- Museum number
- 1868,0822.675
- Description
-
The Omval; gnarled tree beside River Amstel with a man standing on a bank at right, ferries beyond, a town and wind-mills in background; second state with right hand side of the brim of the man's hat reduced in width; trial lines in top right burnished. 1645
Etching and drypoint
- Production date
- 1645
- Dimensions
-
Height: 185 millimetres
-
Width: 226 millimetres
- $Inscriptions
-
- Curator's comments
- For other impressions see also F,5.157; 1895,0915.432; and 1910,0212.395. For the third state defaced with crude trompe l'oeil-effect playing cards see F,5.154.
Selected literature: Lugt 1920, pp. 89-94; Schneider 1990, no. 54; Nevitt 1997, pp. 170-91; Amsterdam 1998, pp. 265-70; Melbourne-Canberra 1997-8, no. 107; White 1999, pp. 224-8, figs 306-8.
Hinterding et al. 2000:
The area of Amsterdam still known as the Omval (the Ruin; a ruin formerly stood on the site) was in the seventeenth century a small spit of land at the head of a canal which entered the east bank of the River Amstel south east of the city. Like the ruins of Kostverloren manor further south, this was an area often represented by Rembrandt and his contemporaries [Amsterdam 1998, reproduces three drawings of the Omval by or attributed to Rembrandt (Benesch 1321, 1322 and a slight sketch sold at Christie's, Amsterdam, 15 Nov. 1983, lot 39), as well as drawings by Jan van Kessel and Philips Koninck, mentioning others (Hinterding et al. 2000, p. 270) by Johannes Leupenius and Jacob Esselens. The site is now dominated by the execrable 135-metre 'Rembrandt Tower']. The etching mirrors the real situation (in reverse) to a considerable extent and shows on the extreme right, as a dark hole (somewhat resembling a bridge), the opening of the irrigation pipe where it discharged water pumped from the nearby polder into the Amstel. One of the windmills producing this flow is shown in the far distance, near the banks of the canal that ran south east from this point. The second, larger windmill stood on the Omval itself, near some shipyards, and several boats are shown moored or hauled up on the banks. In the centre, further boats partly obscure the inn behind, which was also known as the Omval. This may have been the destination of the covered ferry that enters the scene on the right. The foreground figures, the standing man in the centre and, in the shadow of the tree, the lover placing a garland on the head of his beloved, appear to be unconnected with each other. Indeed the pastoral group of lovers marries somewhat uneasily, both iconographically and perspectivally, with the rest of the scene, which reflects the real situation closely. It has been suggested that Rembrandt intended to recast the traditional image of pastoral lovers, usually represented in an idyllic (and Italianate) landscape, and place them instead in a real, recognizable and urban setting. They may be compared with those in the 'Three trees' (F,5.164), and the depiction of young pairs embracing in landscapes was commonplace [Nevitt op. cit., p. 171, rightly draws particular attention to Pieter Lastman's 'Pastoral landscape' (private collection), an Italianate idyll in which the lovers are prominent. Cf. also the drawing of a 'Landscape with lovers' by Paulus van Vianen in the Rijksmuseum (Boon 1978, no. 467)]. The gnarled old tree is reminiscent of contemporary 'vanitas' imagery, but Rembrandt's intentions remain obscure. To judge from its upper branches, the print was left unfinished in any conventional sense, despite the fact that Rembrandt not only enriched the texture of the work with drypoint additions - among the earliest in his oeuvre to print with such abstract force (the effect wears away during the second state) - but also signed and dated the plate in the same medium. In his later landscapes the two techniques are integrated more harmoniously.
- Location
- Not on display
- Exhibition history
-
2000/1 Jul-Jan, Amsterdam, Rijksmuseum, Rembrandt the Printmaker
- Acquisition date
- 1868
- Acquisition notes
- Inscribed on verso by Esdaile, in pen and brown ink: "WE 1812 Dec. N.60".
- Department
- Prints and Drawings
- Registration number
- 1868,0822.675
