Original etching printed in black ink on laid paper bearing a Foolscap with
Seven Pointed Collar watermark (Ash/Fletcher 20).
Platemark: 3 3/4 x 5 3/4 Inches
1654
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Signed and dated in the plate twice, at the upper left corner and at the center of the left edge, Rembrandt 1654.
A strong, sharp and clear 17th century / lifetime impression of Bartsch's first state of two, Usticke's fist state of three, printed prior to the blank spaces at the upper left corner and along the upper edge being filled in with shading.
In excellent condition, with thread margins outside the platemark on all four sides. Collections in which comparable impressions of this state of this etching can be found: Rijksprentenkabinet, Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam; Kupferstichkabinett der Staatlichen Museen, Berlin-Dahlem; Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge; Teylers Stichting, Haarlem; Ermitage Museum, Leningrad; The British Museum, London; Ashmolean Museum, Oxford; Bibliotheque Nationale, Paris; Duthuit Collection, Petit Palais, Paris; Fritz Lugt Collection, Institut Neerlandais, Paris; Collection Edmond de Rothschild, Musee du Louvre, Paris; Graphic Sammlung Albertina, Vienna. In 1654 Rembrandt etched a set of six plates depicting scenes from the infancy and childhood of Christ, subjects well suited to his talent for biblical illustration. In style and format they are all comparable, although the strong shadow down the right side of this etching is exceptional, and reminiscent of the dramatic chiaroscuro of the 'Three Crosses" (Bartsch 78) from the preceding year. The circumcision of Christ is generally depicted as taking place not in the stable but in the temple, as Rembrandt himself represented it in an etching of c. 1630 ('The Circumcision, Small Plate,' B. 48), in a drawing now in Berlin (Benesch 574), and in a lost painting made for the stadholder Frederik Hendrik in 1646. However, in a Rembrandt school painting dated 1661, the event is again shown in the stable (Bredius 596). Antoine Wierix (1555-1604) depicted the scene in the stable in the late 16th century, and theological commentators have found good reasons for placing it there: young mothers were forbidden by the law of Moses to enter the temple until 40 days after giving birth. The setting allowed Rembrandt to allude, in the ladder propped against a post, to the Crucifixion, thereby juxtaposing Christ's first and last pain.
Bartsch 47 i/ii, Hind 274, Biorklund-Barnard 54-B, Usticke 47 i/iii
