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James Bretherton, etcher

The Three Trees, ca. 1770

Recent Acquisition

Description

Maker

  • Rembrandt van Rijn, 1606-1669, Dutch
  • James Bretherton, fl. 1770 - 1799, British, etcher

Title

The Three Trees

Year

ca. 1770

Medium

Etching, drypoint, and engraving on laid paper

Materials/Techniques

Materials

  • etching,
  • drypoint,
  • burin

Dimensions

Image/Sheet: 21.3 x 28.4 cm (8 3/8 x 11 3/16 inches)

Type

  • Works on Paper,
  • Prints

Credit

Bequest of Sally Jean Marks

Object Number

2018.59

Exhibition History

Exhibition History

Visions and Revisions

February 15 - August 4, 2019

To create this brooding landscape, Rembrandt combined etching, engraving, and drypoint, perhaps using an additional technique in the foreground. Humans, their activities, and their cities are but half-hidden details, while the raw beauty of nature takes center stage. Highly unusual for Rembrandt, this dramatic and melancholy depiction of gathering clouds and the sun’s rays breaking through them was created a year after the death of his beloved first wife.

Between 1750 and 1850, a veritable craze for Rembrandt’s works led to dozens of imitations and copies of this most coveted print. Some versions, such as Bretherton’s, were so deceptive that they escaped detection until recent times.

Use

The images on this website can enable discovery and collaboration and support new scholarship, and we encourage their use. This object is in the public domain (CC0 1.0). This object is The Three Trees with the accession number of 2018.59. To request high-resolution files or new photography, please send an email to imagerequest@risd.edu and include your name and the object's accession number.

Feedback

We view our online collection as a living documents, and our records are frequently revised and enhanced. If you have additional information or have spotted an error, please send feedback to curatorial@risd.edu.

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