The Three Trees

The view has been identified as taken near the Diemerdijk, in the immediate vicinity of Amsterdam. This is the largest and finest of Rembrandt's landscape etchings, extraordinarily confidently-worked with direct needle and burin lines. Drawn on one of the artist's many expeditions into the rather flat countryside around the city, here he introduces an intense feeling of drama into the landscape by contrasting the brilliant lights and darks of a sky filled with stormclouds.