Review by Choice Review
When the first edition of this book appeared in 1969, it rapidly became recognized as the authoritative guide to its subject; this new edition serves the same purpose. With numerous revisions, it has been updated to incorporate White's reconsiderations and also recent research on the copper plates and early collaboration with Van Vliet. White (former director, Ashmolean Museum, Oxford, UK) fluently integrates technique, imagery, and interpretation. He selected prints that offer technical innovations, multiple states, and varied printings, and discusses them perceptively in terms of how they were made: engraving, etching, drypoint; inking, printing, and paper. The book is not, however, a catalogue raisonne (the first such complete catalog of Rembrandt's etchings appeared in 1751, and there have been 15 written since), and White has omitted those works in which he may have less interest, generally the more iconographically complex prints (for example, The Phoenix). The result is that his text is always engaging, and especially insightful concerning the New Testament, genre, nudes, portraits, and landscape etchings. All levels. A. Golahny; Lycoming College
Copyright American Library Association, used with permission.
Review by Choice Review
