Rembrandt Harmensz. van Rijn

A very fine impression of the only state, with deep, rich shadows and slight touches of burr in the curtains above. Trimmed on or just inside the platemark on three sides, slightly within at the top.
Rembrandt held life-drawing sessions for his students at his home on Sint Anthoniesbreestraat. The students and their master sat in a semicircle around the model, and the various sketches even allow us to reconstruct where each artist was positioned in relation to the model and to one another. During the lessons, Rembrandt occasionally corrected his students’ drawings, while he himself, at least in some cases, appears to have drawn his own versions directly onto an etching plate, including the present one. (See Hinterding, 2000, pp. 213–217.) It has been theorized that the young man posing might have been a student himself, but the sheer number of studies of him and the fact that no other person appears in nude studies from this period suggest that he was hired as a model. Twelve years later, Rembrandt appears to have hired another person, this time a woman, as a nude model. The outcome was four late, magnificent etchings of the same unknown woman, including "Woman Seated Half-Dressed by a Stove" (see the following lot in this catalogue). – Verso retouched in a few small spots. Restoration in the lower corners and the upper left corner, otherwise in good condition.