Jan Lievens

A very good impression of this extremely rare print. Trimmed into the white space at top and right. With Wijngaerde's address in the bottom right corner, as required for the third state. This etching of an old man is one of the artist’s extremely rare early works from the series of imaginary heads created around 1630–1632. Lievens and Rembrandt had both apprenticed under Pieter Lastman in Amsterdam and shared a studio in their home town of Leiden from an early stage. During the formative years of his career, Lievens was significantly influenced by Rembrandt. In some of their early works, it is difficult to distinguish the hand of one from the other, as they etched and painted in a similar style. A favourite portrait theme for both artists was ‘Orientalisation’, whereby they added studio props such as headdresses, robes and jewellery to give their subjects an exotic appearance. Rembrandt, in turn, copied this motif by Lievens in the medium of printmaking in 1635, along with two others from the "Oriental Heads" series (New Hollstein Nos. 149–151); see also for lot 308, Rembrandt, in this catalogue. He annotated this example of an Oriental man, facing right, with "Rembrandt geretuckert" (retouched or improved by Rembrandt), cf. Hinterding in The New Hollstein, p. 240). – With isolated small brown spots. Verso paper rubbing in the upper corners, and traces and remnants of an old mount; slight pencil notation on the reverse; otherwise in good condition.