"Christ crucified between the two thieves "The three crosses"
by REMBRANDT Harmenszoon van Rijn, Drypoint and burin, first state of five, 385 x 450 mm
Catalogue number: Bartsch 78.
In the 1650s Rembrandt returned to the Passion, this time of large drypoint prints. The series remained incomplete, only the Ecce Homo (Christ presented to the people), and the Three crosses (Christ crucified between the two thieves) were completed.
Rembrandt’s Three Crosses of 1653 is one of the pinnacles of printmaking. It is more like a painting than an etching. Curious as to the different effects, Rembrandt made impressions on various kind of papers, and on vellum, which absorbs hardly any ink at all.
Some parts of the scene are based on other prints, but the idea for this intensely dramatic, nocturnal setting is original.
The picture shows the first state of this etching. Rembrandt put the etching through a radical remake in the later states in which he eliminated most of the foreground figures.