Death of the Virgin

'Death of the Virgin' (1639 B. Holl. 99, BB, 39A) is an 'etching and drypoint on thick, cream laid paper trimmed inside the plate mark. Signed and dated in the plate, Rembrandt f. 1639, lower left. Undistinguished collector's stamp on verso. A Certificate of Authenticity is included. Professionally framed.

Bjorklund Barnard's fourth state of four. White and Boon's third state of three, and Nowell Eusticke's fourth state of five, after the roulette work added to strengthen the shadows.

An intermediate fourth state impression as issued by P.F. Basan (1785-1797) with the vertical shading on the foremost bedpost near the right hand of the disciple leaning on the bed evident but light, and the back of the reader in the center strong.

Nowell Eusticke refers to this impression as "fairly strong"

According to Schwartz, this is an apocryphal theme with a long inconographic tradition dating back to Albrecht Durer and his cycle on perspective. The Life of the Virgin.'

Rembrandt, in full Rembrandt Harmenszoon van Rijn, Rembrandt originally spelled Rembrant, (born July 15, 1606, Leiden, Netherlands—died October 4, 1669, Amsterdam), Dutch Baroque painter and printmaker, one of the greatest storytellers in the history of art, possessing an exceptional ability to render people in their various moods and dramatic guises. Rembrandt is also known as a painter of light and shade and as an artist who favoured an uncompromising realism that would lead some critics to claim that he preferred ugliness to beauty.

The core of Rembrandt’s oeuvre, however, consists of biblical and—to a much lesser extent—historical, mythological, and allegorical “history pieces,” all of which he painted, etched, or sketched in pen and ink or chalk. Seen over his whole career, the changes in Rembrandt’s style are remarkable. His approach to composition and his rendering of space and light—like his handling of contour, form, and colour, his brushwork, and (in his drawings and etchings) his treatment of line and tone—are subject to gradual (or sometimes abrupt) transformation, even within a single work. The painting known as Night Watch (1640/42) was clearly a turning point in his stylistic development. These changes are not the result of an involuntary evolution; rather they should be seen as documenting a conscious search in pictorial and narrative respects, sometimes in discussion, as it were, with his great predecessors.