St. Francis Beneath a Tree Praying
Medium
Etching and drypoint on ivory laid paper
Dimensions
Image/plate: 18.2 × 24.2 cm (7 3/16 × 9 9/16 in.); Sheet: 18.3 × 24.4 cm (7 1/4 × 9 5/8 in.)
Classification
etching
Department
Prints and Drawings
Museum
Art Institute of Chicago
Accession Number
82281
Rights
Public Domain
About this artwork
Rembrandt saturated the dark, inky forest of his Saint Francis beneath a Tree Praying with velvety burr along drypoint lines and deep tone wiped selectively throughout the plate. Instead of the Dutch Reformed Church, this image reflects the vision of the Roman Catholic Church in its emphasis on the lives of the saints and therefore may have been a private commission. The unusually elderly Saint Francis gazes toward a large crucifix, which might be real or imagined, within the forest glade and sp...
About the Artist
Rembrandt van Rijn · 1606–1669
Rembrandt Harmenszoon van Rijn (1606–1669) stands as one of the greatest visual artists in the history of Western art and the most important Dutch painter of the 17th century. Born in Leiden to a prosperous miller's family, Rembrandt transformed painting through his revolutionary use of light and shadow, his psychological depth in portraiture, and his elevation of etching to a fine art. His approx...