Bedelaar met een houten been is a powerful study by Rembrandt van Rijn, dating from approximately 1628 to 1632. This early work, executed on paper, exemplifies the artist’s burgeoning interest in character studies and marginalized figures common during his formative years in Leiden. The piece captures the seated figure of a beggar, identifiable by his distinctive wooden prosthetic, an unflinching and immediate depiction typical of early Dutch Golden Age realism.
Rijn frequently explored the emotional depth and physical reality of society’s poor, turning these individuals into subjects for detailed drawing and printmaking, exercises essential to his artistic training. The stark immediacy of the subject matter serves both as a realistic portrayal of 17th-century poverty and as a study in human anatomy and expression. The subtle handling of light and shadow, evident even in this paper medium, anticipates the celebrated mastery of chiaroscuro that would define the artist’s mature career.
Although the physical object is classified by the Rijksmuseum as an element within a ‘Book’ binding, the original piece was likely intended as a preparatory drawing or an etching designed for dissemination. This approach to popular subject matter resulted in numerous prints circulating across Europe. Today, high-quality images of this early work, along with countless other period prints by Rijn, are now widely accessible and have entered the public domain, facilitating broader art historical study. This specific original object remains a key holding in the prestigious Rijksmuseum collection in Amsterdam.
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