REMBRANDT VAN RIJN

Landscape with a Cottage and Haybarn: Oblong.

Etching and drypoint, 1641. 129x321 mm; 5 1/8x12 5/8 inches, thread margins. Usticke's only state (e), with burr lower left and lower right corners, with the delicate vertical scratches in the sky upper right showing and with the distant landscape printing clearly. The letters WR counter mark to a Strasburg Lilly watermark (Ash/Fletcher 36). A very good impression of this important print with all the fine lines printing clearly.

One of Rembrandt's most celebrated prints and possibly his most sought after landscape etching. While it is known that he worked on the plates for his landscape etchings out-of-doors, there is considerable scholarly debate as to the exact location of this scene. Most agree that the town in the left background is Amsterdam, though various identities have been suggested for the large country house in the right background and other of the more generic landscape motifs are almost surely created from his imagination. Bartsch 225; Biörklund 41-A; Hollstein (White and Boon) 225.