Francesco Novelli Jan Cornelis Sylvius after Rembrandt

An original 1860 etching print, Francesco Novelli after Rembrandt, Jan Cornelis Sylvius.

A fine etching by Francesco Novelli (1764–1836) after Rembrandt van Rijn. This print is believed to be from the posthumous 1860 reprinting of Novell's etchings. Numbered 30 in the series and etched in reverse after Rembrandt.

The Amsterdam preacher Jan Cornelis Sylvius was a relative of Saskia van Uylenburgh whom Rembrandt married the year after. Sylvius became the godfather of their first child.

Francesco Novelli (1764–1836) was a Venetian painter and engraver. His father was the artist Pietro Antonio Novelli (1729–1804), a talented draughtsman who produced altarpieces and frescoes throughout northern Italy. Francesco studied with his father and also under the printmaker Dominique Vivant Denon (1747–1825). Denon was a French diplomat who had settled in Venice after learning engraving in Naples; he went on to become the first director of the Louvre.

Between 1789 and 1790 Denon purchased volumes of engravings that had belonged to the Venetian engraver and art dealer Antonio Maria Zanetti the Elder, which included three books with Rembrandt’s prints. Denon subsequently produced engravings after Rembrandt, and Francesco Novelli was particularly influenced in this regard.

Rembrandt was a great innovator and experimenter in the print medium. He created some 300 etchings and drypoints from about 1626 to 1665. Early in his career, whilst still living in Leiden, his prints were often facial expression studies, using his own face, and sensitive portraits of family and people he knew around him. Later, after moving to Amsterdam, he became fascinated with subjects from the Old and New Testaments, focusing on the human emotion and narrative detail inspired by these stories.

Plate size: 23.2 x 19cm. Sheet size: 33.4 x 22.4cm.