Rembrandt  Etchings: A Selection

click here to read more about Rembrandt's etchings...

click here to view the complete etchings of Rembrandt...

What was really outstanding about this artist was a very curious way he invented of etching in copper; it was wholly his own and never again used by others, nor again seen, with certain strokes and irregular stretches, without outlines, fully highlighting a deep chiaroscuro of great vigour. Let the truth be known: in the art of etching Rembrandt was much more praised by the professors of art than for his paintings, where it appears he was more fortunate than excellent. In his etchings he used to mark the word Rembrandt with badly composed, formless and scrambled letters."Filippo Baldinucci wrote in his Cominciamento e progresso dell'arte dell'intagliare a rame, one of the first general histories of engraving, being a collection of a series of "Lives" of the most important Italian, French, German, Flemish and Dutch engravers and etchers. Published in 1686, less than twenty years after Rembrandt's death, Baldinucci's work includes a life of the Dutch artist, based mainly on information provided by his former pupil, the Dane Eberhard Keilhau; it contains some criticisms of his adherence to nature rather than to classical ideals.