Rembrandt Harmensz. van Rijn

A fine, early, strong and even impression, printing with light plate tone, with fine diagonal lines in the water at the bottom left; sharp vertical scratches at the left edge centre and many fine vertical lines in the sky. With narrow margins on all sides. The view of a picturesque cottage is a product of the imagination, a capriccio, inspired by the countryside surrounding Amsterdam. Six (1909, p. 96) observed that the scene combines, unrealistically, a view of Kostverloren with a profile of Amsterdam, even though the city would, in reality, have been situated behind the viewer. A drawing in the Louvre, dating to around 1639 and titled Cottage with a Cart and Road, possibly executed en plein air, appears to have served as the starting point for the left-hand side of the composition. This is among the earliest of Rembrandt’s landscape etchings, yet the plate is handled with remarkable confidence. In this richly detailed image, Rembrandt successfully evokes a wide range of textures – thatch, foliage, and water – all rendered with a high degree of finish. Rembrandt’s characteristic inclusion of incidental detail – such as the children by the doorway, the abandoned milk pail and yoke lying by an old cartwheel, and the deteriorating thatch – has led some to suggest an allegorical reading of the plate. While the omnipresent theme of vanitas, so prevalent in seventeenth-century imagery, may indeed have informed his thinking, it remains difficult to determine his intentions with any certainty. It seems likely that he was primarily concerned with issues of representational skill and compositional balance – the very qualities that continue to draw viewers to his work today. A few tiny spots, smoothed vertical centre crease. The corner tips carefully made-up, otherwise in good condition. Very rare!