The Card Player

Rembrandt Van Rijn (1606 – 1669, Dutch) “The Card Player” (1641) This is from the posthumous Millenium Impressions (circa 1998). It is an etching printed directly from the original copper etching plate created by the master painter and etcher, Rembrandt. The plate had not been destroyed, effaced, altered, defaced or canceled when it was sold in 1993. A few years later, a maximum of 2500 prints were authorized to be printed by Intaglio Etchings Ltd. The Baroque-style image contains intricate features and lines portraying a distrustful, shifty-eyed man intently shuffling a deck of cards while playing in a poker game. The work of art is signed in the plate and encased in an elaborate frame showcasing the 3.5 x 3.25-inch image.
This is one of eight plates by Rembrandt that have been steel-faced using an electrolytic process to coat the copper with a very thin layer of steel. Intaglio Etchings Ltd printed the etchings on modern Arches paper and issued then in 1999. Today, Park West Gallery owns all eight of the Millennium Edition plates, which are now on extended loan to the North Carolina Museum of Art.
The Card Player (1641) has been documented and illustrated in:
1. Bartsch. The Illustrated Bartsch Vol. 50. Edited by Stephanie S. Dickey. New York: Abaris Books, 1981. Illustrated as catalogue raisonné no 136.
2. Biörklund, George, Rembrandt's Etchings: True and False, 1968. Listed and illustrated as catalogue raisonné no. BB 41-M on pg. 87.
3. Hind, Arthur. A Catalogue of Rembrandt's Etchings. New York, 1967. Listed and illustrated as catalogue raisonné no. 190.