Christ and the woman of Samaria among ruins.

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. It also explains why, 200-300 years later, they were affordable to collectors such as Bishop Ditlev Monrad, Sir John Ilott and here, Harold Wright, whose widow presented the print to the National Art Gallery in 1965.

This print dates from Rembrandt's early career, not long after he had moved from Leiden to Amsterdam and when he was already a famous and fashionable artist. Over 20 years later he seemed to be almost obsessed with the theme - producing three paintings, a drawing and an etching, also in Te Papa's Collection, Christ and the woman of Samaria: an arched print (1952-0003-47). 

 

Rembrandt depicts the Gospel text (John 4.4-42), when Jesus converts a Gentile, the Samarian woman, and at a deeper level, movingly addresses the reconciliation of the Christian faith with a receptive stranger. Christ is celebrated as the 'fountain of water springing up into eternal life', while the Samarians were an ethnic group reviled by the Jews for their heterodox Temple cult in which they worshipped idols alongside the Lord. Hence the woman's initial disbelief when she asks Jesus 'How is it that you, a Jew, ask a drink of me a woman of Samaria?'

Christ is shown here with the woman in a romantic landscape of stone ruins which extend into the background and beyond. They are captured in the midst of conversation as she gestures with her hands and he intently listens.

Only one state of the print was made in Rembrandt's lifetime; this is a third-state impression, dating from the 18th century, when it was reworked, using the mezzotint  rocker, evident in the foliage in the right foreground and three fine lines on the bottom rim of the bucket. However, it predates the addition of hatching in the final state of the etching, made in the Parisian workshop of Henry Louis Basan (1797- c. 1809).

References: New Hollstein Dutch 127, 3rd of 5 states; Hollstein Dutch 71, 2nd of 2 states.

 

See: 

Masterworks Fine Art, https://www.masterworksfineart.com/artist/harmensz-van-rijn-rembrandt/christ-and-the-woman-of-samaria-among-ruins-1634-3/

 

Shelley Perlove and Larry Silver, Rembrandt's Faith: Church and Temple in the Dutch Golden Age (Pennsylvania, 2010), pp. 42-43.

 

Dr Mark Stocker    Curator, Historical International Art     August 2017