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circa 1631; Amsterdam
Overview
During his lifetime, Rembrandt's extraordinary skills as a printmaker were the main source of his international fame. Unlike his oil paintings, prints travelled light and were relatively cheap. For this reason, they soon became very popular with collectors not only within, but also beyond the borders of the Netherlands, and it also explains why, three centuries later, they were affordable for Wellington collector and philanthropist Sir John Ilott, who presented 37 Rembrandt prints to the National Art Gallery between 1952 and 1969.
In this portrait of an Old Man with a Beard, Fur Cap, and Velvet Cloak, Rembrandt shows off his virtuosity as an etcher, handling different surface textures and their light reflections in a masterly fashion.
An old man, seen in half-length portrait, is sitting in a chair with a heavy velvet cloak draped around his shoulders. Rembrandt depicts the fabric's soft folds and luxurious sheen by blending fine parallel lines and cross-hatchings, accentuated by a few highlights. A bulky fur cap casts a dark shadow on his face. The light, falling in from the right side, lingers on the man's long, frizzy beard and his frail right hand, resting on his stomach.
In Charles Henry Middleton's catalogue of Rembrandt's etchings of 1878, he observed that this etching seemed to be the pendant of The Artist's Mother Seated at a Table (Bartsch 343). He based this assumption on their similarities in size, technique and signature, and speculated that the man might be Rembrandt's father, adding, however, that the costume was more reminiscent of a rabbi than a 'quiet burgher'. The etching is usually dated around 1632, but as we know that the artist's father died in 1630, the face we see is probably not his (unless, of course, it was a posthumously produced portrait). The same model appears in several other prints and paintings but has not been firmly identified.
Prints (and paintings) of this kind are known as as tronies, the Dutch word at the time for a face. Typically these are heads or busts only, concentrating on the facial expression, but often half-length when featured in an exotic costume. Tronies might be based on studies from life or use the features of actual sitters. Both paintings and prints of this kind were sold on the art market without identification of the sitter, and were not commissioned and retained by the sitter as portraits normally were. Rembrandt's tronies were among his most popular and widely imitated prints.
There are striking similarities in the way the tronie prints were executed. The man's beard beneath the mouth is less heavily etched than the face itself. There are a few fine lines in the face, indicating that the image we see now conceals an earlier, more lightly bitten version. Here, too, Rembrandt probably started with the head, although in this case the headdress was envisaged right from the start, as no trace of the man's head can be seen under the fur cap.
Continuing with the rest of the figure, Rembrandt focused mainly on the fabric and texture of the coat, and achieved a more convincing result than in the Self-portrait in a soft-brimmed hat and patterned cloak, which he had etched slightly earlier. He captured the feel of the velvet and the folds of the heavy coat, using a combination of cross-hatching and parallel lines, and highlights with little or no shadow. At this stage, even after Rembrandt had bitten the plate in acid, the man's chest was probably still almost white. The lines around and under the beard were not etched, but engraved with the burin, which suggests that, like the additions to The Artist's mother, they were applied at the end.
Though there are only minor differences between the first and second states of the print, they nevertheless reflect Rembrandt's perfectionist approach to his work. A narrow strip of white under the man's hand in the first state is covered in the second state (Te Papa's impression) with horizontal lines applied with the burin. The plate was coarsely reworked in the third state, not by Rembrandt himself.
References:
New Hollstein Dutch 92, 2nd of 3 states; Hollstein Dutch 262, 2nd of 3 states.
See also:
VKS Art Inc., http://vksart.com/artists/rembrandt-van-rijn/old-man-with-a-beard-fur-cap-and-velvet-cloak/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tronie
Dr Mark Stocker Curator, Historical International Art July 2017