Malaga,
During his lifetime, José Lázaro Galdiano guarded a complete collection of Rembrandt’s engravings: the Flemish genius produced nearly three hundred prints between 1620 and 1665. He became as well known or better known for these pieces than for his paintings and his reputation in the graphic field can be compared to that of Dürer, Goya and Picasso.
The issues he addressed in this type of work were the same as those he dealt with in his canvases, although in this technique Rembrandt was able to experiment in his representation with certainly greater doses of freedom, demonstrating that he could provide liveliness and elegance to his scenes whatever his means.
Thirty-five of those fifty prints acquired by Lázaro Galdiano, today in the collections of the collector’s museum in Madrid, can be seen until January at the Carmen Thyssen Museum in Malaga: they are portraits, self-portraits and religious scenes – among which the Passion of Christ and episodes from the lives of the patriarchs Abraham, Isaac and Jacob stand out – and they show that the engraver Rembrandt, throughout his evolution, achieved virtuosity without buts that he achieved in his canvases in terms of the use of chiaroscuro, the capture of details and the inventiveness in the compositions.
In a tour curated by Carmen Espinosa, head of Conservation at Lázaro Galdiano, we will detect the importance he gave to meticulous drawing and the precision of the line in his early works, and his gradual acquisition of ease over the decades until, in the later ones, he approached the freest interpretations of the chosen motifs that he came to display in his paintings.
He worked in etching as well as in burin and drypoint, he demonstrated his mastery when it came to making the light emerge from the blacks to illuminate a theatrical drama and sometimes he made different versions of the same scene – they are called states– to ensure that, by incorporating new lines, shadows and details, the atmospheres presented new features, enriching their readings.
Among the pieces now gathered in the Thyssen in Malaga, it is worth paying attention to the psychological realism achieved in his family portraits or of the Dutch privileged classes; in the self-portraits in which, in addition to showing us his progressive aging, he also knew how to transmit moods to us; and especially attend to his figure studies.
The latter are essential to contemplate, through his prism, his entire production: in them he tested the proportions between the limbs, the movement of the body and the anatomical volumes. His landscapes also provide keys to understanding his handling of light, while his genre scenes provide interesting data about the trousseau and customs of daily life in the flamenco environment in the 17th century.
The well-known economic difficulties led Rembrandt to sell his printing workshop; The copper plates of his engravings were then scattered. Clement de Jonghe, a printer and friend, was the first to obtain them, but they later passed into the hands of the dealer and collector Pieter de Haan and the French engraver Claude H. Watelet, a collector and admirer of the artist.
In any case, the prints published during the decades after the author’s death are of enormous quality and some of them are included in this exhibition, such as Abraham and Isaac, Jacob caressing Benjamin, Jesus and the Samaritan woman, Christ on the Cross, Rembrandt’s Portrait of the Mother or his Descentprinted by Justus Danckerts in the last years of the 17th century.
From Watelet the plates would pass to the engraver Pierre-François Basan and, from him, to his son Henri Louis. Some of these prints, called “Basan impressions”, can also be seen in Malaga – we are talking about The Holy Family, Circumcision in the stable, The tribute of the coin, The raising of Lazarus, Self-portrait either The artist and his model—.
Later, the plates would reach the publisher August Jean and the engraver Auguste Bernard, who made new prints, and in 1906 the lucky person to get hold of them was the collector Alvin-Beaumont, who in turn commemorated the third centenary of Rembrandt’s birth with the launch of several editions.
The analysis of Rembrandt’s engravings is actually not simple, since the majority of the owners of the original copperplates, due to the enduring success of the works, made modifications to them for more than two centuries, superimposing one on another and confusing the dating.
In any case, this Thyssen exhibition allows the public to enjoy the graphic legacy of a master, both technically and expressively.
“Rembrandt engraver”
CARMEN THYSSEN MUSEUM
C/Company, 10
Malaga
From October 24, 2025 to January 18, 2026
