REMBRANDT HARMENSZ VAN RIJN (1606-1669) 'Jan Cornelis Sylvius'

REMBRANDT HARMENSZ VAN RIJN (1606-1669) 'Jan Cornelis Sylvius', signed and dated 1633 within the plate, the reverse inscribed in ink with a monogram in a 17th century hand, etching, the sheet 17.5cm x 14.75cm, mounted on a card, the top corners stuck down; together with another etching 'Peasant in a high cap, standing on a stick', signed and dated 1639 within the image, 8cm x 4.5cm (2) Jan Cornelis Sylvius (1564-1638), a preacher in the Dutch Reformed Church in Amsterdam beginning in 1610, was the legal guardian of Rembrandt's wife-to-be, Saskia van Uylenburgh, at the time this portrait was made. It was to Sylvius that Rembrandt made his appeal for Saskia's hand. This portrait undoubtedly helped engineer the old man's consent, for Saskia and Rembrandt married the year after its completion. His hands clasped over his Bible and his head covered by a skullcap, the early Sylvius (Rembrandt executed another, posthumously, in 1646), conveys the asceticism of this religious scholar.