Notes

The white tablet in the lower corner, probably intended for an inscription, was frequently cut off, but in this case it has been preserved completely, with fine paper margins all around it. Such a well-conserved print as this one is very rare.

According to Seidlitz, together with the One-Hundred-Guilder print, this etching is the most magnificent of all of Rembrandt’s oeuvre of etchings. It is an outstanding example of the use of chiaroscuro, one of his favourite techniques.

The account of the death of the Virgin does not appear in the New Testament, only in the apocryphal literature. Rembrandt has borrowed a number of elements from Dürer’s woodcuts of the birth and death of the Virgin.

As one of the towering figures in the history of art, Rembrandt, a miller’s son from the university town of Leiden, was an artist of unmatched genius. Equally gifted as a painter, printmaker, and draftsman, Rembrandt proved himself to be as skillful at making portraits as he was at creating religious and mythological narratives. His landscapes are just as remarkable as his rare still lifes and subjects detailing everyday life.

Widely recognized as the greatest practitioner of the etching technique in the history of art, Rembrandt created 300 prints that constitute a body of work unparalleled in richness and beauty.