One thing I have learned in this business is to never ignore even the most junky of junk shops. It’s always worth a look around – even for two minutes. You need to keep your ‘quality control’ eyes wide open however, as it’s easy to fall into the trap of buying what is effectively ‘the best of the worst’. And the regret soon hits hard, especially if you’re travelling and luggage space is at a premium.
But, sometimes, something just leaps out at you as being totally out of place. Visiting Antwerp with friends from Brussels last Summer, I stumbled across a house clearance warehouse down a side street. Amidst the forest of puffy pleather sofas, knackered coffee machines, mass-produced tableware, and beaten up melamine tables was a small etching in what looked like an original early 20thC frame hanging from a wall by a bit of yellow string.
Heavily inked, it shows a stormy looking scene of clumps of trees in a gently undulating landscape. The signature underneath it was illegible, ‘E. Tan Ximen’, maybe, but the épreuve d’artiste (artist’s proof) wording to the left of it piqued my interest, especially in combination with what on closer inspection certainly was a period early 20thC frame. For €5 euros – less than the price of the bottle of Orval beer I had just drunk – I was prepared to take the risk. Wouldn’t you be?
The composition reminded me of a couple of etchings, most notably Rembrandt’s ‘The Three Trees’ from 1643. Yes, there are differences, but the imposing, darker and older trees in the foreground are very much the main focus, and the unknown artist even added the unusual diagonal lines, probably representing rain, albeit it much smaller, above them. Parallels can even be drawn to another mid-17thC etching from another Dutch ‘Golden Age’ artist, ‘Grainfield at the edge of a wood’ by Jacob van Ruisdael from 1648. The former is particularly well known, as not only was it Rembrandt’s largest etched work, but it is also considered a masterpiece in his oeuvre. There had to be more to this than €5. Let’s look at the evidence…
To read the rest of this article and find out more about this fascinating etching, and who it is by, please visit my antiques, art & design journal on Substack by clicking here.
