Peasant family on the tramp.

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 or three centuries later, they were still affordable for Bishop Ditlev Monrad and Wellington collector Sir John Ilott, benefactors of theColonial Museum and the National Art Gallery respectively.

 

Rembrandt often depicted beggars and 'cripples', such as this family on the tramp wearing rather old-fashioned clothing for the time. The peasant woman, rendered with dignity, carries a baby on her back, its little head only just visible. The child being led by the father looks like a young brat. The dominant figure of the peasant himself looks purposeful, even defiant.

A romantic myth about Rembrandt is that he etched so many beggars - more than thirty etchings in all - because he felt alienated from society himself. It is true that he once portrayed himself as a beggar, but he was more attracted to the expressive faces, tattered clothing and crumpled gait of these 'low' subjects. Unusually for the time, Rembrandt gave his beggars real emotions and individualised faces, seemingly intending to stir compassion in his viewers.

Did he? In the short term, no. This kind of image would have elicited fierce criticism around 1670, at the time of the artist's death: were such subjects worthy of being rendered? Shouldn't art by definition portray only beauty? Rembrandt certainly did not subscribe to this view and most people today would take his side.

There are two impressions of this print in Te Papa's collection; one from the first state, presented by Ilott (1961-0006-22) and this one, presented to the Colonial Museum by Monrad. It is from the second of three states (only the first was by Rembrandt). The first state’s foul-biting has been corrected with cross-hatching and three short vertical lines have been added to the middle of the pack. It predates the rebiting in Henri Louis Basan's Parisian workshop and the redrawing of the outline of the woman’s hat (c. 1797-1809).

References: New Hollstein Dutch 266, 2nd of 3 states; Hollstein Dutch 131, 2nd of 2 states.

 

See:

Minneapolis Institute of Art, https://collections.artsmia.org/art/55390/peasant-family-on-the-tramp-rembrandt-harmensz-van-rijn

Rijksmuseum, https://www.rijksmuseum.nl/en/collection/RP-P-OB-220

Dr Mark Stocker   Curator, Historical International Art    August 2017