The Artist's Mother, Head and Bust, Three-Quarters Right

Rembrandt would feature his mother, Neeltgen Willemsdochter van Zuytbrouck, many times within his career in both paintings and also etchings. This example captures her bust-length, staring off to our right in a fairly relaxed manner.

The means by which we can differentiate the many different portraits produced by Rembrandt is to give many of them highly descriptive titles, and this piece for example is often known as The Artist's Mother, Head and Bust, Three-Quarters Right for that purpose. There are many etchings of his mother alone, many of which are fairly similar. The artist also learnt to create an extra stream of income by producing prints from some of these etchings which was one of the benefits of this medium. He could then sell these on relatively cheaply which helped to spread his reputation into lower income households which further strengthened the Rembrandt brand. He also loved to purchase other artist's work for his collection, and so any additional funds would always come in very useful.

Whilst calling on the services of etching specialists for advice, Rembrandt was still fairly secretive about his own methods once he had been using this medium for a period of time. Etching was a fairly hands-on technique which involved several different stages to the process, but this artist would have appreciated the ability to produce prints and then go back and make further adjustments several times, which meant that each design could evolve over time. This approach made it important that the artist would document each series of prints, and number each one so that their uniqueness and value could be estimated more accurately. One can even compare different versions to see some of the tweaks made by the artist to the original etching.

There were probably a considerable number of prints made from this etching because many still exist within some high profile collections today. For example, the Metropolitan Museum of Art holds one themselves and their entry on it confirms the identify of the model as being that of Neeltgen Willemsdr. van Zuytbroeck who sadly passed away around twelve years after this artwork was produced in 1628. This year also featured a number of other memorable etchings and so clearly the artist was working hard in this medium at the time. Rembrandt was relatively new to this discipline at this time, but was clearly already highly accomplished in delivering precise portraits.

Object Notes and Research Context

Rijksmuseum records identify this 1628 etching as The artist's mother, head and bust: three quarters right, with New Hollstein, Bartsch and Hollstein references. The subject is usually connected with Neeltgen Willemsdr. van Zuytbrouck, Rembrandt's mother, though the museum's careful wording matters more than later melodrama around family identity.

The value of the print lies in its directness. Rembrandt was still near the beginning of his printmaking career, yet the furrowed face is already treated as a demanding exercise in close looking. It pairs naturally with the head-only version and with the early-life biography page, where family, Leiden and the young artist's domestic models are discussed in fuller form.

The three-quarter bust format gives this print a slightly different character from the head-only version. More of the body and clothing appears, so the image balances family likeness, costume and etched modelling. That should be explained near the top, because otherwise the two mother pages can seem redundant.

Print catalogues also preserve multiple numbering systems. Bartsch, Hollstein and New Hollstein references are not glamorous, but they explain why the same small etching may be identified differently in museum records, auction catalogues and older books. This makes the print a useful bridge into Rembrandt's wider printmaking.

This page can also mention that the bust format gives more information about dress and posture than the head-only plate, which makes it valuable for comparing Rembrandt's early experiments with framing. The two mother prints should cross-link so users can move between the close facial study and the more portrait-like variant.

Further Rembrandt Context

This shorter legacy page remains part of the Rembrandt archive. For fuller context, use the refreshed Rembrandt pages below, which explain the artist's biography, media, technique, attribution issues and major works in greater depth.

• Rembrandt
• Rembrandt etchings
• Rembrandt Style and Technique
• Rembrandt Workshop and Attribution

For secure object data, attribution and collection history, compare The Artist's Mother, Head and Bust, Three-Quarters Right with the relevant museum or catalogue record before treating older page text as final.

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