Lot 1083 
1083
Harmensz. Rembrandt van Rijn
Abraham die Engel bewirtend, 1656.
Etching
Estimate:
€ 10,000 / $ 11,300 Sold:
€ 10,980 / $ 12,407 (incl. surcharge)
Etching
Bartsch 29. White/Boon 29. Seidlitz 29. Björklund/Barnard 56-B. Nowell-Usticke 29 I i (of I l). Only one state known of. Inscribed and dated on the plate. Excellent impression on laid paper with tiny margins around platemark. 16 x 13,3 cm (6,2 x 5,2 in), size of sheet
Titled and numbered in faded ink on recto in former times.
After the original plate had been considered lost for more than 300 years, it turned up on the international market in 1997. As a small oil painting on copper, made around 1660, the work was ascribed to the Antwerp artist Pieter Gysels (1621 Antwerp - 1690 ibidem.) and consigned accordingly to a London auction house. After the work had been unframed, so that the rear of the copper plate could be examined, the etching by Rembrandt was discovered. It remains obscure as to why the painter used the rear of the valuable printing plate as image carrier for his idyllic river landscape. It makes sense to see it in connection with his bankruptcy and the following foreclosure sale in 1656. Unlike the other 81 printing plates of Rembrandt which are still in existence today, it is this plate's unaltered state that makes it so unique. All other plates were modified over and over again through all the years the years. Today the plate is in possession of the National Gallery of Art, Washington. [CM].
Bartsch 29. White/Boon 29. Seidlitz 29. Björklund/Barnard 56-B. Nowell-Usticke 29 I i (of I l). Only one state known of. Inscribed and dated on the plate. Excellent impression on laid paper with tiny margins around platemark. 16 x 13,3 cm (6,2 x 5,2 in), size of sheet
Titled and numbered in faded ink on recto in former times.
After the original plate had been considered lost for more than 300 years, it turned up on the international market in 1997. As a small oil painting on copper, made around 1660, the work was ascribed to the Antwerp artist Pieter Gysels (1621 Antwerp - 1690 ibidem.) and consigned accordingly to a London auction house. After the work had been unframed, so that the rear of the copper plate could be examined, the etching by Rembrandt was discovered. It remains obscure as to why the painter used the rear of the valuable printing plate as image carrier for his idyllic river landscape. It makes sense to see it in connection with his bankruptcy and the following foreclosure sale in 1656. Unlike the other 81 printing plates of Rembrandt which are still in existence today, it is this plate's unaltered state that makes it so unique. All other plates were modified over and over again through all the years the years. Today the plate is in possession of the National Gallery of Art, Washington. [CM].
1083
Harmensz. Rembrandt van Rijn
Abraham die Engel bewirtend, 1656.
Etching
Estimate:
€ 10,000 / $ 11,300 Sold:
€ 10,980 / $ 12,407 (incl. surcharge)
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