Author Description

Rembrandt was the most original printmaker of all time. In no fewer than 300 images, he covered the full range of styles and subjects for which he is celebrated, including self-portraits, scenes from the Bible, vignettes of everyday life, and character studies. Rembrandt was famously experimental: he often reworked his copper plates to improve and extend their expressive power, creating startlingly modern results. Rembrandt the Printmaker, compiled by three leading authorities on Rembrandt, and published to coincide with major exhibitions at the Rijksmuseum (Amsterdam) and the British Museum (London), aims to illustrate a selection of his finest prints. Exciting new areas of research have opened up in recent years, making it possible to follow the progress of Rembrandt's work on each plate and also revealing details of his habit of revising the images at various times throughout his life. The role played by his preparatory drawings is also examined. All of these new insights are presented to a wider public for the first time in Rembrandt the Printmaker, which is lavishly illustrated with 80 color and 320 black/white images.