Cottage and Farm Buildings with a Man Sketching, Rembrandt van Rijn, c. 1641

Cottage and Farm Buildings with a Man Sketching, Rembrandt van Rijn, c. 1641

etching, h 130mm × w 208mm More details

A man in a tall hat is drawing a traditional Dutch ‘stolpboerderij’ or Haubarg-type farmhouse, many of which could be found around Amsterdam. It is constructed of bricks, a very costly material at the time and may have been built to produce butter, with the cellar and the ‘opkamer’, or upstairs room, for storage. You can just imagine Rembrandt sitting in the grass like this.