the use of drypoint, which allowed him to create those intense shadows and conjure up a sense of the softness of textiles or fur. In both prints, Lutma and Thomas Haaringh, he makes extensive use of drypoint to suggest deep shadows and velvety textures; and both prints are quite finished, presenting the viewer with a clearly defined space. In the portrait of Arnout Tholinx, his approach is different and more daring.
In 1653 Rembrandt had created the first state of The Three Crosses (see lot 48), which he radically revised in the fourth state in 1655. A year later, he seems to have reconsidered his lessons learned in creating this large, multi-figured scene and applied them, in the portrayal of Arnout Tholinx, to an entirely different genre and format. By working on the huge plate of the Three Crosses entirely in drypoint and leaving large parts of the composition apparently unfinished, he had found a way of evoking a highly emotive vision, full of drama and movement, at the expense of a 'realistic' and precise retelling of the event. The portrait of Tholinx is detailed enough, but the space is undefined apart from the shadows suggestive of an empty wall behind the sitter. More importantly, the purpose of the drypoint here as in The Three Crosses is not mimetic. Although suggestive of surfaces and shadows, the burr here no longer 'imitates' anything. Rather, the areas of rich burr dotted across the figure and his immediate surroundings are employed as visual accents. To point to another example within Rembrandt's later prints, Saint Jerome reading in an Italian Landscape of circa 1653 (see lot 59) is another deliberately ‘unfinished’ print, with what one might call 'excessive' use of drypoint. Here too the burr does not ‘describe’ the lion's mane but directs the gaze of the viewer towards it. In the Tholinx, the scattered marks of burr have a similar effect: they pull the eyes restlessly across the image, thereby energising and vitalising the whole picture plane. As a result, the figure seems alive and moving. Clifford Ackley, never effusive but often the most perceptive of commentators, described this phenomenon precisely: ‘In the first state the touches of drypoint that supplement the etched passages are at the strongest and enliven [!] the image throughout…’ (Ackley, p. 301)
Although far less tumultuous, the portrait is therein akin to the Three Crosses: there is no still point anywhere, except at the very centre of the composition: the body of the dying Christ - and the eyes of the sitter. This is where our glance comes to rest, where we finally lock eyes with Arnout Tholinx, and feel that we are facing him in person. The fact that he has, as it seems, just taken off his reading glasses, looking up from his book to look at us, adds to the vivacity of the scene. Rembrandt makes this a personal encounter, in which the viewer feels as an intruder: we have disrupted the man in his work and he regards us with mild irritation and impatience.
Perhaps more than in any other print, with the possible exception of the Three Crosses, Rembrandt in this unassuming portrait achieved a correlation of form and effect. This is what Charles John Holmes must have thought when he wrote about this print that it 'hits the mean between two ideals - the structural and the atmospheric - with a certainty that gives this perfect print the quality of an elaborate painting without any sacrifice of the quality proper to engraving.' (Holmes, p. 108). It is no coincidence that Holmes and later Ackley, who saw ‘a suggestion of colour’ (Ackley, ibid.) in the rich burr of the first state, both sensed a strong relation between this print and Rembrandt’s painted oeuvre. One might however slightly disagree with Holmes when he compares it to ‘elaborate’ paintings. Rather, the flickering highlights and scattered accents of burr - most pronounced in the present, outstanding impression of the portrait of Arnout Tholinx, Inspector - stem from the same artistic impulse as the broad impasto brushstrokes of Rembrandt’s late style and make it a work of art on par with his finest paintings.
Exactly one hundred and one years ago the present sheet was sold in these rooms, and no other example has appeared on the market since. Today’s re-emergence from the Josefowitz Collection is a landmark event in the history of print collecting, and very likely the last opportunity to acquire this magnificent, intriguing and most elusive of Rembrandt's prints.
Before his death in 1846, the English botanist and antiquarian Edward Rudge had decreed that his collection be stored away for two generations, and only released once his heir of the third generation reached adulthood. Thus John Edward Rudge, on his 21st birthday in 1924, came into possession of his great-grandfather's outstanding collection of prints. He contacted Christie's on the very day and Alec Martin, later managing director of the firm, went to the bank and was handed two strongboxes filled with hundreds of fine prints, the Tholinx amongst them. The news of the 'discovery' of this forgotten collection spread quickly, as did that of the reappearance of a Tholinx - which by then had attained the aura of a unicorn amongst collectors and scholars alike. The collection was sold at Christie’s over two days in December 1924. In a sale replete with masterpieces the present sheet sold for £3,760 - then the highest price ever paid for a print at auction. In his review of the auction, Harold Wright of Colnaghi's called the print the 'pièce de resistance, the clou, the gem, the miracle of this collection…' (quoted in: Stogdon, p. 232). History might be repeating itself today!
Rembrandt created the majority of his printed portraits in two distinct periods, around 1639, at the time of the purchase of the large house on Sint Anthoniesbreestraat, and in the 1650s when he got into financial difficulties (see White, p. 113). The portrait of Arnout Tholinx, Inspector belongs to the latter period and marks the highpoint of a small series of exceptionally fine and highly original portraits of friends, acquaintances or patrons, including Jan Lutma and Pieter and Thomas Haaringh (see lots 20, 19, 17 & 18). None of these sitters belonged to the highest echelons of Dutch society, but were well-to-do craftsmen, administrators, collectors and academics, many of whom had personal connections to Rembrandt and to each other. Their commissions of the 1650s may, at least in part, have been motivated by their desire to help the struggling artist. Ever since he had painted the celebrated Anatomy Lesson of Dr Tulp in 1632 (Mauritshuis, The Hague), members of the medical establishment seem to have been particularly loyal to Rembrandt. In 1647, he had painted and etched a portrait of his neighbour, the physician Ephraim Bueno (B. 278; New Holl. 237). That same year he produced a very refined portrait etching of Jan Six (see lot 16), and in 1654 an astonishing painting of the same sitter. Six was married to Margaretha Tulp, daughter of the surgeon Nicolaes Tulp. Arnout Tholinx was also married to a Tulp daughter, Catharina. Six and Tholinx were thus brothers-in-law. The Tholinxes lived next door to Tulp himself, on the Keizersgracht. To complete the circle, when Tholinx retired from his position as inspector of the Medical Colleges of Amsterdam in 1655, he was succeeded by Dr Jan Deijman, the protagonist of Rembrandt's second painting of an anatomy lesson, created in 1656. (The painting was severely damaged in a fire in 1723; the remaining fragment is today at the H’ART Museum in Amsterdam). It was this sophisticated and highly educated milieu which supported Rembrandt and for which the portrait of Arnout Tholinx, Inspector was made.
Although the exact date of the print cannot be determined, we can assume it was shortly preceded by Rembrandt’s painted portrait of the same man, dated 1656, which is today at the Musée Jacquemart-André in Paris. The painting, considerably larger than the oil sketch of Ephraim Bueno (Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam), cannot strictly speaking be considered a preparatory study for the print. Although Rembrandt focused entirely on the sitter's face and wasted no effort on his dress or surroundings, it is too large and 'finished' to have been made for this purpose alone. His features are depicted in rapid but perfectly measured brushstrokes, and would have certainly helped Rembrandt to capture the look and aura of the man. Within the dimensions of a mid-sized etching plate, the pictorial space of the print is more expansive than that of the painting. In the tradition of the Venetian High Renaissance portrait, and very much in line with Rembrandt’s other portraits of the 1650s, Tholinx is shown in a three-quarter-length pose, seated on an armchair (see White, p. 159). The chair with the lion-head finials is the same on which Jan Lutma and the two Haaringhs (see lots 20, 17 & 18, 19) had posed for Rembrandt. The placement of the sitters, as if encountered in their own environment, is thus an illusion and we can assume that it was in fact they who came to the artist’s studio. In the case of Tholinx, Rembrandt presents him seated at a table surrounded by accoutrements of his science: a large, presumably medical book in front of him and a small still-life of medicinal bottles and flasks to his left. Within the platemark but below the image is a border, which was probably reserved for a handwritten dedication by the sitter to the person he gave the print to. Sadly, no such dedicated impression has survived. This also hints at the likely reason for the scarcity of impressions: it is likely that Rembrandt printed only a small number of 'presentation copies', which he then handed over to Arnout Tholinx together with the copper plate. It was never reprinted and the plate itself eventually lost, discarded or destroyed.
What then, apart from its insider reputation as an almost unobtainable rarity, makes the portrait of Arnout Tholinx, Inspector so unforgettable, so miraculous? Scholars of Rembrandt’s prints have been unequivocal in their praise of this print: Stephanie Dickey saw in it ‘the decisive product of a printmaker at the top of his game’ (Dickey, p. 142); Christopher White called it ‘one of the artist’s most superbly pictorial prints, as well as one of his most penetrating studies’ (White, p. 162), and in the eyes of Ger Luijten ‘The Portrait of Arnout Tholinx is an incomparable work of art’ (Luijten, p. 332).
When it came to analyzing the particular qualities of the print, most authors remarked on the use of drypoint and burr on this plate, and it is worth quoting the same three scholars once again. Stephanie Dickey wrote that ‘as early collectors knew, the special value of the Tholinx lies less in its content than in its scarcity and virtuosity. One senses that this portrait came together quite quickly, essentially resolved in the first state and forcefully marked with drypoint.’ (Dickey, p. 142). Despite his superlative accolade of the portrait – and possibly in defence of the Rijksmuseum’s second-state impression - Ger Luijten felt that ‘The impression of the first state exhibited here [the British Museum's impression] has an abundance of drypoint effects, so many in fact that they overshoot the mark and have the effect of spots, or create ambiguity. […] Obviously the accents on the coat suggest texture, but on the left side it looks as if black ink has been poured over his shoulder… In the best impressions of the second state […] this superfluity has been repressed to the benefit of the legibility of particular areas…’ (Luijten, p. 329 & 332). Christopher White, apparently unaware of the existence of the present example, was more appreciative of the first state: ‘Rembrandt turned to a subtle blend of etching and drypoint in his portrait of Tholinx, employing the latter sparingly, but with marvelous effect, to describe the darkest shadows in a rich velvety black, which can only be appreciated to the full in the three [sic!] known impressions of the first state.’ (White, p. 160-161).
It is clear that all three authors were aware of the unusual presence of burr in this print but one feels that both Luijten and White understated its impact or partially misunderstood the artist's intentions. Especially in the presence of the Josefowitz impression, one has a sense that Rembrandt was not only aiming to ‘describe the darkest shadows’ (White) or ‘suggest texture’ (Luijten), but attempting something altogether more radical. The prints of the mid-1650s are testament to Rembrandt's ongoing exploration of three fundamental challenges he set himself throughout his career as a painter and printmaker: the handling of light and shade; the rendering of textures and surfaces; and the evocation of a person's presence and character. The portrait of Arnout Tholinx is the culmination of this life-long development. To take just two examples illustrated in this catalogue, the portraits of Jan Lutma, Goldsmith and of Thomas Haaringh (lots 20, 17 & 18) are both deeply moving depictions of each sitter, conveying a strong sense of their personality and manner. They are also astonishing displays of Rembrandt's masterful handling of light and shade, and his ability to imbue a scene with intangible atmospheric effects. His great discovery of those years is the use of drypoint, which allowed him to create those intense shadows and conjure up a sense of the softness of textiles or fur. In both prints, Lutma and Thomas Haaringh, he makes extensive use of drypoint to suggest deep shadows and velvety textures; and both prints are quite finished, presenting the viewer with a clearly defined space. In the portrait of Arnout Tholinx, his approach is different and more daring.
In 1653 Rembrandt had created the first state of The Three Crosses (see lot 48), which he radically revised in the fourth state in 1655. A year later, he seems to have reconsidered his lessons learned in creating this large, multi-figured scene and applied them, in the portrayal of Arnout Tholinx, to an entirely different genre and format. By working on the huge plate of the Three Crosses entirely in drypoint and leaving large parts of the composition apparently unfinished, he had found a way of evoking a highly emotive vision, full of drama and movement, at the expense of a 'realistic' and precise retelling of the event. The portrait of Tholinx is detailed enough, but the space is undefined apart from the shadows suggestive of an empty wall behind the sitter. More importantly, the purpose of the drypoint here as in The Three Crosses is not mimetic. Although suggestive of surfaces and shadows, the burr here no longer 'imitates' anything. Rather, the areas of rich burr dotted across the figure and his immediate surroundings are employed as visual accents. To point to another example within Rembrandt's later prints, Saint Jerome reading in an Italian Landscape of circa 1653 (see lot 59) is another deliberately ‘unfinished’ print, with what one might call 'excessive' use of drypoint. Here too the burr does not ‘describe’ the lion's mane but directs the gaze of the viewer towards it. In the Tholinx, the scattered marks of burr have a similar effect: they pull the eyes restlessly across the image, thereby energising and vitalising the whole picture plane. As a result, the figure seems alive and moving. Clifford Ackley, never effusive but often the most perceptive of commentators, described this phenomenon precisely: ‘In the first state the touches of drypoint that supplement the etched passages are at the strongest and enliven [!] the image throughout…’ (Ackley, p. 301)
Although far less tumultuous, the portrait is therein akin to the Three Crosses: there is no still point anywhere, except at the very centre of the composition: the body of the dying Christ - and the eyes of the sitter. This is where our glance comes to rest, where we finally lock eyes with Arnout Tholinx, and feel that we are facing him in person. The fact that he has, as it seems, just taken off his reading glasses, looking up from his book to look at us, adds to the vivacity of the scene. Rembrandt makes this a personal encounter, in which the viewer feels as an intruder: we have disrupted the man in his work and he regards us with mild irritation and impatience.
Perhaps more than in any other print, with the possible exception of the Three Crosses, Rembrandt in this unassuming portrait achieved a correlation of form and effect. This is what Charles John Holmes must have thought when he wrote about this print that it 'hits the mean between two ideals - the structural and the atmospheric - with a certainty that gives this perfect print the quality of an elaborate painting without any sacrifice of the quality proper to engraving.' (Holmes, p. 108). It is no coincidence that Holmes and later Ackley, who saw ‘a suggestion of colour’ (Ackley, ibid.) in the rich burr of the first state, both sensed a strong relation between this print and Rembrandt’s painted oeuvre. One might however slightly disagree with Holmes when he compares it to ‘elaborate’ paintings. Rather, the flickering highlights and scattered accents of burr - most pronounced in the present, outstanding impression of the portrait of Arnout Tholinx, Inspector - stem from the same artistic impulse as the broad impasto brushstrokes of Rembrandt’s late style and make it a work of art on par with his finest paintings.