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A MARVELOUS exhibition of 100 etchings by Rembrandt Harmensz van Rijn (1606-1669) are here on loan from the Rembrandt House Museum in Amsterdam. Although prints by the great Dutch master are not rare and can be found in countless collections, only a small number, including those on view, are from the original editions and late states printed by Rembrandt himself.
Rembrandt created some 290 etchings, almost a quarter of which are devoted to biblical themes. Christ Healing the Sick (commonly referred to as The Hundred Guilder Print due to the astounding price it fetched at the time of its release around 1645), is a faultless summary of his graphic talents. Drawn to episodes of high drama, Rembrandt imbued his compositions with great tension by rendering personalities in a form of baroque chiaroscuro and bathing the entire scene in light that flowed from a sunny brilliance to subdued shadow. The final state of Christ Healing the Sick has a near melodic look as one enters the composition on the frame's left-hand edge, through a darkened tunnel in a massive wall; and by flowing along a receding range of gray tones reaches the white robbed figure of Christ whose exposed right hand sends the viewer's vision tumbling towards a group of linear, toneless figures at the left-hand edge. The drama is further heightened by a funneled assembly of crouching, kneeling and lying right-hand figures that are in sharp contrast to the upright crowd on the left.
This masterwork is accompanied by several other biblical themes including Joseph and Potiphar's Wife (1634) and Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden (1638), important self portraits and typical 17th century Dutch landscapes, the most luminous being The Three Trees (1643), a tour de force in Rembrandt's spontaneous rendering style.
Included in the exhibition are a number of small drypoint linear engravings, mostly gesture studies of street people and friends that...