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Lot Essay
Medea is one of the few mythological scenes amongst Rembrandt's printed works and he depicted it with his unique inventiveness and storyteller's spirit. It is also one of the few grand architectural prospects amongst his etchings. (For another example, see lot 33.) The sheet offered here is a brilliant example of the very rare first state, before the artist added a crown to Juno’s head and reworked Medea’s robe, printed on Japanese paper. The outstanding qualities of this impression did not go unnoticed and attracted a long list of distinguished Rembrandt collectors to the sheet, whose provenance can be traced back to the 18th century.
Rembrandt's patron and friend, the patrician, collector and later burgomaster of Amsterdam, Jan Six (1618-1700), was also an intellectual and a poet. He translated and adapted Euripides's tragedy Medea into Dutch and the play premiered in Amsterdam in 1648. The previous year, he had commissioned Rembrandt to etch his now famous portrait (B. 285; New Holl 238). Six then appointed him to design the frontispiece for the theatre booklet, and composed a couplet of verses to be engraved into the lower border of the plate, which were added in the fourth state.
Curiously, Rembrandt chose to depict a scene of the Medea myth not included in the play: Medea helped the Greek hero Jason, leader of the Argonauts, on his quest for the Golden Fleece, which was kept hidden by her father King Aeëtes of Colchis, and married him. After ten years, Jason rejected her and wedded the Princess Creusa of Corinth, daughter of King Creon. In revenge for this betrayal, Medea killed her own children, her father-in-law, and Jason's new wife.
Rembrandt's etching unites the marriage of Jason and Creusa with the impending murders. The majestic, arched interior of a temple - reminiscent here of the central nave of a Dutch cathedral - occupies the upper two thirds of the sheet, where a group of spectators witness the wedding ceremony conducted by a priest. The goddess Juno, enthroned with a peacock beside her under a canopy, presides over the (un-)holy act. At lower right, half-concealed by the shadows of the columns, canopy and altar curtain, Medea approaches the scene. A servant carries the train of her heavy, hooded gown behind her, as she walks towards the stairs holding a dagger and a poison chalice, instruments to the gruesome tragedy that is about to unfold.
The soft, golden luminosity of the present sheet of Japan paper confers a warm yet eerie glow to the scene.
Rembrandt's patron and friend, the patrician, collector and later burgomaster of Amsterdam, Jan Six (1618-1700), was also an intellectual and a poet. He translated and adapted Euripides's tragedy Medea into Dutch and the play premiered in Amsterdam in 1648. The previous year, he had commissioned Rembrandt to etch his now famous portrait (B. 285; New Holl 238). Six then appointed him to design the frontispiece for the theatre booklet, and composed a couplet of verses to be engraved into the lower border of the plate, which were added in the fourth state.
Curiously, Rembrandt chose to depict a scene of the Medea myth not included in the play: Medea helped the Greek hero Jason, leader of the Argonauts, on his quest for the Golden Fleece, which was kept hidden by her father King Aeëtes of Colchis, and married him. After ten years, Jason rejected her and wedded the Princess Creusa of Corinth, daughter of King Creon. In revenge for this betrayal, Medea killed her own children, her father-in-law, and Jason's new wife.
Rembrandt's etching unites the marriage of Jason and Creusa with the impending murders. The majestic, arched interior of a temple - reminiscent here of the central nave of a Dutch cathedral - occupies the upper two thirds of the sheet, where a group of spectators witness the wedding ceremony conducted by a priest. The goddess Juno, enthroned with a peacock beside her under a canopy, presides over the (un-)holy act. At lower right, half-concealed by the shadows of the columns, canopy and altar curtain, Medea approaches the scene. A servant carries the train of her heavy, hooded gown behind her, as she walks towards the stairs holding a dagger and a poison chalice, instruments to the gruesome tragedy that is about to unfold.
The soft, golden luminosity of the present sheet of Japan paper confers a warm yet eerie glow to the scene.