Rembrandt completed the large work in black and red chalk, pen and ink, and brush and wash in 1634, and by the time Josi encountered it in the early 19th century, the drawing had made its way into an English private collection.
Portrait of a Man in an Armchair, 1634
Rembrandt van Rijn. Red and black chalk, with brush and wash, on laid paper. Private collection
The printmaker proposed to make “a faithful imitation of this rare and precious drawing, though it be a difficult task.” Josi documented his remarkably laborious process in a group of 18 sheets for his ambitious three-volume publication Collection d’imitations de Dessins (Collection of Imitations of Drawings), the first volume of which appeared in London in 1821. These instructional sheets are now in the Art Institute’s collection.
Remarkably Josi carefully preserved most of the trial sheets produced during his complex preparation of the print, and even inscribed them with explanatory notes that help us follow his undertaking almost step by step. Consisting of four tracings and 14 impressions, the proofs, annotated by Josi, show the artist deploying every technique in his arsenal to arrive at a result that almost deceptively matches the visual characteristics of the original drawing. Far from being an exact science, Josi’s process was riddled with false starts, changes of approach, and multiple corrections. Working simultaneously on two copper plates—one for the red chalk, one for the black—Josi labored over the course of months to bring his print as close as possible in appearance to Rembrandt’s revered drawing. Read on to see some of the main steps of his remarkable accomplishment reconstructed.
Except where noted, all artworks: Christian Josi, after Rembrandt van Rijn. Process set for Portrait of a Man in an Armchair, from Collection d’imitations de Dessins, 1826. John H. Wrenn Memorial Collection.
To begin, Josi soaked a sheet of paper in oil to make it transparent. He then used it like tracing paper, employing red chalk to go over the red chalk marks of the Rembrandt drawing.
The oil that made it transparent discolored over time, turning the sheet yellow.
He flipped the orientation of the design by passing the tracing paper through the press with the following sheet, in preparation for transfer to the red plate.
Josi’s annotation to this sheet (fig. 3) reveals that it got wrinkled and spoiled in the press, so it had to be discarded. Starting again, he made another tracing on a separate oiled sheet that no longer survives and made a counterproof of that on the following sheet.
The sheet below is an impression of that second tracing.
Josi laid this sheet (fig. 4) on a copper plate covered with a special coating called soft-ground, a waxy layer that registered the marks made onto a sheet laid on top of it. He then went over the chalk marks with a pencil, transferring the design to the coated plate.
After using acid to etch the design onto the plate, Josi removed the soft-ground coating, inked the plate with a reddish-brown ink, and pulled some impressions to check that the red chalk portions of Rembrandt’s drawing had been accurately captured.
Early check against Rembrandt’s drawing
Portrait of a Man in an Armchair, 1634
Rembrandt van Rijn. Red and black chalk, with brush and wash, on laid paper. Private collection
The main elements of the red plate were in place. The saturated lower border in this impression reveals that Josi used a tool called a roulette as well as a drypoint needle to manually darken that area.
Printmaking tools, including the roulette, used in making printed imitations of drawings
Plate 14 from Abraham Bosse, De la manière de graver à l’eau forte et au burin…, 1758. Paris, France
At this point Josi went back to his drawn model, and used a third oiled sheet to trace the black chalk lines of Rembrandt’s drawing. He then passed that tracing, which has not survived, through the press with the present sheet, producing a reversed offset. Notice how the orientation of the image was flipped in the process (fig. 6).
The dots of wax we can see around the edges helped keep the sheet in place while on top of the plate
Having prepared a second copperplate with a soft-ground coating, Josi placed this thin sheet over it and once again went over the outlines with a pencil, transferring them to the plate. After etching and inking the plate, he pulled a first proof from the black plate (fig. 7). The main elements of the black chalk marks were now established.
Seeing that the shading in the upper background, on the man’s cape, and the back of the chair were too faint, Josi recoated the plate, placed sheet (fig. 6) on top of it again, and hatched those areas more vigorously a second time to strengthen those details.
first attempt to print black and red
On the left (fig. 8) is Josi’s first attempt to print the red and black plates in registration—that is, one after the other on the same sheet in perfect alignment. Notice the lack of shading in the upper background compared to the Rembrandt drawing (right).
Portrait of a Man in an Armchair, 1634
Rembrandt van Rijn. Red and black chalk, with brush and wash, on laid paper. Private collection
Seeing that the shading in the upper background, on the man’s cape, and the back of the chair were too faint, Josi recoated the plate, placed the tracing (fig. 6) on top of it again, and hatched those areas more vigorously. The result can be seen below (fig. 9).
additions to the black plate
The printing is faint, perhaps because this was a second printing from a plate that had not been re-inked.
Portrait of a Man in an Armchair, 1634
Rembrandt van Rijn. Red and black chalk, with brush and wash, on laid paper. Private collection
Next, Josi tried to print both plates in registration a second time, after making some changes to both. He added areas of tone to the red plate with aquatint (a printmaking technique that imitates the appearance of brush and wash), etching it three different times to obtain different tonal intensities. On the black plate, Josi further strengthened the shading on the man’s cape with a roulette, and added a thicker border around the image in a combination of hardground etching and roulette. After printing both plates on this sheet, he applied a grey wash to the architectural frame to study where the aquatint should be placed on the black plate (fig. 10).
Not satisfied with the black plate, Josi made changes to it for a third time. He started by adding aquatint (etched tone) to the architectural frame, the sitter’s cape, and the cast shadow in the lower right. Using soft-ground again, he applied new hatching in the upper background and chair, while darkening the cape with a roulette. Although there are two colors in this impression, it was printed from the black plate alone, which Josi inked à la poupée (selectively) with brown and black inks to mimic the final chromatic contrast (fig. 11).
In his annotations Josi remarked that the aquatint was “too strong.”
Josi next checked his progress by printing both plates in registration a third time (fig. 12). To follow the tonality of the drawing, he inked the red plate selectively, using a red-brown ink everywhere except in the aquatint background, which he inked in black. This led to the peculiar halo effect around the sitter’s head. With the plates thus combined it became clear that the overlapping aquatint layers were too strong, rendering Rembrandt’s signature barely visible. Josi tersely remarks: “too strong aquatinta—the first fine work spoiled.”
To remedy the setback in the previous step, Josi modified the black plate for a fourth time, checking his progress by printing this impression below (fig. 13). To tone down the blacks, he used a burnishing tool to lighten the aquatint in the cast shadow at lower right and around the Rembrandt’s signature. A few scratches scored into the plate, visible to the left of the chair, suggest Josi realized he needed to add further shading.
The rectangular marks around the image are testing strips to check how long it took to etch different shades.
As anticipated in the previous step, Josi modified the black plate a fifth time by adding a lot of tone to the left of the sitter (fig 14). He did this by scoring and rubbing the plate with something abrasive—perhaps a piece of pumice stone or sandpaper, and then softening the marks with a burnishing tool. The burnisher was also used to tone down the aquatint in the lower left corner of the cape, just below the hat.
Josi also strengthened the shading on the lower part of the cape, but did so too aggressively, throwing off the tonal balance.
Given the unsatisfactory results of the previous step, Josi modified the black plate for a sixth time (fig. 15). As we can see in this impression, Josi used a burnishing tool to pull back the excessive shading in the man’s clothing and further softened the scratched-in tone in the background. He then strengthened the sitter’s hair and facial features and filled in a semicircular dent in the chair with the roulette. With the same tool, he introduced additional marks to the area behind the sitter’s proper left shoulder.
Having addressed the issues he had with the black plate, Josi once again took stock of his progress by printing both plates together in registration (fig. 16). The red plate appears almost unchanged, except perhaps for some light burnishing along the lower border. Additional minor changes on the black plate include further softening of the shadow behind the sitter. We don’t know exactly when Josi began making the print, but he annotated this sheet with the date “1 May 1826.”
We know this set of proofs is not complete, and the following impression registers further changes that we cannot follow step by step (fig. 17). Here the aquatint was almost completely erased from the background and frame of the red plate, leaving just a small area in the lower left corner. The outlines of the chair and of the sitter’s right hand, however, were strengthened with a fine roulette. The black plate looks virtually unchanged, apart from some further burnishing of the corner of the cape, below the hat.
Josi’s inscription states that this sheet—his seventh trial with the two combined plates—was printed around three weeks after the previous one, on May 26, 1826. He cryptically described it as “very forward”—perhaps referring to the strong, saturated colors.
About two weeks later, on June 15, Josi printed this eighth trial with both plates (fig. 18). The changes are both more subtle and more unusual. In the case of the black plate, Josi only made the lower border more uniform by evening out the shading. He then made the peculiar choice to add a new layer of very fine aquatint to the red plate which he selectively inked in black—most visibly in the area of tone in the lower left corner and the whole bottom strip of the lower edge. Josi describes this as “the best 8th proof with two plates.” The registration of the two plates, however, is noticeably misaligned.
Months passed, and we are not sure how many trials (and tribulations) separate the next proof from the previous one. On September 12, 1826, Josi inscribed the following sheet as his “9th proof” from the combined plates (fig. 19). Now very close to the final published version, the aquatint has been almost entirely erased from the red plate in the architectural frame and the body of the chair, but the lowermost strip is still selectively inked in black. The pattern on the upholstered chair is reinforced with the roulette, and very few accent lines are added to the black plate. Along with more precise registration, these subtle shifts enhance the tonal and chromatic balance of the print, and increase its sharpness and focus.
For the published edition below Josi strengthened the sitter’s pupils, chose a cooler red-brown ink, and further improved the registration of the plates. In this way, Josi’s ingenious, at times intractable, imitation comes even closer visually to Rembrandt’s penetrating portrait.
final published edition
Portrait of Rembrandt, 1821
Christiaan Josi, based on a design by Rembrandt van Rijn. Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam
Portrait of a Man in an Armchair, 1634
Rembrandt van Rijn. Red and black chalk, with brush and wash, on laid paper. Private collection
See these prints in person in the exhibition Lines of Connection: Drawing and Printmaking, on view through June 1, 2025.
—Jamie Gabbarelli, Prince Trust Associate Curator in Prints and Drawings
