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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. It also explains why, two centuries later, they were affordable for Bishop Ditlev Monrad, who donated this example to the Colonial Museum in 1869. Rather unusually among Monrad's collection, it is a 'first state' etching, where the plate was worked on by Rembrandt himself; the second and third states, when it was reworked, were both posthumous. Te Papa has another copy of this etching, a second state (1910-0001-1/20-80).
A stirring contemporary genre scene, brimming with detail, The Strolling Musicians revisits a recurring theme, Rembrandt's sympathetic inquiry into the lives of impoverished people around him, including beggars. Two musicians, one playing a hurdy gurdy, and the other the bagpipes, lean before an absorbed looking family with a toddler to perform. Light from inside the home illuminates the dim, intimate moment, thus highlighting the profiles of the players. Rembrandt is widely acknowledged for the sense of humanity he exposed in these humble subjects, straying from satirical portrayals that so often denigrated the plight of the lower classes in other artistic representations.
References:
New Hollstein Dutch 141, 1st of 3 states; Hollstein Dutch 119, 1st of 2 states
See:
Dr Mark Stocker Curator, Historical International Art September 2017