Rembrandt van Rijn (Dutch 1606-1669)
Artist: Rembrandt van Rijn (Dutch 1606-1669)
Title: Christ Driving the Money Changers from the Temple (1635)
Medium: Drypoint etching on laid watermarked paper
Framed Size: Height 55.5 cm x Width 57.5 cm x Depth 2.5 cm
Image Size: Height 13.8 cm x Width 16.8 cm
Condition: The print has been laid onto fine acid-free Japanese tissue, there are slight losses and restoration to edges, and there is some slight toning to the paper. The print is trimmed close to the plate mark and is in fair condition, slightly raised in the frame at the edges. Framed in a solid oak 19th-century frame with a gold slip, double conservation mats. It is glazed with anti-reflective invisible glass “ArtGlass AR70” which has a UV block of 70% visible light transmission of 99% and a reflection of 1%.
Provenance: Private Collection Sydney
About: Rembrandt van Rijn (1606-1669) was born in Leiden in the Netherlands. During his lifetime, Rembrandt’s immense skill as a printmaker as well as his diverse repertoire of subjects were the main source of his international acclaim. In contrast to Rembrandt’s oil paintings, prints travelled more efficiently, they were light and were relatively cheap to purchase. This allowed them to soon become very popular with collectors not only within the borders of the Netherlands but also throughout Europe, thus expanding the concept of art ownership for the middle class on an international level.
The etching is a composition of the famous Biblical scene, Christ driving the money changers from the Temple (John 2:15). The actual etching is based on a painting of the same title that Rembrandt produced a decade earlier when he was just 19 years of age. The composition centres around Christ’s hand holding a whip in the centre of the image. Christ’s hand and whip are drenched in light, adding contrast is Christ’s face steeped in shadow. The Etching is purposeful in its use of contrast, light and dark, not only from an aesthetic portrayal of chiaroscuro but also from a symbolic biblical sense. Rembrandt has borrowed the figure from Albrecht Durer’s woodcut of the same subject, in the Small Woodcut Passion series (Circa 1508), with the main alteration being the adopted Christ having the pose reversed.
Prints from this period tend to portray a dominance of a linear style, often characterised by vigorous calligraphic energy that subsequently reinforces the movement of the subject. This is a lifetime etching, early state, that has been produced on laid paper bearing the Arms of Amsterdam watermark. Evidence of burr is visible in the rays of light from Christ’s Halo. Collectors markings verso to image, Bartsch number 69.