Self portrait by Rembrandt.

Rembrandt's figure etchings, ranging from quick sketches to fully worked portraits, were central influence for the artists of the later 19th and early 20th century Etching Revival.

One such admirer was the Anglo-New Zealand artist Roland Hipkins (1894-1951), who trained at the Royal College of Art, London, before emigrating to New Zealand in 1922, the year of this etching. He was recruited as an art teacher through the La Trobe scheme, and taught at both Napier Technical College and Wellington Technical College.

Anna Rigg, Summer Research Scholar in 2015-16, wrote of this etching:

... this is no learning exercise. The print is a conscious display of sheer skill, a <em>tour de force</em> of etching. It demands to be placed alongside the original and compared line for line, in an echo of the process of its making. Hipkins's usual portraits, with their controlled linear style, possess a modest modernity; they certainly do not indulge in the Old Masters' decorative flourish or costume. Rembrandt's <em>Self-portrait leaning on a stone still</em>, 1639, is an exceptional choice of subject. [This etching is in Te Papa's collection, 1869-0001-396].  Hipkins was not generally an artist one would call 'Rembrandtseque', nor was he part of the Etching Revival, but in this one instance he represents everything that the revival stood for. The print becomes a declaration of lineage, a self-portrait by proxy: Hipkins as Rembrandt as Titian; printmaker as Renaissance man. 

References: New Hollstein Dutch 171, undescribed copy; Hollstein Dutch 21, undescribed copy

See: <em>Traces of the Wake: The Etching Revival in Britain and Beyond</em>, exh. cat., Adam Art Gallery, Wellington, 2015 (esp. pp. 18-21).

Dr Mark Stocker   Curator, Historical International Art   September 2017