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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.
The etching is one of Rembrandt's most famous religious scenes, Christ preaching. It refers to no single specific event. He is engaged entirely in conveying his message to simple, ordinary people, who appear spellbound by what he says. In the foreground, Rembrandt included the charming detail of a small child doodling on the ground with its finger. The name of this etching ('La petite Tombe') was first used in the 18th century to refer to Nicolaes de La Tombe, who probably commissioned it. Originally dated as c. 1652, recent research on its paper has dated it as about five years later, making it a very late print by Rembrandt.
The print employs parallel lines that seem surprisingly widely separated and coarse for a work that is relatively small and intended to capture a range of intense, though subtly drawn, emotions. This treatment is obvious in the child, whose head and right side are in shadow, and continues on the ground at the right and at the bottom of the composition. It is almost as if Rembrandt gave himself a stylistic handicap (which he then overcame, seemingly without effort). Just as the boy's form takes the viewer outward from the arc of shadow encircling the central event, his apparent obliviousness to Christ provides a kind of relief, a little chuckle perhaps, as the viewer's attention is also allowed to go off point. It contrasts a spiritual moment in an ancient world we can only imagine with the ageless and familiar private concentration of a child.
This impression is the first of two states of the etching (the first only is by Rembrandt). It predates the heavy reworking in drypoint, probably by the Franco-Polish artist Jean-Pierre Norblin la Gourdaine (1745-1830). However, most of the drypoint burr has worn away; the shadow on the sleeve of the man in the left foreground is no longer solid black (an effect known as ‘het zwarte mouwtje’/‘the black sleeve’). In later impressions, the black sleeve wears away to become ‘het witte mouwtje’/‘the white sleeve’ (New Hollstein). This impression has been printed with some burr visible. (Anna Rigg, Summer Research Scholar, 2015-16).
References: New Hollstein Dutch 298, 1st of 2 states; Hollstein Dutch 67, only state
See:
Art Gallery of New South Wales, https://www.artgallery.nsw.gov.au/collection/works/DO3.1963/
Joseph Goldyne, 'Drawing in the dirt at the feet of Christ', Art in Print, https://artinprint.org/article/drawing-in-the-dirt-at-the-feet-of-christ-rembrandt/
Dr Mark Stocker Curator, Historical International Art September 2017