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

A superb, clear and clean 17th century/lifetime impression of Bartsch and Usticke's only state, of this scarce etching, characterized by G.W. Nowell-Usticke as 'A very rare plate' (scarcity:'RRR').

In excellent condition, with small margins outside the platemark on all four sides. Literature: Clifford S. Ackley, Rembrandt's Journey: Painter -Draftsman-Etcher, MFA Publications, The Museum of Fine Arts, Boston,2003, fig. 57, p.96 (ill.) Collections in which impressions of this state of this etching can be found: Rijkspretenkabinet, Rijksmuesum, Amsterdam; Kepferstichkabinett der Staatlichen Museen, Berlin-Dahlem; Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge; Teylers Stichting, Haarlem; Ermitage Museum, Leningrad; The British Museum, London; Pierpont Morgan Library, New York; Ashmolean Museum, Oxford; Bibliotheque Nationale, Paris; Duthuit Collection, Petit Palais, Paris; Collection Edmond de Rothschild, Musee du Louvre, Paris; Graphische Sammlung Albertina, Vienna. Portraits occupy an important place in Rembrandt's oeuvre. Even in his Leiden days he was already making studies of old men and women, for which his own parents would doubtless have posed. The prints were probably not intended to be substantive works of art, but were rather Rembrandt's way of practicing the depiction of a range of facial expressions. Between 1633 and 1664 Rembrandt made about twenty portrait etchings. Most of them were not executed for commercial publication as prints or book illustrations, but were private prints made for personal reasons. This etching was probably made from life or from one of the drawings in red chalk that Rembrandt made of old bearded men between 1630 and 1633.

Bartsch 325; Hind 27; Biorklund-Barnard 30-I; Usticke 325.

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