REMBRANDT: Young Man in a Velvet Cap (Petrus Sylvius?) - 1637
Price: € 30 000
Etching, 97 x 83 mm. B. 268; K.G.Boon 268; BB 37-C; New Hollstein 164, ii/ii.
Superb impression printed on watermarked laid paper (upper part of the Strasbourg lily watermark); small margins (sheet: 109 x 100 mm). In excellent condition.
Slight trace of vertical fold visible in grazing light; two small rust spots on right edge, otherwise in excellent condition.
Very rare (Nowell-Usticke RR).
The New Hollstein counts as a 1st state an impression kept by the Bibliothèque nationale de France showing a small additional line at the back of the hat and a few dots on the model's left cheek. Nowell-Usticke considers it a trial proof.
Our impression shows burr visible on the earliest impressions: on the hair, upper lip, chin, left eye, dark areas on the background and clothing folds; as well as the two scratches: a horizontal wavy line to the left of the face and a vertical line above the beret (Nowell-Usticke). Such a fine impression with good margins and in excellent condition is very rare for this print, even in museum collections.
Provenance: Louis Jouas-Poutrel collection (b. 1874); by descent. Louis Jouas-Poutrel was an aquafortist from Normandy. The Musée du Petit Palais holds his views of Rouen.
The model for this portrait, which Bartsch entitled Jeune homme assis et réfléchissant, was assumed to be Ferdinand Bol (Nowell-Usticke) before the old ink inscription Petrus Sylvius on the reverse of an impression was taken to be the sitter's name (DeHoop Scheffer, Liber Amicorum Karel J. Boon, Amsterdam, 1974, pp. 96-101). This impression, which belonged to Vivant Denon, is now in the Musée cantonal de Lausanne. Petrus Sylvius was the son of Pastor Jan Cornelis Sylvius, of whom Rembrandt etched two portraits (NH 124, NH 235).