Rembrandt Harmenszoon van Rijn. (1606–1669). Jan Antonides van der Linden - REMBRANDT'S LAST ETCHING. Etching, engraving and drypoint, 1665. Large watermark, pencil notations and former collector stamp verso, sight size 4.75" x 4", paper size 5" x 4", framed 12" x 11.5". Biörklund's fifth state (of 6); Usticke's sixth state (of 7); White and Boon's fourth state (of 5); New Hollstein's fifth state (of 7). A very good, well-inked impression, with strong contrasts and little to no sign of wear. Finely matted and framed.
Rembrandt had essentially retired from printmaking in 1661, but four years later he received a commission to engrave a frontispiece for a commentary on Hippocrates written by the then recently-deceased physician Jan Antonides van der Linden (1609-1664). The publisher Daniel van Gaesbeecq sought an engraver to make a reproduction of a portrait previously painted by Abraham van den Tempel. Rembrandt’s son told the publisher that his father was the man for the job, and he was given two weeks to complete the portrait. But Rembrandt was anything but a conventional engraver and following his familiar old ways, Rembrandt produced an etching heavily augmented by drypoint. Clearly unsuitable for printing in quantity, the plate was never used for the book, and so far as we know Rembrandt never again etched another plate. This is thus Rembrandt's last documented etching.
