Rembrandt's Religious Prints

Charles M. Rosenberg

Description

Rembrandt's stunning religious prints stand as evidence of the Dutch master's extraordinary skill as a technician and as a testament to his genius as a teller of tales. Here, several virtually unknown etchings, collected by the Feddersen family and now preserved for the ages at the University of Notre Dame, are made widely available in a lavishly illustrated volume. Building on the contributions of earlier Rembrandt scholars, noted art historian Charles M. Rosenberg illuminates each of the 70 religious prints through detailed background information on the artist's career as well as the historical, religious, and artistic impulses informing their creation. Readers will enjoy an impression of the earliest work, The Circumcision (1625-26); the famous Hundred Guilder Print; the enigmatic eighth state of Christ Presented to the People; one of a handful of examples of the very rare final posthumous state of The Three Crosses; and an impression and counterproof of The Triumph of Mordecai. From the joyous epiphany of the coming of the Messiah to the anguish of the betrayal of a father (Jacob) by his children, from choirs of angels waiting to receive the Virgin into heaven to the dog who defecates in the road by an ancient inn (The Good Samaritan), Rembrandt's etchings offer a window into the nature of faith, aspiration, and human experience, ranging from the ecstatically divine to the worldly and mundane. Ultimately, these prints— modest, intimate, fragile objects—are great works of art which, like all masterpieces, reward us with fresh insights and discoveries at each new encounter.

Preface and Acknowledgements
Jack and Alfrieda Feddersen: Building a Collection
Rembrandt's Religious Prints
Chronology of Rembrandt's Life
Abbreviations
Catalog
Appendix: Additional Rembrandt Prints in the Snite Museum of Art
Glossary of Print Terms
Bibliography

Sujets

• History of art
• Renaissance art
• Photography
• Art
• History
• Rembrandt
• Renaissance

Informations

• Publié par: Indiana University Press
• Date de parution: 11 septembre 2017
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9780253025906
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 6 Mo

Extrait

REMBRANDT S
Religious Prints
The Feddersen Collection at the Snite Museum of Art
REMBRANDT S
Religious Prints
CHARLES M. ROSENBERG
INDIANA UNIVERSITY PRESS WITH THE SNITE MUSEUM OF ART, UNIVERSITY OF NOTRE DAME
This book is a publication of
Indiana University Press
Office of Scholarly Publishing
Herman B Wells Library 350
1320 East 10th Street
Bloomington, Indiana 47405 USA
iupress.indiana.edu
2017 by Snite Museum of Art, University of Notre Dame
All rights reserved
No part of this book may be reproduced or utilized in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying and recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher.
This book is printed on acid-free paper.
Manufactured in China
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Snite Museum of Art, author. | Rosenberg, Charles M., author. | Rembrandt Harmenszoon van Rijn, 1606-1669.
Title: Rembrandt s religious prints : the Feddersen collection at the Snite Museum of Art / catalog by Charles M. Rosenberg.
Description: Bloomington, Indiana : Indiana University Press, 2017. | Includes bibliographical references and index.
Identifiers: LCCN 2017004816 (print) | LCCN 2017008806 (ebook) | ISBN 9780253025876 (cl) | ISBN 9780253025906 (eb)
Subjects: LCSH: Rembrandt Harmenszoon van Rijn, 1606-1669-Catalogues raisonn s. | Bible-Illustrations-Catalogs. | Christian art and symbolism-Netherlands-Modern period, 1500--Catalogs. | Feddersen, Jack, 1913-1990-Art collections-Catalogs. | Feddersen, Alfrieda, 1912-1995-Art collections-Catalogs. | Etching-Private collections-Indiana-Notre Dame-Catalogs. | Snite Museum of Art-Catalogs.
Classification: LCC NE2054.5.R4 A4 2017 (print) | LCC NE2054.5.R4 (ebook) | DDC 759.9492-dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2017004816
1 2 3 4 5 22 21 20 19 18 17
CONTENTS
Preface and Acknowledgments
Chronology of Rembrandt s Life and Religious Prints
List of Abbreviations
Jack and Alfrieda Feddersen: Building a Collection Julia Quinn and Charles M. Rosenberg
Rembrandt s Religious Prints Charles M. Rosenberg
Catalog
Appendix: Additional Rembrandt Prints at the Snite Museum of Art
Glossary of Print Terms
Bibliography
Index
PREFACE AND ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
T he literature on Rembrandt s art in general, and prints in particular, is vast and constantly growing. Two recent publications in the field have been particularly useful in the preparation of this catalog. The first is Shelley Perlove and Larry Silver s magisterial consideration of Rembrandt s works with religious themes, Rembrandt s Faith: Church and Temple in the Dutch Golden Age (2009). The authors discussion of the iconography of these works is thorough and provocative. Their perceptive interpretations demand serious attention and are therefore addressed in numerous entries throughout this catalog. The second significant recent work is the set of volumes dedicated to Rembrandt s prints in The New Hollstein Dutch and Flemish Etchings, Engravings and Woodcuts, 1450-1700 series (2013), compiled by Erik Hinterding and Jaco Rutgers, and edited by Ger Luijten. The individual entries by Hinterding and Rutgers include a wealth of information concerning the various states of individual prints, the location of existing impressions, and the history of Rembrandt s copperplates, a number of which still survive. In addition, the authors of the New Hollstein volumes have proposed revisions to the previously accepted dating of several works, including a number of those discussed in this catalog. Since their chronology is based not only on stylistic considerations, but also on the more objective criterion of the history of watermarks, it has been adopted here.
The tombstone header for each print in this catalog records the numbers assigned to the work in four standard catalogs of Rembrandt s prints: Adam von Bartsch ( B. ), Catalogue raisonn de toutes les estampes qui forment l oeuvre de Rembrandt , 1797; Arthur Hind ( H. ), A Catalogue of Rembrandt s Etchings , 1923; Ludwig M nz ( Mz. ), A Critical Catalogue of Rembrandt s Etchings , 1952; and Erik Hinterding and Jaco Rutgers, the New Hollstein volumes on Rembrandt cited above ( NHD ).
Adam von Bartsch arranged his material by subject matter: self-portraits; Old Testament and New Testament subjects; saints; allegorical and fancy subjects; beggars; nudes, and free and mythological subjects; landscapes; portraits of men and studies of unidentified men; studies of women; and miscellaneous subjects. This is the order that is followed in the Snite Museum catalog, which includes one self-portrait and subjects from the Old and New Testaments. However, since Bartsch did not usually list different examples of the same subject, for example the Flight into Egypt, in chronological order, and since it is useful to consider how Rembrandt s treatment of a theme changed over time, entries in this catalog have been arranged first by subject and then by date. As a result, there are some deviations from the order found in Bartsch s catalog.
The titles of Rembrandt s prints are primarily descriptive. This tradition dates back to the seventeenth century, specifically to the sales catalogs of print dealers such as Clement de Jonghe. 1 Two of Rembrandt s religious prints ( La petite Tombe [cat. no. 41, B. 67] and the Hundred Guilder Print [cat. no. 48, B. 74]) bear titles which are not specifically related to their content but which were informally adopted in the seventeenth century and have subsequently become the standard. 2 The titles in this catalog are those used by Christopher White and Karel Boon in their illustrated catalogue raisonn 3 and which have most recently been utilized by Hinterding and Rutgers in the Rembrandt volumes in The New Hollstein catalog. With very few exceptions, initial articles, e.g., a and the, have been omitted.
Plate dimensions are taken from Hinterding and Rutgers s New Holstein catalog, as is the number of states for each plate. Unless otherwise noted, all prints are on laid paper.
Finally, a project of this scope is not the result of a single individual s work. Over the years, I have benefited from the assistance and expertise of many people, including John Feddersen, Ann Feddersen, David Tunick, Armin Kunz, Julia Quinn, Emily Kretschmer, Eric Huston, Elizabeth Murphy, Paul Crenshaw, Larry Silver, Gary Schwartz, Eva Frojmovic, Roger Kuin, John van Engen, Randall Zachman, Gary Dunham, Carol Kennedy, Nancy Light-foot, Stephen Spiro, Charles Loving, Rebeka Cerevolo, and Cheryl Snay. I am grateful for all of their contributions. Above all, I should like to thank Carol Weiss Rosenberg for her inestimable contributions to this catalog. This project might never have been completed without her patience, editorial acumen, and astute critical insights.
This catalog is published in part with generous support from the Fritz and Mildred Kaeser Endowment for Liturgical Art.
C HARLES M. R OSENBERG Notre Dame, Indiana
N OTES
1 . D[ieuwke] de Hoop Scheffer and K[arel] G. Boon, De inventaislijst van Clement de Jonghe en Rembrandts etsplaten, Kroniek van het Rembrandthuis 25 (1971): 1-17.
2 . See individual catalog entries for these two prints for a discussion of these titles.
3 . Christopher White and Karel G. Boon, Rembrandt s Etchings: An Illustrated Critical Catalogue (Amsterdam: Van Gendt; New York: Abner Schram, [1970]).
CHRONOLOGY OF REMBRANDT S LIFE AND RELIGIOUS PRINTS
This is a chronology of all of Rembrandt s religious prints, including those that are not part of the Feddersen collection. If there is no catalog number after the print title, it is not part of the collection.
1606
Rembrandt Harmenzoon van Rijn is born on July 15 in Leiden to Harmen Gerritszoon van Rijn, a miller, and Neeltgen (Cornelia) Willemsdochter van Zuytbrouck, a baker s daughter.
1613-19
Attends Latin school in Leiden.
1621-3
Serves apprenticeship with Jacob Isaacz. van Swanenburgh in Leiden.
1624
Serves six-month apprenticeship with Pieter Lastman in Amsterdam.
1625
Becomes an independent master in Leiden, possibly sharing space with Jan Lievens.
1626
Circumcision (cat. no. 22), Rembrandt s first etching.
The Rest on the Flight into Egypt
1628
Takes on his first pupil, Gerrit Dou.
St. Jerome Kneeling: Large Plate
The Flight into Egypt: A Sketch
1629
St. Paul in Meditation
The Blindness of Tobit: A Sketch
St. Peter and St. John at the Gate of the Temple: Roughly Etched
1630
Begins collaborating with Jan Georg van Vliet, an engraver.
Rembrandt s father dies.
Christ Disputing with the Doctors: Small Plate (cat. no. 37)
Presentation in the Temple with the Angel: Small Plate (cat. no. 25)
Circumcision: Small Plate (cat. no. 23)
1631
Establishes himself in Amsterdam, living in the house of Hendrik Uylenburgh, art dealer and purveyor of artists materials.
Beheading of St. John the Baptist (cat. no. 64)
1632
Paints The Anatomy Lesson of Dr. Nicholas Tulp .
St. Jerome Praying: Arched
Raising of Lazarus: Larger Plate (cat. no. 46)
Holy Family (cat. no. 35)
1633
The Good Samaritan (cat. no. 62)
Flight into Egypt: Small Plate (cat. no. 27)
The Descent from the Cross: The First Plate
Descent from the Cross: The Second Plate (cat. no. 55)
1634
Marries Saskia Uylenburgh.
Becomes a citizen of Amsterdam.
Joseph s Coat Brought to Jacob (cat. no. 12)
Angel Appearing