Rembrandt’s Mother, Rembrandt van Rijn, 1633
etching, h 42mm × w 40mm More details
This old woman already featured in the first etchings Rembrandt made. She is virtually certainly his mother, Neeltgen Willemsdr van Zuytbroeck. In the two versions of 1628, she is 60 years old. They are accurate studies of her furrowed face, drawn in such detail that you can just imagine the young Rembrandt toiling away on his copperplate directly in front of her.
