Grotto and Friars, from The Ruins of Rome

Bartholomeus Breenbergh produced a series of 50 small-scale etchings of Roman ruins based on drawings he made in Rome during the 1620s. He worked them into prints after his return to the Netherlands and published them as a set around 1640. His paintings and prints did not yet show the influence of Rembrandt’s experimental effects with the etching needle. As a result, this scene of tiny religious figures huddled under an outcropping of rock is more documentary than emotionally charged.