Christ preaching, called La petite tombe

Details

Bartsch 67; White/Boon 67 II (from II); Hinterding/Rutgers (The New Hollstein) 298 II (from II).

Description

Extremely fine, high-contrast and early impression with fine tonal balance and strong drypoint burr in the right sleeve and the robe of the standing man on the left, the left sleeve of Christ and the small group on the right. With the watermark mentioned by Hinterding, cited in NHD p. 270 and mentioned by Hinterding for impressions in the Bibliothèque Nationale, Paris (variant D.d.a) and the British Museum (variant J.b.z.). Trimmed to the plate edge. The depiction is fascinating due to its clear simplification and standardisation with the aim of facilitating concentration. The sheet is one of the master’s “most magnificent compositions, of rare unity and at the same time with an extremely powerful light effect. (…). The process is depicted simply and convincingly” (von Seydlitz). Rembrandt drew inspiration for individual figures and gestures from older masters. The semi-circular arrangement of the figures around Christ can be traced back to Raphael’s “Disputa” (Pächt). But despite all the references, Rembrandt created an independent, atmospheric masterpiece with the power of his chiaroscuro, in which teacher and listener form a unity without baroque pathos. The name “La petite Tombe” is based on a misunderstanding on Gersaint’s part: in Clement de Jonghe’s 1679 inventory of the estate, the panel was labelled “La toombisch plaatjens”, after the collector La Tombe, brother of Rembrandt’s friend Jacob de La Tombe, who had originally owned the panel. As Christ is depicted standing on a raised pedestal, which could be mistaken for a sarcophagus, the name La Tombe was confused with the French term “la tombe” for the tomb (Schaar). The printing plate was separated early on from plates acquired by “Basan”, was purchased by Colnaghi’s in London in 1830 and has not reappeared since. It is considered lost today. – The corners backed on the reverse, inconspicuous repairs to the lower edge, traces of former mounting on the reverse, otherwise in good condition.