Take a closer look as specialist Tim Schmelcher decodes the language of old master prints with an exceptional example from The Sam Josefowitz Collection.
Take a closer look as specialist Tim Schmelcher reveals the secrets of Rembrandt's exceptional print of Jan Lutma, Goldsmith to be offered at auction on 7 December at Christie's London
There are several ways of creating an image on an etching plate. In this portrait of Jan Lutma, Goldsmith, Rembrandt mainly used two techniques, known as ‘etching’ and ‘drypoint’.
With etching, the artist applies an acid-resistant layer of varnish or wax onto a metal plate, usually made of copper. Using a needle, the design is scratched into this top layer, called ‘ground’, thereby exposing the metal underneath. The plate is then immersed in a bath of acid, which eats into the metal along the scratched lines, creating grooves in the copper plate. The longer it remains in the bath, the deeper and stronger the lines appear when printed.
Next, the artist removes the protective layer and prepares the metal plate for inking. The ink is dabbed onto the plate and carefully rubbed into the channels. The surface is then wiped to remove the excess ink so that it only remains in the grooves. The plate is then covered with a moist sheet of paper and put through a rolling press for printing. Through the pressure of the press, the ink is absorbed by the paper and leaves an impression of the image on the sheet. The sheet is then removed from the plate and hung to dry.
The process can be repeated to create multiple impressions of the same image.
The drypoint method doesn’t involve any acid. Instead, the artist uses a strong and sharp needle to scratch lines directly into the copper plate. The bare metal presents more resistance to the hand and the tool than the wax or varnish on a plate prepared for etching. Drypoint lines are therefore more angular, less fluid than etched lines.
The drypoint needle, scratching into the plate, raises small barbs of metal on either side of the grooves created. These barbs catch extra ink when the plate is inked, creating slightly blurred and fuzzy lines, known as ‘burr’. Deep drypoint lines often appear white in the middle and velvety black on the outside. Burr is fragile and wears down quickly due to the wiping of the plate and the pressure in the printing press. The amount of burr left, if any, can tell us whether the impression was printed earlier or later within the lifespan of the plate.
In the print you see here, Rembrandt mostly used the burr to convey the softness of Jan Lutma’s clothes. In other prints, especially some of the landscapes, he employed it to create atmospheric effects or to add little accents of shading. In the 1650s, as he became more experimental in his printmaking, he created a some prints, such as The Three Crosses and Ecce Homo, by exclusively using the drypoint technique.
The present portrait of Jan Lutma is an impression of the first state. In the second state, Rembrandt added a window to the background behind the sitter, as you can see above.
In printmaking, a ‘state’ refers to a version of an image before or after changes have been made on the printing plate. These changes may be intentional by the artist or someone else or could happen accidentally. The first version is called the ‘first state’. If changes are made to the plate, impressions taken subsequently are described as ‘of the second state’, ‘of the third state’ after another change, and so on.
Some of Rembrandt’s prints exist only in a single state, while others exist in two, three, or even ten or more states. Later states are often the result of a printer or publisher ‘reworking’ a worn plate in order to continue printing from it after the artist’s death. The catalogue raisonné (a detailed list of all the known works of an artist) should provide some information as to how early or late a particular state of the print in question is. The latest and most comprehensive catalogue raisonné of Rembrandt’s prints, by Erik Hinterding and Jaco Rutgers, is known as ‘New Hollstein’.
As the printing plate is rolled through the press, it not only leaves an impression of the image on the paper, but also an indentation, which is visible as a small ridge along the edges. In the past, many sheets were trimmed close to or even inside this platemark, although it is preferable for the platemark to be fully visible.
Margins refer to the space on a printed sheet beyond the platemark. When the margin is very thin it’s called a ‘thread margin’, while ‘narrow’ and ‘small’ used to describe slightly wider margins. The print you’re looking at has quite wide margins, which is unusual for a sheet of this age.
Only very rarely do old master prints have very wide margins or even ‘full sheets’, i.e. untrimmed sheets of paper, in the dimensions they were originally printed.
After covering an etching plate with ink for printing, the excess ink is wiped from the parts of the composition that are blank. In these areas, a cleanly wiped plate would leave no trace on the paper. Plate tone occurs when a thin layer of ink remains on the blank surface of the plate, leaving a veil of grey tone on the paper.
If you look carefully at this print, you’ll detect a difference in tone between the paper inside the platemark and in the margins. This subtle plate tone adds a sense of atmosphere and warmth to the image.
In his later years, Rembrandt experimented increasingly with plate tone, by leaving varying amounts of tone when inking a plate, thus achieving different effects or versions of the same image, from one impression to another.
Before printing this impression of Jan Lutma, Goldsmith, Rembrandt deliberately left a layer of ink on the surface of the plate, giving the image a light grey tone when it was printed. Only the sitter’s collar was wiped completely clean, which is why it’s the brightest part of the print. This is an example of ‘selective wiping’, a technique that Rembrandt used often during his ‘experimental years’ of the 1650s, to manipulate the image without interfering with the actual composition on the printing plate.
Rembrandt’s copper plates often had sharp or rough edges, sometimes with filing marks, at the beginning of their ‘life’ as printing plates. These irregular edges retained ink as the plates were prepared for printing, and Rembrandt often did not care to wipe them clean. As a result, the ink would leave intermittent lines or marks on the paper along the plate edge, which can serve to subtly frame the image. This is known as an ‘inky plate edge’.
Inky edges can be an indication for an early impression, as the edges tend to get less sharp and rugged over time, and were in some cases deliberately cut, straightened or bevelled in later states. In former times, collectors, dealers and restorers occasionally could not resist the temptation to add ink along the plate’s edge using a pen or brush to give the appearance of an authentic inky plate edge.
As an etching plate is prepared for printing, its surface is repeatedly polished and wiped. This can leave some fine – occasionally quite pronounced – scratches on the surface. They are usually parallel and in one direction (vertical or horizontal). Depending on how carefully the plate is inked and wiped, these accidental lines catch ink and leave a mark on the paper. Finer wiping marks tend to come and go from one impression to another. In the case of some prints, however, Rembrandt seems to have used such wiping marks deliberately, to add atmospheric effects and ‘life’ to a landscape or scene.
As a result of repeated inking, wiping and the pressure of the press, printing plates get increasingly worn out through frequent use. The individual grooves on the plate get shallower and broader. Lightly etched lines become weaker and eventually disappear completely, while densely worked areas begin to loose definition, as lines close together begin to merge and flatten out, and no longer hold enough ink. Later impressions of much-printed plates start to look grey and life-less, as the nuances of shading and fine details get lost. In prints created with drypoint, the burr wears off most quickly.
The earlier an impression, the sharper, more three-dimensional and rich in contrast is the image – and the more desirable and valuable is the print.
The portrait of Jan Lutma, Goldsmith you see here is a very early impression of the first state, and it shows no wear at all. In later impressions, the very dark areas, in particular in his clothing, appear grey and patchy.
In Rembrandt’s day, European papers were made from hemp and linen fibres, reclaimed from torn-up rags, old ropes and sails. The loose fibres were mixed with water, pounded into a pulp, and then sifted onto a thin wire mesh, called a paper mould. The wire mesh leaves a grid pattern in the finished sheet of paper, consisting of very fine lines close to each other (called wire lines) and slightly broader lines circa 2-4 cm. apart (called chain lines). By threading another wire in the shape of an object or a coat-of-arms into the mesh, a watermark was usually added to the paper mould and thereby to each sheet as a ‘trade mark’ of the paper mill.
At different times throughout his printmaking career, Rembrandt used a large variety of different papers. Identifying a watermark can help us date the paper and determine when approximately the impression at hand was printed — and whether it was printed in Rembrandt’s lifetime and workshop or perhaps by another printer or publisher who later got hold of his printing plates.
The sheet you’re looking at includes a Fool’s Cap watermark: we can see the head of a fool wearing a bell-adorned hat and a seven-pointed collar with bells, and three hanging circles below.
Watermarks help to date a sheet of paper, and thereby give an indication when a specific impression was printed. Thanks to the systematic research of Eric Hinterding and other scholars, it is now extremely well documented which types of papers Rembrandt used to print his plates and which watermarks occur at any point in time and in which state. Once a watermark has been found and identified, it is possible to look up, with a high degree of accuracy, when an impression was printed. This information can be found in Hinterding’s book, Rembrandt as an Etcher — Vol II & III: Catalogue of Watermarks, published in 2006.
The Fool’s Cap watermark that can be seen here is exactly the one to be expected on very early — and hence particularly fine - impressions of Jan Lutma, Goldsmith.
Watermarks are most easily seen by looking at the back of the sheet with a strong light shining through the paper or onto the paper from a sharp angle.
Not every print has a watermark. Full sheets of paper, as they were manufactured by the paper mill, usually had a watermark on one half and a smaller one, called a ‘countermark’, on the other. Especially smaller prints, which would have been printed onto only a section of a sheet, are therefore unlikely to include a watermark. When there’s no watermark, it takes some experience to estimate the print’s age based on the structure of the paper. If the wire lines and grid structure are fine and tight, it is likely to be from the 17th century.
Oriental papers or ‘oatmeal’ paper do not include watermarks, but their use by Rembrandt is also well documented.
Collector’s marks are stamps or hand-written inscriptions, initials, shapes or symbols applied to prints and drawings by their owners, to identify them as being in their possession. These marks are usually small and discreet and mostly found on the reverse of the sheet, although some collectors had the habit of putting their mark on the front. Some marks are embossed blindstamps, which are more difficult to detect.
A dedicated Dutch collector and scholar named Frits Lugt (1884–1970) spent his life documenting collector’s marks and gathering information about the people who used them. Each recorded mark — even the anonymous or illegible ones — has been given a reference number known as a ‘Lugt number’. Collector’s marks provide important information about where a print has been and who has owned it over time, enabling us to track its journey through history. You can explore Lugt’s work, which continues today at the Fondation Custodia – Collection Frits Lugt in Paris, and explore the online database here.
Certain historical collections of prints by Rembrandt and other Old Masters are well known for their exceptional quality and variety. The presence of a mark from a respected collector adds value to the print and is a sign of its excellence. The print you see here contains the marks of three eminent collectors: Henry S. Theobald (1847-1934), London (Lugt 1375); Albert W. Scholle (1860-1917), New York (Lugt 2923a); and Charles C. Cunningham (b. 1934), Boston (Lugt 4684).
Many prints bear inscriptions by previous owners or dealers, in ink or pencil, on the reverse, in the margins or on the mounts. The most frequently found inscriptions are the titles and catalogue raisonné-numbers of the respective print. For instance, on this print of Jan Lutma, Goldsmith, you’ll see the inscription B. 276. This refers to the early catalogue of Rembrandt’s prints by Adam von Bartsch.
Other inscriptions found on prints may be acquisition dates, price codes or stock numbers. Many of these annotations remain anonymous, but some can be attributed to a specific dealer or collector. For example, if you see a small letter C. followed by a four or five-digit number in pencil, it’s a stock number from the famous dealers P. & D. Colnaghi & Co in London.
Such inscriptions, especially when found on the reverse, are not considered a defect and, when identified, can provide useful provenance information.
Hinges are small strips of paper taps used to attach a print to the backboard of the mount or mat. Ideally, they should be made of thin, fibrous Japan paper and be attached with a natural, starch-based glue, making it easy to take them off if needed. Synthetic adhesives or adhesive tapes should not be used, and if they have been used, should be removed by a paper conservator.
When mounting an old master print to its backing, only the upper corners should be fixed using a hinge. This enables the sheet to hang freely from the top edge, and be completely turned over. There should be no tension or pressure on the sheet at any point.
Remnants of old hinges, paper tape or backing sheets are frequently found on the back of old master prints. If they cause the paper to stain or cockle, they should be assessed by a paper conservator. Stacking hinges on top of each other should be avoided, and any build-up of old hinges should also be removed.