The adoration of the shepherds: with the lamp

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 they were affordable in later centuries. This etching was originally mounted in the so-called King George IV album of Old Master prints, purchased by the Dominion Museum in 1910. A few years later, however, James McDonald, art assistant, photographer and sometime acting director, crudely removed all the Rembrandt prints and copies, with their separate exhibition in mind. They have not been returned to the album.

 

Time and time again, in depicting subjects with a long tradition in art such as the Adoration of the shepherds, Rembrandt set himself apart by exploring in depth the reality of the event. And although later generations often criticised him for a lack of decorum, he aimed to be truthful to the (often biblical) text for the accurate setting of a scene that really mattered to him. He avoided short-cuts and fudging, and instead aimed at emotional authenticity. Thus Rembrandt asked himself what it would really be like if, in the small hours of a bitterly cold night, a group of shepherds was to enter a scarcely-lit stable where a man and a woman were sheltering with a newborn baby - the Christ Child. 

Rembrandt painted the subject, not afraid to make a real night scene of it, with all the technical difficulties entailed in rendering light effects in complete darkness so that they look natural. Painted in 1646, it formed was part of the series of scenes from the Life of Christ commissioned by the stadholder (chief magistrate) Frederik Hendrik. There are two known versions, the original in the Alte Pinakothek, Munich, and another, long attributed to him but now believed to be by an outstanding but unidentified student, in the National Gallery, London. This was the design used for New Zealand's first Christmas stamp (1960), also in Te Papa's collection (PH000519).

Rembrandt revisited the subject in a sketch-like etching with open hatching in this etching, one of a number of stylistically related etchings from the mid-1650s, and also in the slightly later etching Adoration of the Shepherds: A Night Piece, which is elaborated to a greater degree and in the reading of the scene is closer to the paintings. An impression of the latter is also in Te Papa's collection (1955-0012-12).

This impression is from the last of three states (the first only was by Rembrandt). This is identifiable in the white spots shaded over with the burin, e.g. on the right edge just above the cow’s left ear and a curved strip on the upper edge near the right corner. The new additions are significantly greyer and more worn than the rest of the etching, suggesting that this is a late impression.

References: New Hollstein Dutch 279, 3rd of 3 states; Hollstein Dutch 45, 2nd of 2 states.

See: Erik Hinterding et al., Rembrandt, the Printmaker (London and Amsterdam, 2000).

 

Dr Mark Stocker  Curator, Historical International Art     July 2017