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Signed with the artist's monogram and dated in the plate upper left RL 1630.

A early 20th century impression of Bartsch's second and final state, Usticke's sixth and final state, printed after the work in the lower right corner was skillfully retouched, and the worn places on the hat and cloak were reworked.

Trimmed down to the platemark on all four sides, otherwise in excellent condition. Rembrandt is known to have depicted not only his mother but also his father, the Leiden miller Harmen Gerritsz van Rijn (C. 1568-1630). A painting was documented in Leiden in 1644 as a 'character study of the head of an elderly man: portrait of Rembrandt's Father.' While the inventory of the print publisher Clement de Jonghe of 1679 describes a copper plate as of 'Rembrandt's Father,' it is difficult to say whether the subject of the etching here is indeed Harmen Gerritsz van Rijn. Rembrandt depicted several elderly men repeatedly in his early work, but too little is known about them to draw any conclusions as to which was his father. One drawing of an elderly man bears the inscription 'Harman. Gerrits. Van de Rhijn' in a seventeenth-century hand, possibly Rembrandt's, but the features bear little resemblance to those of any other figures that appear in Rembrandt's work. The man is this etching appears in several other prints and paintings, most of which were executed during or before 1630, the year that Harman Gerritsz died.

Bartsch 321 ii/ii; Hind 22; Biorklund-Barnard 30-F; Usticke 321 vi/vi

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