Etching. 21-3 x 26.2 cm
Wurzbach 1; Burchard 4; Hollstein 4/II; TIB 53, p. 330, no. 003 S2
Watermark: Coat of arms of Braunschweig-Lüneburg
                     (similar to Briquet 1987 and 1989, dated 1593 and 1596
respectively)




Indisputably the principal sheet among the group of only six etchings by the artist, who, like perhaps only B. Spranger, tried to capture the feverishly exaggerated Mannerism of the late sixteenth century so to speak experimentally with the graphic   style of etching technique on a copper plate.

A superb impression of virtually unsurpassable beauty.
Printed in brilliant deep black ink with intense and for the most part vertical polishing marks on the evidently imperfectly smoothed copperplate, and hence directly comparable to the sole impression of the 1st state – before the address of the publisher Johannes Staterus – found in Amsterdam. In conjunction with the pronounced plate tone, these marks soften the light of the rising or setting sun in a way that is particularly effective in the shadow of the large cloth that has been draped over the knotted branches of a tree, beneath which the Holy Family has seated itself in order to nurse the infant Jesus. 

With margins measuring up to 4 cm which show traces of former sewing on the left. Pristine apart from a tiny worm hole, with a harmonious warm-toned paper patina.

                                                                                                                                       

The six etchings by Gerrit Pietersz, five of which are dated 1593, occupy a unique place in late 16th-century Dutch graphic art. They were made at a time when drudging printmakers in Goltzius’s workshop and elsewhere were producing very elaborate engravings that in execution were far removed from these freely rendered etchings. The free treatment is reminiscent of three etchings by Bartholomeus Spranger from around 1589, although the latter handling of line is far tauter. The etchings by Spranger and Pietersz exemplify the kind of work done by a painter as a means of exploring an unfamiliar technique. Given their scarcity, it is questionable whether such prints were ever printed in an edition of any magnitude. (G. Luijten)