A Peasant Replying: "Dats niet" (That's nothing)

A Peasant Replying: "Dats niet" (That's nothing) is a compelling print created by Rembrandt van Rijn in 1634. Executed in the challenging medium of etching, this work exemplifies the artist’s early mastery of the graphic arts during the fertile period of Dutch Golden Age production, encompassing the years 1601 to 1650. Rijn used the etching needle to capture a fleeting, casual moment, focusing on a genre figure from daily life rather than the grander historical or mythological subjects prevalent at the time.

While justly renowned for his painting, Rijn stands as perhaps the greatest printmaker of his era, continuously experimenting with the technical capabilities of the etching process. The technical brilliance of this piece lies in the way Rijn utilizes selective inking and subtle variations in line density to suggest rapid movement and the coarse texture of the peasant’s simple clothing. Such small studies, often focusing keenly on expression and character, demonstrate the artist’s sustained interest in the ordinary people who populated Amsterdam in the mid-17th century.

The immediacy inherent in the piece, captured in the peasant’s specific response, highlights a common, everyday interaction. This focus on realistic detail and the elevation of the common man’s experience were defining characteristics among Dutch masters seeking verisimilitude. As one of Rijn's many exceptional prints, the work serves as an important resource for understanding the artist's developing style before he transitioned to even darker, more complex compositions later in the 1630s. This key example of 17th-century graphic art is held in the collection of the National Gallery of Art, making its image available today for educational and research purposes, often found in public domain archives.