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The museum houses a collection of etchings from various European schools (Italian, French, Flemish-Dutch, German, Spanish and English) ranging from the late fifteenth to the mid-nineteenth centuries. The works belong to the Lazzari Turco Menz collection and were donated to the Municipality of Trent in the 1920s, they are now kept in the Buonconsiglio Castle Museum. About fifty sheets of the Buonconsiglio collection are linked to Rembrandt’s most significant prints. Sixteen of these are taken from the Dutch master’s original plates, while the other 29 were reproduced, anonymously or by well-known eighteenth- and nineteenth-century master engravers.
Highlights in the collection include Rembrandt’s Self-portrait with a Hat and Neck Scarf and the Self-portrait with Saskia. In his prints dedicated to the stories of the Old and the New Testament, the artist manages to capture the dramatic essence of the episodes, evident in Christ and the Samaritan Woman (1634) and in Jesus Chasing the Merchants from the Temple (1635). In the Death of the Virgin (1639), Rembrandt reaches one of his expressive heights thanks to a careful study of feelings, emotions and pain, underlined by a decisive graphic stroke.
Elisa Colla, Curator (June 2022)