The Third Oriental Head

This set of etchings is traditionally called the ‘Four Oriental Heads’. Rembrandt did not etch them from life, but rather after prints his Leiden friend and colleague Jan Lievens made around 1631. He did not do this simply because he admired Lievens’s work. On three of the four prints, Rembrandt noted that he had geretuckeerd (meaning both adapted and improved) them.