?Final Price Realized includes Buyer’s Premium added to Hammer Price
Estimate: $ 25,000 - $ 35,000
REMBRANDT VAN RIJN The Rat Catcher.
Etching and drypoint, 1632. 141x127 mm; 5 3/4x5 1/4 inches, small margins. Biörklund's third state (of 3); Usticke's first state (e) (of 2), with the diagonal line through the rat catcher's shoe and shin distinct; White and Boon's third state (of 3); New Hollstein's third state (of 3). Double-headed eagle watermark (Hinterding volume 2, page 109, variant A.a.b.; volume 3, page 177, illustrated; which he dates from 1632-34). A superb, dark, early impression of this very scarce etching, with crisp, partially inky plate edges, with the delicate tonal areas (possibly sulphur tint) and fine horizontal lines on and around the barrel undiminished, with no sign of wear, consistent with the earliest impressions.
The watermark in this impression is known to Hinterding only in the unique, second state impression in the Rothschild collection now in the Musée du Louvre, Paris, confirming this is among the earliest known impressions in this final state. Hinterding cites only three known impressions in the first and second states combined: two in the first state and one in the second state.
Provenance: P. & D. Colnaghi & Co., London, with their stock numbers in pencil, verso; private collection; sold Sotheby's, London, March 19, 2013, lot 52. Bartsch 121; Biörklund 32-C; Hollstein (White and Boon) 121; New Hollstein 111.
