The goldsmith.

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, two centuries later, they were affordable for Bishop Ditlev Monrad, who donated this example to the Colonial Museum in 1869

 

The goldsmith is a late work in Rembrandt's printmaking career. It is also a very small one: it measures a mere 78 x 58mm. The goldsmith of the title is shown hunching over his work. He wraps his arm around his current project, a statuette of a modest woman and two children, while he hammers out the base of his creation. Behind him to the left is a furnace for manipulating the material of his trade.

 

The goldsmith, however, looms larger than its diminutive size, not just because of Rembrandt's effective technical accomplishment (using etching and drypoint), but also because of the meaning suggested by the subject matter. The way the goldsmith embraces his work recalls the action of a doting father and husband: his work is very much a labour of love. This print, then, could be aligned with Rembrandt's own personal sense of his art practice. Accordingly, the sketchy quality of the image - like a preparatory drawing - reflects the incomplete stage of the goldsmith's statuette. Rembrandt shares with the viewer the attentive, obsessive, enamoured experience of an artist engrossed in his craft.

 

Assigning the state of the etching is normally reasonably straightforward, especially using the Rembrandt scholar's Bible, the seven-volume New Hollstein catalogue series. But Anna Rigg, our Summer Research Scholar in 2015-16, was less certain, stating that our print is either the "First or second of three states (one by Rembrandt). No sign of state 2’s light vertical drypoint shading on the lower horizontal beam beside the furnace, probably added by Claude-Henri Watelet (1718-86). However, the New Hollstein notes that ‘This wore away eventually, leaving no clear difference between the first and second states’."

 

References: New Hollstein Dutch 289, 1st or 2nd of 3 states; Hollstein Dutch 123, 1st or 2nd of 2 states

 

See: Alec Aldrich, 'Embracing His Work: Rembrandt's Goldmith', in FLLAC Off the Wall,

http://pages.vassar.edu/fllaceducation/embracing-his-work-rembrandts-goldsmith/

 

Dr Mark Stocker   Curator, Historical International Art    September 2017