Rembrandt van Rijn (Dutch, 1606-1669) "Christ Preaching La Petite Tome"

Catalog Note: Among the most admired of Rembrandt's biblical etchings, Christ Preaching - known since the eighteenth century as La Petite Tombe after the Amsterdam art dealer Pieter de la Tombe, in whose inventory the plate appears - represents the culmination of the artist's engagement with the theme of Christ as teacher. Executed around 1652 and closely related in subject to the celebrated Hundred Guilder Print of the previous decade, the composition is more intimate and concentrated in effect. Rembrandt places the haloed Christ at the center of the scene, raised on a nearly unworked ledge that lends him a weightless, levitating presence. He preaches to a rapt assembly of some twenty-eight figures, all individually characterized, their attention captured so completely that none looks directly at the speaker. Only a babe-in-arms and a small boy idly tracing lines in the dust with his finger - a figure long held to carry a self-reflexive reference to the artist's own vocation - remain unaffected by Christ's words.

Provenance Note: The Norton Collection, assembled over more than half a century by father and son, grew to encompass more than 500 prints spanning five centuries, from Durer and Rembrandt through Hogarth, Ensor, Redon, Rouault, Picasso, and on to Warhol, Rauschenberg, and Lichtenstein. Between 1998 and 2000, the greater part of the collection was given to the Albright-Knox Art Gallery (now the Buffalo AKG Art Museum), which in 1999 dedicated the F. Paul Norton and Frederic P. Norton Family Prints and Drawings Study Center in recognition of the gift.