View of Amsterdam from the Northwestc. 1640
Amsterdam’s skyline stretches low across the horizon, its church towers and windmills seen across flat meadows and water from the northwest, beneath a great empty sky. More about this work
About this work
Amsterdam’s skyline stretches low across the horizon, its church towers and windmills seen across flat meadows and water from the northwest, beneath a great empty sky. Rembrandt made this small etching around 1640, when his interest in the countryside around Amsterdam was growing; over the following years he made many landscape etchings and drawings on walks outside the city. The economy of line and the expanse of blank paper for the sky make the city feel both near and distant.
Written by Ochre Editions.
How it was made
- Etching
- The artist draws with a needle through a waxy coating on a copper plate, and acid bites the exposed lines. The plate is then inked, wiped and printed under pressure, so the line keeps the freedom of drawing.
Rembrandt van Rijn
Dutch, 1606–1669 · Born in Leiden; died in Amsterdam.
Rembrandt trained in Leiden and Amsterdam, settled in Amsterdam in the early 1630s and became the city’s most sought-after portraitist. His later work grows rougher and more searching, with thick paint, deep shadow and faces that seem lost in thought, as in Aristotle with a Bust of Homer, painted for a Sicilian collector. He was also the leading etcher of his age, reworking plates through many states and making the medium as expressive as painting.
Written by Ochre Editions.
Rights and the museum’s record
Public domain. The National Gallery of Art has dedicated this image to the public domain under CC0, so anyone may copy, adapt and use it, for any purpose, without asking. Our prints and files are reproductions made from the museum’s image; the museum doesn’t endorse them.
- Object number
- 1943.3.7107
- Credit
- Courtesy National Gallery of Art, Washington
- Type
- Licence
- CC0 1.0 Universal
- Museum record
- See it on the museum’s site
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