The Three Trees

Rembrandt van Rijn

National Gallery of Art

Printed with deep, black shadows and swirling or straight lines on cream-white paper, three trees stand on a grassy bank alongside a body of water, probably a river or canal, in this horizontal etching, engraving, and drypoint. The grassy bank reaches almost two-thirds of the way across the composition from the right edge. At least two people, a horse-drawn wagon or carriage filled with more people, and a town, all minuscule in scale, are tucked under or beyond the trees. The face of the bank directly opposite us is dark in shadow, and the details of plants and the waterline are hard to make out. The bank tapers down so the distant horizon, which comes about a third of the way up the composition, stretches across the left half of the print. One person sits and one stands, fishing, by the water in the lower left corner. People work and cows stand or lie in the flat field beyond the water. Buildings and windmills created with a few strokes of the burin or etching needle are tiny in the far distance. The deeply shaded three trees are outlined starkly against the white sky. Dark clouds pour across the top of the sheet and enter along the left edge, and diagonal lines across the top left corner suggests falling rain. The artist signed and dated the print among grasses in the lower left corner of the printed image: “Rembrandt f. 1643.”