Rembrandt Harmensz. van Rijn

A fine, early impression of this highly important subject, printing richly and darkly, still printing with burr and with deep contrasts in the shadows on the right side. With the diagonals on the back and neck of the ass at the far right but before the Baillie rework; small margins up to 4 mm around the platmark. The etching, created around 1648, is considered one of the principal works in Rembrandt’s graphic oeuvre and was already highly popular during his lifetime. The title Hundred Guilder Print is based on an anecdote which claims that Rembrandt exchanged this sheet for a portfolio of engravings by Raimondi, valued at 100 guilders. Only nine impressions of the first state, printed on Japan paper, are known to have survived. After a few minor revisions, the second state was issued on laid paper. It is assumed that the impressions bearing the Strasbourg Lily watermark were printed between 1650 and 1655, as this watermark also appears on earlier state prints of other works produced during that period. Unlike some of Rembrandt’s other plates that later came into the possession of Basan, this particular printing plate followed a different path after the artist’s death. It remained for a time with the publisher Clement de Jonge, and was brought to England by Greenwood after 1760. From 1775, it can be traced to Captain William Baillie, who heavily reworked the plate and eventually cut it into separate sections. The paper is slightly time-stained; verso with brown spots. A smoothed vertical centrefold. Carefully and inconspicuously remargined along the edges (approx. 1-2 mm), the lower left corner of the verso backened. Remnants of a former mounting in the upper corners, otherwise in very good condition.