The Three Trees

1643

Rembrandt van Rijn

Artist, Dutch, 1606 - 1669

Printed with deep, black shadows and swirling or straight lines on yellowed paper, three trees stand on a grassy bank alongside a body of water, probably a river or canal, in this horizontal etching, engraving, and drypoint. The grassy bank reaches almost two-thirds of the way across the composition from the right edge. At least two people, a horse-drawn wagon or carriage filled with more people, and a town, all minuscule in scale, are tucked under or beyond the trees. The face of the bank directly opposite us is dark in shadow and the details of plants and the waterline are hard to make out. The bank tapers down so the distant horizon, which comes about a third of the way up the composition, stretches across the left half of the print. One person sits and one stands, fishing, by the water in the lower left corner. People work and cows stand or lie in the flat field beyond the water, and buildings and windmills created with a few strokes of the burin or etching needle are tiny in the far distance. The deeply shaded three trees are outlined starkly against the white sky. Dark clouds pour across the top of the sheet and enter along the left edge, and diagonal lines across the top left corner suggests falling rain. The artist signed and dated the print among grasses in the lower left corner of the printed image: “Rembrandt f. 1643.”

Media Options

This object’s media is free and in the public domain. Read our full Open Access policy for images.

Artwork overview

  • Medium

    etching, with drypoint and burin, on toned laid paper

  • Credit Line

    Gift of R. Horace Gallatin

  • Dimensions

    sheet (trimmed to platemark): 21.2 × 27.8 cm (8 3/8 × 10 15/16 in.)

  • Accession

    1949.1.39

  • Catalogue Raisonné

    White/Boon 1969, no. 212, State only


Artwork history & notes

Provenance

(Knoedler & Co., New York); purchased 1912 by R. Horace Gallatin [1871 - 1948], New York; gift to NGA, 1949.

Associated Names

Exhibition History

1969

  • Rembrandt in the National Gallery of Art [Commemorating the Tercentenary of the Artist's Death], National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C., 1969, no. 43, 45, repro.

1971

  • The Influence of Rembrandt on Nineteenth- and Early Twentieth-Century Landscape Prints, National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C., 1971, no cat.

1983

  • Graphic Survey Show, National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C., May 1983.

2006

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

Bibliography

1923

  • Hind, Arthur M. A Catalogue of Rembrandt's Etchings. London: Methuen and Co. Ltd., 1923.

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. (Rembrandt, Erik Hinterding and Jaco Rutgers, authors). Rotterdam: Sound & Vision Interactive, 1993-, no. 212, state only.

Inscriptions

recto: in plate, at lower left: Rembrandt f. 1643; verso: at bottom left, in graphite, in later hand: C. A. [or N.?] F. / B-15,245; at bottom right, in graphite, in later hand: #9739

Markings

recto: none; verso: National Gallery of Art

Watermarks

foolscape

Wikidata ID

Q65082060


You may be interested in

Loading Results