Christ before Pilate: large Plate

This dramatic, yet highly detailed etching is Rembrandt's largest print. In the early 18th century it was one of his most sought-after graphic works, occasionally referred to as ‘The Thirty Guilder Print’. Based on the Gospel of Saint John, it depicts the moment before Pontius Pilate passes judgement on Christ. The pale figure of Christ is presented to the people, standing on a raised dais surrounded by soldiers. His hands are bound, his eyes turned towards heaven with an expression of anguished resignation. He is dressed with a loincloth but also a cape and the crown of thorns, which the soldiers have forced him to wear in mockery of Him being called the King of the Jews. Below to His left is the opulently dressed and turbaned figure of Pilate, and to His right the clustered figures of the high priests demanding his death. Christ’s figure is illuminated by a ray of light which forms the central axis of the composition. The focus of the narrative however is the tense exchange between Pilate and the priests before him. Rembrandt breaks with the iconography of this scene to emphasize Pilate’s moral dilemma by depicting him refusing to hold the staff, the symbol of his judicial authority. The priests crowd around Pilate, pushing and pulling him, and demanding Christ's condemnation, their faces and gestures expressing determination and rage. Pilate is almost forced back onto the seat of judgement, positioned just behind him. His choice is to sentence an innocent man to death or to face the insurrection of the unruly crowd surging around the central scene. In addition to the full range of emotions expressed in the faces of this densely figured scene, the etching is full of luxuriant detail: the heavily brocaded and fur-lined robes of Pilate and the priests, the tasseled chair and curtained canopy, and the gleaming halberds, spears and armour of the soldiers.
Rembrandt developed the composition in a preparatory oil sketch in brownish-grey grisaille on paper, signed and dated 1634, which is today at the National Gallery of Art, London (inv. no. NG1400). The sketch is to scale and in reverse orientation of the print, and the contours of the figures and architecture are incised to transfer the composition onto the copperplate. Rembrandt rarely made preparatory sketches or drawings for his prints. It was however the workshop practice of Rembrandt’s contemporary Peter Paul Rubens (1577-1640), who created similar modelli for engravings made by professional printmakers after his paintings. It seems that Rembrandt, with this relatively early and highly ambitious print, wanted to emulate the older master.
Christ before Pilate: large Plate also differs from most of Rembrandt's printed oeuvre in execution and style. In the first, incomplete state, which is known in three trial proofs only, the lower central part of the image is still blank while the surrounding areas are highly finished, indicative of a way of working from the outside inwards which was not used by Rembrandt. This, together with a heavier line structure and the extensive use of burin, has led scholars to conclude that the etching is the product of a close collaboration between Rembrandt and Jan van Vliet (1605-1668). While the full degree of Rembrandt’s own work on the plate is not known, some additions made in drypoint and burin in the later states, including the signature, are consistent with Rembrandt’s own style (see Martin Royalton-Kisch, in: Hinterding et al., 2000, p. 136).
Rembrandt and van Vliet presumably collaborated in the production of one other large and important etching: The Descent from the Cross: Second plate (B. 81; New Holl. 119) of 1633. The similarity in scale and style suggests that the two prints may have been conceived as part of a Passion cycle. The example for this enterprise, which they never completed, was presumably Rubens’s collaboration with the engraver Lucas Vorsterman (1595-1675) and others.