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Rembrandt Harmenszoon van Rijn (15 July 1606 – 4 October 1669) was a Dutch painter and etcher. He is generally considered one of the greatest painters and printmakers in European art history and the most important in Dutch history. His contributions to art came in a period of great wealth and cultural achievement that historians call the Dutch Golden Age when Dutch Golden Age painting, although in many ways antithetical to the Baroque style that dominated Europe, was extremely prolific and innovative.
Having achieved youthful success as a portrait painter, Rembrandt's later years were marked by personal tragedy and financial hardships. Yet his etchings and paintings were popular throughout his lifetime, his reputation as an artist remained high, and for twenty years he taught many important Dutch painters. Rembrandt's greatest creative triumphs are exemplified especially in his portraits of his contemporaries, self-portraits and illustrations of scenes from the Bible. His self-portraits form a unique and intimate biography, in which the artist surveyed himself without vanity and with the utmost sincerity.
In his paintings and prints he exhibited knowledge of classical iconography, which he molded to fit the requirements of his own experience; thus, the depiction of a biblical scene was informed by Rembrandt's knowledge of the specific text, his assimilation of classical composition, and his observations of Amsterdam's Jewish population. Because of his empathy for the human condition, he has been called "one of the great prophets of civilization."
This etching was printed as an illustration on the first page of Book III of Elias Herckmans' Der Zee-Vaert Lof (The Importance of Seafaring), published in Amsterdam in 1634. Book III describes the closing of the Temple of Janus (seen in the left background of the etching) after the defeat of Mark Antony at the Battle of Actium, which inaugurated the more than 200-year Pax Romana. The woman holding the mast of the boat represents Fortune, who has turned her back on Mark Antony. The etching appears to serve as an allegory for the opening of peace negotiations with the Dutch and the Spanish following the former's defeat of the latter at the Battle of Slaak in 1631. The etching in the UAMA collection is the second state of two.
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