Bearded Man, Wearing a Velvet Cap, with a Jewel Clasp

Rembrandt Van Rijn
Bearded Man, Wearing a Velvet Cap, with a Jewel Clasp
etching
1637

An original Rembrandt Van Rijn etching.

1637

Original etching printed in black ink on laid paper.

Signed and dated in the plate upper left Rembrandt f. 1637.

A superb 17th century/lifetime impression of Bartsch, Hind, Biorklund-Barnard and New Hollstein’s only state of this rare etching (characterized by G.W. Nowell-Usticke in his 1967 catalogue Rembrandt’s Etchings: States and Values, as “a rare plate, with a handsome portrait” and assigned his scarcity rating of “RR” [50 to 75 impressions extant in that year]).

Catalog: Bartsch 313; Hind 150; Biorklund-Barnard 37-B; Usticke 313; New Hollstein 163.

Portraits occupy an important place in Rembrandt’s oeuvre. Even in his Leiden days he was already making studies of old men and women, for which his own parents would also doubtless have posed. The prints were probably not intended to be substantive works of art, but were rather Rembrandt’s way of practicing ways of depicting a range of facial expressions. Between 1633 and 1664 Rembrandt made about twenty portrait etchings. Most of them were not executed for commercial publication as prints or book illustrations, but were private prints made for personal reasons.

When this etching of 1637 is compared with Rembrandt’s earlier studies of old men, or his early paintings of old men in oriental garb, the artist’s deeper concern with the expression of an individualized personality is all the more striking. In this fine portrait Rembrandt’s masterly use of the medium through an extraordinary range of strokes, from broad contours to rapid scribbles to tiny flecks of the etching needle, is evident in such detail as the sitter’s beard, his cape and the subtle definition of his face.