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Course: Europe 1300 - 1800 > Unit 9
Lesson 4: Dutch Republic- Model of the Dutch East India Company ship "Valkenisse"
- The Dutch art market in the 17th century
- Why make a self portrait?
- A Dutch doll house
- Van Mander, Het Schilder-Boeck
- Frederiks Andries, Covered coconut cup
- Osias Beert, Still Life with Various Vessels on a Table
- Anthony van Dyck, Self-Portrait as Icarus with Daedalus
- Saenredam, Interior of Saint Bavo, Haarlem
- Hals, Singing Boy with Flute
- Hals, Malle Babbe
- Frans Hals, The Women Regents
- Willem Claesz. Heda, Still Life with Glasses and Tobacco
- Rembrandt, The Artist in His Studio
- Rembrandt, The Anatomy Lesson of Dr. Tulp
- Rembrandt, The Anatomy Lesson of Dr. Tulp
- Rembrandt, The Night Watch
- Rembrandt, The Night Watch
- Rembrandt, Self-Portrait with Saskia
- Rembrandt, Girl at a Window
- Rembrandt, Aristotle with a Bust of Homer
- Rembrandt, Aristotle with a Bust of Homer
- Rembrandt, Christ Crucified between the Two Thieves: The Three Crosses.
- Rembrandt, Bathsheba at her Bath
- Rembrandt, Abraham Francen
- Rembrandt, Self-Portrait
- Rembrandt, Self-Portrait with Two Circles
- Rembrandt, The Jewish Bride
- Rembrandt, Christ Preaching (Hundred Guilder Print)
- Is it a genuine Rembrandt?
- Judith Leyster, The Proposition
- Judith Leyster, Self-Portrait
- Early Dutch Torah Finials
- Michaelina Wautier, The Five Senses
- Willem Kalf, Still Life with a Silver Ewer
- Gerrit Dou, A Woman Playing a Clavichord
- Vermeer, The Glass of Wine
- Vermeer, Young Woman with a Water Pitcher
- Johannes Vermeer, Woman Holding a Balance
- Vermeer, Woman Holding a Balance
- Johannes Vermeer, Girl with a Pearl Earring
- Johannes Vermeer, The Art of Painting
- Jan Steen, Feast of St. Nicholas
- Ruisdael, View of Haarlem with Bleaching Grounds
- Jacob van Ruisdael, The Jewish Cemetery
- Andries Beeckman, The Castle of Batavia and Dutch colonialism
- Frans Post, Landscape with Ruins in Olinda
- Rachel Ruysch, Fruit and Insects
- Rachel Ruysch, Fruit and Insects
- Rachel Ruysch, Flower Still-Life
- Van Huysum, Vase with Flowers
- Conserving van Walscapelle's Flowers in a Glass Vase
- The Great Atlas, Dutch edition
- The Town Hall of Amsterdam
- Huis ten Bosch (House in the Woods)
- 17th century Delftware
- Baroque art in Holland
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Rembrandt, Abraham Francen
Rembrandt Harmensz. van Rijn, Abraham Francen, Apothecary, c. 1657, etching, drypoint, engraving, 16 x 20.9 cm (Museum of Fine Arts, Boston). Speakers: Dr. Katherine Harper and Dr. Lauren Kilroy-Ewbank. Special thanks to the Center for Netherlandish Art (MFA, Boston). Created by Smarthistory.
Video transcript
(jazzy piano music) - [Lauren] We're in the Morse Study Room at the Boston Museum of Fine Arts, and we're looking at a print by Rembrandt showing his friend and the
collector, Abraham Francen, surrounded by luxurious
objects in his study. - [Katherine] The print
was executed around 1657. It's this personal, intimate moment between a man and his collection. And he doesn't even
acknowledge the viewer. He's looking down at what
might be a print or drawing that he owns. - [Lauren] So, this is
simultaneously an intimate portrait of Rembrandt's friend and confidant, but it also is a print that allows us to think
about Rembrandt's Amsterdam as this wealthy, mercantile city where you have this
massive influx of goods coming from different parts of the world that Francen himself has collected or is displayed with in this print. - [Katherine] We not only
see the beautiful carpet laid over the desk, but you have this skull, which is a typical symbol for portraits, the kind of vanitas imagery or symbol of the mortality
of the physical self. But then you also have
this Chinese figurine. The other works of art include
maybe a landscape painting, and then a triptych that shows a traditional religious image. But everywhere there are these details that make allusions to the international flavor
of Amsterdam at this point. - [Lauren] Francen is
sitting in a high-back chair. He is dressed in lavish, brocaded clothes, and yet his shirt has open tassels, suggesting a more casual atmosphere, that he's relaxed. And he's holding what looks like a print or some type of
two-dimensional illustration. He looks absorbed in whatever it is that he's studying. And before him on the
table is an open book. So, he is surrounded by objects that suggest that he's a collector. And we know in fact that he was an avid collector of things that were being imported into Amsterdam. - [Katherine] We don't know
what he actually owned. One of the seductive
things about this image is that it does give the appearance of having been studied from life, but this is a plausible
fiction, as it were. So, it's a confection meant
to show him in a certain way, in this flattering light, as an intellectual and an aesthete. - [Lauren] And Francen
himself was an apothecary. He's acquiring materials
to make medicines, and then selling them to people. So, he is benefiting
from all of the resources that are coming into the Netherlands because they're being acquired from places like Asia or Brazil. I wanna go back to the figurine that's on the table that's possibly from China, and points to the larger trade networks and posts and colonies that
the Dutch were establishing. - [Katherine] The Dutch East India Company had been established in the early decades of the 17th century, and by this time it had accumulated incredible power and prestige, and was for all intents and purposes the leader in international
economic trade. Amsterdam was the launchpad
and the receiving port for many of the goods that were imported. - [Lauren] And so we
have things like silks, Chinese porcelains, and possibly figurines similar to this one that are speaking to those trade networks. Artists, collectors were interested in all of these goods coming from Asia. Rembrandt, for instance, will study and copy Mughal miniatures. He paints portraits, or
even biblical subjects with figures wearing turbans, which was a general
exotic sign of Asian-ness. There is this clear, vested interest in what's happening with
the Dutch East India Company and this influx of goods. - [Katherine] Some of
these things helped him set the narrative he was telling in another place and time. And then here it's included as an allusion to Francen's international
taste and his cosmopolitanism. - [Lauren] Now, we know that this print was sometimes even printed by
Rembrandt on Japanese paper. This trade benefited
artists like Rembrandt. He was able to acquire new types of paper. I can't help but pause to look closely at the way that Rembrandt has used the technique of etching to draw us to look closely at the print. - [Katherine] Etching
is a method of carving into a layer of wax that sits on top of the copper plate. So, it allows for a much
greater freedom of movement for the artist, who can actually work the etching needle much like a draftsman's quill pen. Can create a whole range in your approach. So, different kinds of marks on the plate, the different heaviness of the lines, they can be overlapped thickly to create these passages of dense shadow. And you can also add drypoint to it. And this is where Rembrandt was truly a
master of the medium. He wove passages of drypoint, which is directly carving
into the copper plate. As you drag a sharp needle
across the copper plate, it kicks up little pieces of metal onto either side of the line. And those tiny pieces of
metal are called burr, and they trap ink so that when you print the image, it prints as this
velvety accent or shadow. These deep areas of shadow, it compels you to look
more closely at the image, and you become more emotionally and even physically involved in the print. - [Lauren] Rembrandt has
provided an open window as the light source where you see the light cascading in from the right side of the print. And then we do have
these dramatic contrasts of light and shadow called chiaroscuro. Rembrandt has given us such
a detailed, beautiful etching with these sharp contrasts that are in some ways encouraging us to do exactly what we see Francen
doing in the print itself. - [Katherine] If you just
try to follow a line, it's almost impossible, except in certain passages. But the weaving together of
the etching and the drypoint is so seamless and integrated that it's almost hard to figure out exactly where he started
and where he left off. And so it's often called the
symphony of lights and darks. - [Lauren] And while today,
Rembrandt might be most famous for his paintings, in his day he was most
famous for his prints. And looking at this one, it's not hard to see why. (jazzy piano music)