Jan Lutma, 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 to three centuries later, they were affordable for collectors like Bishop Ditlev Monrad, who presented this print to the Colonial Museum in 1869, and later for Sir John Ilott.

 

Although Jan Lutma (c.1584-1669) was already an elderly man when he was portrayed by Rembrandt in this etching, he was probably still working as a silversmith. Yet despite the presence of a hammer and a pot containing punches, he is not working here but posing. He holds one of his creations - an object with a turned stem, possibly a candlestick - in his right hand, and beside him on the table is a chased silver drinking bowl. Rembrandt and Lutma may well have discussed the selection of these attributes.

Lutma was born in Emden in East Friesland. After spending five years in Paris, he settled in Amsterdam in 1621, where he built up a reputation as a master silversmith and received a series of official commissions. As he grew older he began to experience problems with his eyes. Yet in 1656 he declared that he had been cured of his blindness. The fact that he is portrayed in Rembrandt's etching of that year with an absent look and half-closed eyes undoubtedly has to do with this handicap; and in the portrait print that his son Jan, leaning heavily on Rembrandt's example, made of him shortly afterwards, he is holding a pair of spectacles. This print is also in Te Papa's collection (1869-0001-431).

Rembrandt used a fine needle to draw the silversmith, as well as the furniture and attributes around him, into the etching ground. He did this in a homogeneous manner so that most of the lines are equally thin, even those used to build up the shadow on the wall in the background. He created forms by intensifying the hatching arid varying the direction of the lines, while the contrasts are strengthened with drypoint, as can clearly be seen in the folds of the coat. The resulting rich tonal effects can best be admired in early impressions. The details are all enhanced to a similar degree apart from the two carved lion's heads on the chair, which are looser in form, and this gives these lively sentinels the look of grimacing little monsters. Rembrandt was a master in the suggestion of spatial values, and emphasised how the chair stands freely in the room by leaving a light streak next to it, as well as its shadow on the left.

In the second state, Rembrandt installed a window in the room, behind Lutma, and added shadows on the wall. Using the most delicate of lines he drew a bulbous glass bottle on the window-sill. His signature and the date appear in the upper left pane. This major reworking has meant that, to this day, impressions are described as "Lutma without" or "Lutma with" the window. We are left to wonder whether it was Lutma, the probable owner of the plate, who asked for the window to be included, or whether it was Rembrandt's own idea.

Various other changes were made to the plate in a later state, but although it was thought for a long time that Rembrandt was responsible for them, this is doubtful and only the first two can be confidently ascribed to him. This impression is from the fourth of five states, with the address of Jan Lutma’s son François (1626-1664) engraved on the lower right. There is much additional shading, for instance a number of gently curved diagonal lines next to the arch of the window in the upper right corner, and horizontal lines on the lower inside of the bowl.  However, it predates complete reworking, e.g. strong vertical hatching on the right thumb and horizontal and diagonal lines on the left hand. Te Papa has another, superior, third state etching which was presented to the National Art Gallery by Ilott in 1966 (1966-0005-9), as well as the portrait by Jan Lutma II mentioned above.

References: New Hollstein Dutch 293, 4th of 5 states; Hollstein Dutch 276, 3rd of 3 states.

See: http://www.britishmuseum.org/research/collection_online/collection_object_details.aspx?objectId=760343&partId=1&searchText= Jan+Lutma+rembrandt&page=1, reproducing the dicussion in Erik Hinterding et al, Rembrandt the Printmaker (London and Amsterdam, 2000).

 

Dr Mark Stocker   Curator, Historical International Art    August 2017