May 11, 2023 - Sale 2636

Sale 2636 - Lot 92

Price Realized: $ 2,000
?Final Price Realized includes Buyer’s Premium added to Hammer Price
Estimate: $ 3,000 - $ 5,000
REMBRANDT VAN RIJN
Jan Cornelis Sylvius.

Etching, 1633. 166x142 mm; 6 5/8x5 5/8 inches, narrow margins. Biörklund's second state (of 2); Usticke's second state (of 3); New Hollstein's second state (of 3). Unidentified coat-of-arms watermark (Hinterding pages 90-91). A superb, dark, early impression with very strong contrasts and with all the fine lines distinct.

This is Rembrandt's first etched portrait of the Amsterdam preacher and relative of his wife Saskia, Jan Cornelis Sylvius (he was also the godfather of the couple's first child). Rembrandt (1606-1669) made a second, posthumous portrait etching of Sylvius in 1646 (Bartsch 280).

Provenance: Ambroise Firmin-Didot, Paris, ink stamp verso (Lugt 119). Bartsch 266; Biörklund 33-H; Hollstein (White and Boon) 266; New Hollstein 124.