ABSTRACT
Michael Montias’ pioneering statistical studies of the seventeenth-century market for Dutch paintings would be impossible to duplicate for prints. Although produced and traded in much greater numbers than paintings, prints were often sold in sets, or bulk lots at relatively low prices, and documents seldom record information about specific titles, or impressions. Nevertheless, sources such as auction records, inventories, early treatises, inscriptions, and collectors’ annotations offer evidence for a lively trade in graphic art. 1 A case in point is Rembrandt’s purchase at auction in 1638 of nine sets of Dürer’s Life of the Virgin for around two guilders per set. The document provides just enough information to provoke speculation: apart from the impact of Dürer on Rembrandt’s own work, the acquisition of so many duplicates suggests that Rembrandt was actively trading in prints, or that he distributed such prototypes among his apprentices for study. 2 Meanwhile, the circulation of his own etchings contributed substantially to the development of his international reputation as a gifted artist. This paper offers some reflections on Rembrandt’s place in the market for graphic art, with particular attention to the significant role played by portraits in the collecting and appreciation of his etchings among seventeenth- and eighteenth-century connoisseurs.
