Rijksmuseum
De graflegging
Creator
RembrandtDutch painter and printmaker (1606–1669) · 1606–1669
All works by this person →More on Wikipedia- Date
- c. 1654
- Medium
- paper
- Institution
- Rijksmuseum
- Object ID
- RP-P-1961-1034
From LinkedCulture
This is Rembrandt's etching of the Entombment, printed around 1654 at a moment when he had worked the copper plate so aggressively that darkness nearly swallowed the image whole. Without the plate tone that warms other impressions, the tomb and its mourners emerge from an almost total black, and two small skulls on the stone ledge above are only barely distinguishable. That severity is the point - Rembrandt was testing how much shadow an etching could carry before the composition ceased to exist.
Written by LinkedCulture for its video on this object. Machine-generated (claude-sonnet-4-6), not yet reviewed by a person. It is not part of the museum’s record.
From the Rijksmuseum record
Rembrandt continued to alter the plate. This impression shows how dark the composition actually is when the plate is printed without the generous plate tone of the impression at the left. Rembrandt made the ledge above the tomb somewhat lighter, so that the two skulls resting on it can once again be distinguished. The layout of the tomb is also clearer here.
The authoritative record is held by Rijksmuseum. LinkedCulture surfaces this object and its connections; it does not alter institutional metadata.
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