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249 Rembrandt print connoisseurship, Sir Francis Seymour Haden, and the etching revival of the nineteenth century Catherine B. Scallen That contemporary art trends and connoisseurship have gone hand in Detail fig. 4 hand, historically, is a truism long acknowledged but not often explored. For instance, how does the reception of an artist by later ones affect assessments and attributions of the earlier artist’s work? A rich example of how such later artistic reception conditioned the connoisseurship of one artist’s oeuvre can be found in the scholarship on Rembrandt’s etchings from the second half of the nineteenth century. Sir Francis Seymour Haden, who as a printmaker and writer helped to lead the British etching revival, also played a significant role in Rembrandt connoisseurship (fig. 1). His innovative approach to writing about Rembrandt’s prints through emphasizing the close study of technique, and through excluding etchings accepted as authentic in existing catalogues raisonnés, would prove both controversial and instrumental. Haden, a British surgeon by profession, was himself an etcher and art critic who promoted the artistic use of etching, as opposed to its employment as a reproductive medium. Egham lock (fig. 2) from 1859 is an early, prime example of his goals as an etcher. The linework is free and organic, and the drypoint needle was used extensively to enhance tonal contrast and soften edges. Parts of the etching plate were left untouched, and there is a range of finish throughout. Haden stated that he made it and another etching in one afternoon, on site.1 Both Haden’s etchings and his writings promoting the creative use of this medium in his era were manifestations of the larger movement known as the etching revival, which was most dominant in France and Great Britain from the 1850s to around 1900. The proponents of the etching revival turned against the commercial use of etching as the primary expression of the medium by professional printmakers, and sought to revive the idea of the painter-etcher. Haden’s brother-in-law James McNeill Whistler was the most prominent figure in Great Britain associated with this movement, while in France, figures such as the printmaker Félix Bracquemond and the publisher Alfred Cadart fostered the cause.2 The adherents of this artistic movement almost without exception viewed Rembrandt’s prints as the epitome of what could be achieved through the artistic approach of the painter-etcher. This adulation of Rembrandt in turn led to renewed consideration of how the Dutch master’s printed oeuvre had been characterized to date. In 1877 Haden curated an exhibition, The etched work of Rembrandt, at the Burlington Fine Arts Club, London, in which he arranged Rembrandt’s prints chronologically for the first time rather than thematically and sought to separate out ‘school work’ from Rembrandt’s own. His arguments were .

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