The Circumcision: Small Plate

Rembrandt Van Rijn
The Circumcision: Small Plate
etching & drypoint
c. 1630

An original Rembrandt Van Rijn etching & drypoint print.

c. 1630

Original etching with touches of drypoint printed in black ink on laid paper bearing a portion of a Strausbourg Lily watermark (Ash/Fletcher 36).

A superb 17th century/lifetime impression of Bartsch, Usticke and New Hollstein’s only state of this rare etching (characterized by G.W. Nowell-Usticke in his 1967 catalogue Rembrandt’s Etching: States and Values as “a scarce little print – fine impressions very rare,” and assigned his scarcity rating of “R” [75-125 impressions extant in the year]), showing the touches of burr at the child’s mouth characteristic of early impressions.

Catalog: Bartsch 48; Hind 19; Biorklund-Barnard 30-8; Usticke 48; New Hollstein 55.

3 ¾ x 2 ¾ inches

Sheet Size: 3 ¾ x 2 ¾ inches

Three highly finished, miniaturistic etchings dated or datable to 1630 illustrate key episodes from the infancy and adolescence of Jesus. The evangelist Luke refers briefly to the circumcising and naming of the child eight days after birth, but does not indicate where this took place (Luke 2:21). In “The Circumcision: Small Plate” from the 1630 Childhood of Christ group, Rembrandt, following a centuries-old visual tradition, stages the event in a temple setting. The fact that Mary, as well as Joseph, is present at the right of the subject, hand folded in prayer, is contrary to the Jewish tradition that required of a woman who had just given birth a long period of purification before entering the temple.