ABSTRACT
A discussion of seventeenth-century Dutch painting requires a brief excursus on the political and religious developments of the period. Holland was actually the most prosperous and populous of the seven provinces of the northern Netherlands and generally refers to the entire territory. In the course of the seventeenth century, Holland became primarily Calvinist, established important universities, and attained considerable wealth from shipbuilding and international commerce. Rembrandt worked in a wide range of techniques and media, including drawing, etching, drypoint, and painting. His breadth of human subjects, from infancy to old age, from poverty and misfortune to wealth and status, reflects his essentially humanist view of the world. Falling and dependency are as much features of old age as of childhood, which Rembrandt masterfully captures in the figure of Tobit. Engraving, drypoint, and etching are intaglio printing methods in which an image made by incised, inked lines is transferred from a metal plate to paper.
