The Hundred Guilder Print

The Hundred Guilder Print can be counted among Rembrandt’s most beautiful and complex compositions. The artist wove together in a horizontal composition individual episodes of the Gospel of St. Matthew to illustrate its full chapter 19. It is an exquisite puzzle of darks against lights and lights against darks that draw the eye across the image. He positioned Christ as a luminous beacon between the lightly etched left side and the sumptuous darkness he created on the right. After the scene was first etched onto the plate, he continued to reposition many of the details; traces of that repositioning can still be seen in Christ's eyes, hands, and feet. The title of the print refers to an early story that Rembrandt paid one hundred guilders to buy back an impression of the print. While the tale is dubious, it does suggest that the print had become rare by the eighteenth century.