[3] The date is unquestionably difficult to read. Bartsch misread it as 1636 (op. cit., p. 148). Charles Middleton (Descriptive Catalogue of the Etched Work of Rembrandt van Ryn, London, 1878, p. 299) was the first to identify the date as 1650. This has been accepted by all modern authorities except George Biörklund (Rembrandt's Etchings: True and False, Stockholm, 1955, no. 52-A, p. 103) who reads it as 1652. This seems unlikely to me, not only on the great stylistic affinity of this print to Rembrandt's unquestioned works of 1650, but also on the basis of my own reading of the date. The presumed digit "2" is quite unlike the "2" in Hind's 257 and 263, Rembrandt's only dated prints of 1652. (See figure 16.)
[4] The general location of this scene, as well as many others in Rembrandt's oeuvre, has been identified by Frits Lugt (Mit Rembrandt in Amsterdam, Berlin, 1920, pp. 136-140, revised from the original Dutch, Wandelingen met Rembrandt in en om Amsterdam, Amsterdam, 1915; see also Lugt, "Rembrandt's Amsterdam," Print Collector's Quarterly, April 1915, vol. 5, no. 2, pp. 111-169, and the attached map).
[5] Cornelis Hofstede de Groot, ed., Die Urkunden über Rembrandt (1575-1721), The Hague, 1906. On the lawsuit, see nos. 113, 117, 118, 120-3, 130, and 165. Geertghe was taken to the institution on July 4, 1650.
[6] On the financial troubles, starting in 1653, see ibid., nos. 140 ff.
[7] The exact number is, of course, impossible to determine, because of many uncertainties of attribution and dating. A. M. Hind, op. cit., lists 236 prints before the year 1650, which seems as accurate a count as is possible.
[8] According to Hind, op. cit., the 14 landscapes nos. 237-260 and 262-264 are attributable to the years 1650-52. Of the 27 prints from these three years, 16 are actually signed and dated by Rembrandt. Nine of these 16 are landscapes.
[9] E.g., C. J. Holmes, "The Development of Rembrandt as an Etcher," Burlington Magazine (August 1906), vol. 9, no. 41, p. 313. The well-known story of his having drawn "Six's Bridge" (Hind 209) on the plate while the servant went for the mustard is also often cited (e.g., Hind, op. cit., p. 95), but if true appears to be atypical.
[10] Otto Benesch, The Drawings of Rembrandt, 6 vol., London, 1954-57.
[11] Benesch no. 1225, Groningen (Netherlands) Museum, inv. no. 210, dated about 1650, the wash added by another hand. This drawing was formerly in the personal collection of Cornelis Hofstede de Groot and was first reproduced and discussed by Otto Hirschmann in "Die Handzeichnungen-Sammlung Dr. Hofstede de Groot im Haag, II," Der Cicerone (Leipzig, January 1917), vol. 9, no. 1/2, pp. 21-22.
[12] B Benesch 850, A Clump of Trees, The Hermitage, Leningrad, about 1648-50, and Benesch 1246, Farm Building Among Trees, Albertina, Vienna, inv. no. 8873, Hofstede de Groot 1497 (Die Handzeichnungen Rembrandts ..., Haarlem, 1906), about 1650-51.