REMBRANDT VAN RIJN A Brook with a Grotto and a Boat ("Het Spelonkje").
Etching and drypoint, 1645. 127x133 mm; 5x5 3/8 inches, thread margins. Biörklund's second state (of 3); Usticke's second state (of 3); White and Boon's second state (of 3); New Hollstein's second state (of 2). Partial foolscap watermark, the lower portion with three balls (Hinterding notes the foolscap with a fine-pointed collar watermark on other second state impressions in public collections). A very good impression of this extremely scarce etching.
According to Usticke, "a very rare plate" (RRR). We have found only approximately twenty other impressions at auction in the past 30 years.
This subject, one of several landscape etchings that Rembrandt concentrated on during 1645 (along with the celebrated Three Trees and Six's Bridge), is among his most enigmatic and sketch-like plates in this genre. The earliest impressions from this plate, in which the boat in the grotto-like cave is clearly defined with dark shading, are extremely scarce and rarely appear on the market. Subsequently, as in the current impression, the shading on the grotto and boat was burnished down and prints much lighter and less defined. In later impressions, which are most frequent, this shading has been heavily and crudely retouched by another artist attempting to restore Rembrandt's original intent. Bartsch 231; Biörklund 45-C; Hollstein (White and Boon) 231; New Hollstein 220.
