Rembrandt van Rijn
(Dutch, 1606–1669)
Male Nude, Seated and Standing—Het Rolwagentje (The Walking Frame)
Object Details
Artist
Rembrandt van Rijn
Date
ca. 1646
Medium
Etching, first state of eight
Dimensions
Plate: 7 11/16 × 5 1/16 inches (19.5 × 12.9 cm)
Sheet: 7 3/4 × 5 3/16 inches (19.7 × 13.2 cm)
Credit Line
Acquired through the generosity of Marilyn Friedland, Class of 1965, and Lawrence Friedland, and through the Frank and Margaret Robinson Prints, Drawings, and Photographs Endowment
Object
Number
2016.046
Like the other male nude on view in this exhibition (Nude Man Seated before a Curtain, Princeton Uni(…)
Like the other male nude on view in this exhibition (Nude Man Seated before a Curtain, Princeton University Art Museum), Rembrandt seems here to have sketched directly onto the plate alongside his pupils drawing the same model on paper. He records two poses of the same youth (or, perhaps, two different models), faithfully and without idealizing them.
Rembrandt also presents a toddler in a walking frame moving eagerly toward a beckoning woman. This seemingly unrelated scene in fact references a moralizing emblem of the time, which likens a child’s learning to walk to the importance of practice for the development of skill. Rembrandt thus seems to be underscoring the value of repeated academic nude study for the budding artists under his care.
Between the nudes and the walking frame vignette, Rembrandt seems to be modeling two types of observation equally crucial for drawing—the close observation of the nude body, and the quick sketch that captures a fleeting human interaction.
(“Lines of Inquiry: Learning from Rembrandt’s Etchings,” curated by Andrew C. Weislogel and presented at the Johnson Museum September 23–December 17, 2017)
