Around 1631 the young painter Rembrandt van Rijn initiated an ambitious project to have his inventions reproduced in prints. He must have intended these works to help spread his fame as an artist by circulating painted compositions such as The Baptism of the Eunuch (fig. 15.1). He modelled this initiative on the engraving studio set up by his Flemish colleague Peter Paul Rubens just over a decade earlier. Like Rubens, he hired a professional printmaker to transfer the painted compositions to the copperplate. In Rembrandt's case, this was Jan van Vliet. The collaboration lasted for about five years and resulted in at least eleven etchings by Van Vliet after Rembrandt. And the two artists worked together on two large prints, The Descent from the Cross: The Second Plate (fig. 15.2) and Christ before Pilate: Large Plate (fig. 15.3), which were part of an even more ambitious project.

Apparently at the instigation of the painting dealer Hendrick Uylenburgh, Rembrandt produced eight oil sketches in preparation for a set of large-scale etched Passion scenes of which only The Descent from the Cross and Christ before Pilate were ever executed. This reconstruction of the relation of the two Leiden-based artists is now generally accepted among Rembrandt scholars. It is a reading of the available evidence, which is largely based on the assumption that Rembrandt emulated Rubens and used Van Vliet as his printmaker, just as his Flemish colleague used Lucas Vorsterman, Paul Pontius, and others. The supposed workshop practice of the Flemish artist is projected on the Rembrandt-Van Vliet situation. The scant evidence for this reconstruction will be discussed again below and alternative interpretations will be proposed.