Notes

During his lifetime, Rembrandt’s extraordinary skills as a printmaker were the main source of his international fame. Unlike his oil paintings, prints travelled light and were relatively cheap. For this reason, they soon became very popular with collectors not only within but also beyond the borders of the Netherlands.

Rembrandt and Saskia van Uylenburgh had been maried for two years in 1636, when Rembrandt etched this plate.  Saskia is portrayed in the middle and at the bottom right and probably also in profile. The upper left portrait is an elderly woman and the other two younger faces are unknown women.

The young Saskia, at the age of twenty-five, is beautifully portrayed by her husband. The fact that Saskia’s health was weak throughout her life, did not keep Rembrandt from lending youthful determination to her facial expressions. She died in 1642 at the age of thirty, never having recovered her health after the birth of Titus, her only child to survive beyond the age of two months.