Sunday, November 27, 2011

400 years since Rembrandt's birth, joint issue between Netherlands and Germany

here comes a small piece of art for today's Sunday stamps



I picked this cover with the sheet issued in 2006, to commemorate the 400 years since the birth of this great dutch painter and etcher. He was born on 15 July 1606 and died on 4 October 1669.

Im pretty sure you know quite a lot about him, so I wont be holding on to his general life, but will try to explain what's on the stamps here.

the set consists of 5 stamps plus a vignette, containing the information.
all stamps have a face value of 0,39 euros, and this is actually a joint issue between Netherlands and Germany, which has arisen some controversies, esp regarding a 70c stamp of Saskia in the prestige booklet, which the German's found invalid, since he printing - made in the Netherlands - was different from the prinitng made in Germany for the German sheetlets. The Dutch one actually contained the text in German and in some catalogue listings was said to be good for postage only in the Netherlands, which on the overall is rather confusing as to what's what, so i wont go into depth about it here.


Anyways, as for the stamps here, they all show Rembrandt's works. The top left stamp shows us Saskia van Uylenburgh in a pompous dress (Rembrandt's wife). The portrait was done sometime around 1642 and can be found at the Staatliche Kunstsammlungen in Kassel.

The stamp next to it shows a portrait of Titus reading, c.1657-1658 (Rembrant's son) at The Kunsthistorisches Museum (or the Museum of Fine Arts) in Vienna.

The third stamp in that row shows us the painting called "Woman in a doorway", c. 1656-1657, and can be found at the Gemäldegalerie (or the Art Museum) in Berlin.

As for the bottom stamps, the both show etchings, where the one on the left shows us the "Bearded man, in a furred oriental cap and robe", from 1631, which some consider to be a portrait of Rembrand's father. This can be found at the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam, while the other one shows us the artist's mother seated at a table, c.1629 - 1633, which can again be found at the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam.

for some more artistic inputs, click on the big button below


8 comments:

  1. This comment has been removed by the author.

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  2. I've been to the Rijksmuseum and Rembrant's house in Amsterdam. We have copies of two of his works on our lounge wall.
    A great painter and a fine set of commemorative stamps.
    {First post removed as I couldn't spell}

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  3. I like the way the portraits are cropped and that all focus on family members.

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  4. Lovely! Stamps and controversy - who knew! Thanks for participating.

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  5. I like this selection of art. They seem to have kept their clarity when reduced to the size of a stamp much better than some.

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  6. This is a nice set and as Sheila has noted, they are still very clear even in miniature.

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  7. These are lovely stamps, I didn't know that countries collaborated on issues, it's easy to see how confusion may arise.
    Thanks so much for the names of the Russian artists.

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  8. What a attractive set of stamps, Rembrandt's art transfers so successfully, they make a nice composition on the envelope. I like joint stamp issues, I seem to remember Germany doing a joint one with Japan this year which in comparison seems to have gone smoothly.

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