The Rembrandt House
- a Catalogue of Rembrandt Etchings

By Eva Ornstein-Van Slooten & Marijke Holtrop; price €10.00

 

In the modern world, Rembrandt van Rijn’s reputation rests largely on his magnificent paintings, which are amongst the most treasured possessions of the great art museums of the world.  Like Albrecht Durer before him, he was not just a great painter but also a graphic artist of outstanding ability.  He was a dedicated draughtsman of the highest skill and printmaker of enormous inventiveness and verve.  In his lifetime his reputation was spread far and wide by the quality of his prints, which were avidly collected.

The Rembrandthuis in Amsterdam not only preserves the house where Rembrandt lived when he was at the height of his fame and fortune, but it is also a centre for the collection, preservation and study of Rembrandt’s works and especially of his etchings and dry points.  The Chester Beatty Library holds an important collection of European prints, including those produced in the 18th century by the Irishman Captain Bailey, which exploited some of the surviving Rembrandt prints.  This publication, The Rembrandt House, reproduces Rembrandt’s complete oeuvre of etchings, almost 300 in total.