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.

This is a fine example of Rembrandt’s famous view of Amsterdam, a remarkably compact and yet expansive view of the city from afar, with its church spires, many windmills at the edge of town and the large, looming warehouse of the Dutch East India Company in the middle. The skyline of the city itself occupies only a narrow strip of the print, while two thirds of the plate are left blank, to convey the vastness of the sky. The lower third is taken up by the marshlands outside of the city, with the reeds along the canals as dark accents, leading the eye towards the many buildings on the horizon. Rembrandt’s vantage point is the Kadijk, the dyke on the north-eastern edge of Amsterdam, yet the panorama is not an accurate depiction of the city but rather an atmospheric rendition. The fact that the view from here is shown in reverse may indicate that Rembrandt drew it on the spot, directly onto the plate. Had he worked from a preparatory drawing, it seems plausible that he would have reversed the image when transferring it onto the printing plate. Some authors have, however, argued that Rembrandt took some liberties with the actual topography, and saw this as an indication that he manipulated the view in the studio, rather than drawing directly onto the plate what he saw.