Rembrandt Harmensz. van Rijn
(Leiden 1606-1669 Amsterdam)
“Beggar seated on a bank”, 1630
etching: 13,2 x 8,6 mm; with wide margins
signed with monogram and dated: RHL 1630
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Notes
A work that confronts the complicated relationship between what we know of historical seventeenth-century social attitudes and what Rembrandt depicts is the 1630 etching of A Beggar Seated on a Bank, in which the beggar in the ragged cloak and scraggly beard, with open hand extended, has Rembrandt’s own features. Its distinctive self-portrait character is made more vivid when it compared with another etching of an anonymous beggar of about 1630 (Beggar Seated Warming his Hands at a Chafing Dish, Bartsch 173) in which a seated vagabond with a stick and bundle warms his chilled hands over a dish of coals. Rembrandt’s expression, with contracted brow and open mouth, is similar to that seen in one of the small emotive self-portraits of the same year (Self Portrait Open Mouthed, as if Shouting, B. 13). This extraordinary bit of role-playing need not necessarily be taken as signifying a Christ-like identification on Rembrandt’s part with the beggar’s lot, but should perhaps be viewed – Rembrandt had a robust sense of visual humor – as a good, if inside, joke. The twenty-four-year-old artist was not yet fully established and could use some financial assistance!
Bartsch 174; White/Boon 174;
The New Hollstein Dutch 50, first state (of II),
Plate not in existence – with Nowell-Usticke (1967): R
Provenance
- Ex coll. Roltz, inscribed and dated in pen and ink verso 1693. Gr. R 3347. F.0 20 (not in Lugt);
- with Colnaghi, their stock number C. 11972 in pencil verso;
- with Arthur H. Harlow & Co., New York, according to a label on the frame.
- Sotheby’s London ;
- Private collection, The Netherlands
Literature
- Holm Bevers/Peter Schatborn/Barbara Welzel, Rembrandt: the Master & his Workshop, Yale University Press, New Haven & London, 1991, fig. 3a, p. 174 (ill.);
- Christopher White & Quentin Buvelot, Rembrandt by himself, National Gallery Publications Limited, London, 1999, no. 24, p. 129 (ill.);
- Erik Hinterding/Ger Luijten/Martin Royalton-Kisch, Rembrandt the Printmaker, Fitzroy Dearborn Publishers, Chicago & London, 2000, no. 6, p. 93 (ill.);
- Clifford S. Ackley, Rembrandt’s Journey: Painter-Draftsman-Etcher, Museum of Fine Arts Boston, 2003, no. 25, p. 91 (ill.);
- Gary Schwartz, The Rembrandt Book, Harry N. Abrams, New York, 2006, no. 483, p. 289 (ill.);
- Erik Hinterding, Rembrandt Etchings from the Frits Lugt Collection, Thoth Publishers, Bussum, 2008, no. 141, vo. II p. 158 (ill.).