Artist: Rembrandt

Title: Abraham Parlant a' Isaac

Medium: Etching on Paper

Art Dimensions: 14 H x 12 W inches

Framed Dimensions: 22 H x 20 W inches


ARTIST BIO:

Rembrandt (1606–1669)

A prolific painter, draftsman, and etcher, Rembrandt van Rijn is usually regarded as the greatest artist of Holland's “Golden Age.”

Rembrandt was born in Leiden in the Netherlands in 1606. It was during a period known as the ‘Dutch Golden Age’. He came from a reasonably wealthy family. His father was a miller and somehow managed to send his son to a Latin school and later the University of Leiden.


A BRIEF HISTORY ABOUT THE ENGRAVER

This superb etching bears an embossed blind stamp chopmark seal DV (for Dominique Vincent). Hand-pulled-Etching from the Authentic re-worked original copper Rembrandt plates by Amand-Durand (1831-1905). Noted engraver of his time, Amand-Durand spent a major part of his life exactly duplicating the genius of Rembrandt onto copper plates achieving quality through his own technical genius.

Amand-Durand, born in Paris France, 1831, became a master engraver early in his career. He deeply admired the 15th, 16th, and 17th century Old Masters' engravings and saw how they lost quality and faded from the ravages of time. This realization, combined with in-depth research throughout public and private collections of these masters, inspired Amand-Durand dedication to recreate their images and preserve the original quality for future generations.

Amand -Durand was a great admirer of Rembrandt. He desired to study the plates and techniques of this genius. Unfortunately, at the time there only remained about 100 known plates, which were available to produce fine quality impressions. For 100 years the bulk of Rembrandt's plates were shrouded in mystery. As time moved on some of Rembrandt's plates began to surface. By this time Rembrandt's plates were miserably worn and dull. Amand-Durand, who by now had made the ranks of a noted engraver, decided to remedy this with his own gifted talents.

He researched and intensely studied pieces that were available only in collections. From here on he spent a major part of his life exactly duplicating Rembrandt's images onto copper plates. These recreations were called Amand-Durand's after Rembrandt. Their unbelievable clarity and exactness were achieved because Amand-Durand used as his guide, not the worn and dull plates, but the first and second state etchings of the master's original works. By this time Durand's talent were known to experts of the 19th and 20th centuries. In 1855, Conservator of the Cabinet de Estampes, George Duplessis so appreciated the genius of this man that he had his work published in books which belong to the Bibliotheque Nationale in France.

Amand-Durand was used as master etcher in an anthology of European engravings, which became so valuable that they were kept under locked scrutiny in most libraries. The following etchings are after Rembrandt, by Amand -Durand. Amand -Durand, a master engraver during the 19th century in France, re-engraved Rembrandt's etchings from the original first and second state original etchings. Every detail is captured, including Rembrandt's signature and date in a lot of the works. On the back, each piece carries the Amand-Durand notation, and the Bartsch reference number (Bartsch compiled the Catalogue Raisonne of Rembrandt's etchings) is on the back of the work.

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