Abraham Entertaining the Angels

1656

Rembrandt van Rijn

Artist, Dutch, 1606 - 1669

Rembrandt van Rijn

Attributed to

Printed with delicate lines or heavy shading on cream-white paper, two elderly men and two others with wings sit on or stand near a cloth laid with food just in front of the open, deeply shadowed doorway of a house in this vertical etching and drypoint. The men and angels take up the lower third of the composition. One angel with a beard and long hair pulled back under a band sits facing our right in profile along the left edge of the print. Next is a man with a chest-length white beard, a long headdress, and a lined face. He holds the foot of a shallow chalice in one hand and gestures to an oval tray holding objects, presumably bread, on the cloth. The next person also has a beard and wings, and the fourth, near the right edge of the print, stands next to the cloth so he is visible from the waist up. His face is also heavily lined, and he has a long white beard and a fringe of bushy hair around a balding head. One hand rests on a long-necked ewer as he stoops slightly toward the cloth. The arched doorway stands open to the left, behind the first angel and man. A person peeks around the edge of the door from deep shadows. Heavy veils drape over the head and down the sides of the face and neck, and that person holds one hand up to their chest. A child clamors onto the top surface of a low wall just outside the doorway, which presumably encloses a stoop or landing. Trees fill most of the background in the right half. The artist signed and dated the plate, barely legible in the shadows, “Rembrandt f. 1656.”

Media Options

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Artwork overview

  • Medium

    etching and drypoint on Japan paper

  • Credit Line

    New Century Fund

  • Dimensions

    plate: 15.8 x 12.7 cm (6 1/4 x 5 in.)
    sheet: 16.1 x 13 cm (6 5/16 x 5 1/8 in.)

  • Accession Number

    2005.69.1

  • Catalogue Raisonné

    White/Boon 1969, no. 52, State only


Artwork history & notes

Provenance

(Maurice Gobin, Paris, 1923); de Menthon, Paris; by descent until 2004;(C. G. Boerner Ltd., London); purchased 2005 by NGA.

Associated Names

Exhibition History

2006

  • Strokes of Genius: Rembrandt's Prints and Drawings, National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.

2008

  • Medieval to Modern: Recent Acquisitions of Drawings, Prints, and Illustrated Books, National Gallery of Art, Washington, 2008, no. 48.

2017

  • Divine Encounter: Rembrandt's Abraham and the Angels, The Frick Collection, New York, 2017.

Bibliography

1969

  • White, Christopher and Karel G. Boon. Rembrandt's Etchings. 2 vols. Amsterdam: Van Gendt & Co., 1969.

1993

  • The New Hollstein Dutch & Flemish Etchings, Engravings and Woodcuts, 1450-1700. Rotterdam: Sound & Vision Interactive, 1993: no. 295, only.

Inscriptions

on former backboard: Trés exceptionelle comme qualitésur papier du Japon et aved de trés nombreuses taches de manière noire; Monsieur Maurice Gobin, 1 rue Laffitte, Paris, 7,500 francs, 9 March 1923 (according to dealer notes)

Markings

none

Watermarks

none

Wikidata ID

Q76355783


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