The Cleveland Museum of Art

• Full conservation statement
  Watermarks are integral features of many Western papers and their origin in handmade papers dates to the late 13th century and the Fabriano paper mill in Fabriano, Italy. Initially watermarks may have been intended to provide information about features such as sheet size and paper quality. Quickly, however, watermarks evolved into symbols indicating geographical origin or trademarks for specific paper mills or papermakers. There are many types of watermarks including simple circles and crosses, and more complex designs including heraldic emblems, human figures, common animals and mythical creatures, and plant life. Designs often include letters and over time words became common as well. Some papers feature both a primary watermark (usually an image) and a secondary watermark (often letters or a word) called a countermark.
  
  Studying watermarks to learn more about the origins and dates of works of art on paper has a long history. With respect to Rembrandt’s more than 300 etchings made between 1626 and 1665, rigorous watermark research has yielded remarkable discoveries and insights into dates and chronologies of the prints, their plates, and states; the origins of the papers; workshop practices; and how the prints were marketed and dispersed. In addition to identifying posthumous impressions, watermark evidence has revealed impressions printed during Rembrandt’s lifetime but outside of his jurisdiction. Rembrandt’s etchings and their papers and watermarks continue to generate new questions, fuel research, and build scholarship. See E. Hinterding, “Rembrandt as an Etcher, volume I: The Practice of Production and Distribution,” Studies in Prints and Printmaking 6 (Sound and Vision Publishers, 2006).
  
  To contribute to the corpus of watermarks already catalogued, a radiographic imaging technique called beta radiography was used to record the watermarks in the CMA’s holdings of Rembrandt etchings. Among the museum’s 98 etchings printed on European papers, 34 prints had a watermark or countermark, ranging from complete to partial to fragmentary.
  
  A beta radiograph provides a high-contrast, true-to-size photographic negative of the linear designs that were attached to the paper mold’s wire cover. In Rembrandt’s day the wire cover on a paper mold comprised closely spaced horizontal laid lines and widely spaced vertical chain lines and formed a type of paper called laid and chain or simply laid. We call the design formed by the added wire that sits proud of the mold’s cover a watermark but technically the entire wire design impressed from the mold’s cover into the wet paper pulp during sheet formation is a watermark.
  
  As the sheet is formed, less paper pulp is deposited on the raised wires, while more pulp is deposited in the cavities; therefore, in the fully formed sheet the paper is thinner and more translucent along the wires and denser between them. The beta radiograph records this pattern of lighter and darker areas in reverse.
  
  The process of making a beta radiograph of a watermark in a sheet of paper requires a beta plate, which is a small thin plastic sheet (polymethacrylate) labeled with carbon-14, a radioactive isotope of carbon, a single-sided emulsion radiographic film, and a work of art on a thin to medium thick paper that contains a watermark. Centered on the watermark, the items are assembled in a stack; layered from the bottom to the top, first is a sheet of bare film with the emulsion side up, then the art with the image side up, and finally the beta plate. To ensure good contact and minimize air gaps which deteriorate image quality, a weight, typically a piece of glass, is placed on top of the beta plate. (Due to the need for direct contact and slight pressure on the face of the artwork, beta radiography cannot be used with certain types of drawing media.) The layering of materials must be done with a photographic safelight and then the actual exposure, typically between 45 and 90 minutes, is done in complete darkness. As the C-14 decays it emits negatively charged beta particles (–β), essentially electrons, which penetrate the paper to expose the film on the other side. The ease with which the beta particles can penetrate the paper depends on density; in thinner areas the film receives more exposure and in thicker areas less exposure. The advantage of beta radiography over other radiographic processes used for imaging watermarks is that the design mediums (and their elemental compositions) typically do not interfere with how the beta particles interact with paper and the film, and therefore beta radiographs provide clear, high-contrast contact negative images of just the paper structure. For more information see: D. Kushel, "Radiographic Methods Used in Recording of Structure and Watermarks in Historic Papers," in Fresh Woods and Pastures New: Seventeenth-Century Dutch Landscape Drawings from the Peck Collection, edited by F. W. Robinson and S. Peck (Acland Art Museum, Chapel Hill, NC, 1999), 117–23. Another feature that shows up clearly as discrete white areas in the beta radiographs are denser areas of paper. These denser areas correlate with extra thickness due to paper attachments on the back of the print, most notably the paper hinges used for mounting.
• Provenance
  Earl of Aylesford (Lugt 58); John Heywood Hawkins (Lugt 3022); Duke of Buccleuch (Lugt 402); [sale London, Christie's, 19-22 April 1887 lot 1777, bought by Danlos, Paris]; Alfred Strölin; [sale Klipstein & Kornfeld, Bern, 7 June 1961, lot #20 bought by C.G. Boerner]; Private Collection, Germany, 1961-91; Joseph Ritman, Amsterdam; [sale Artemis and Sotheby's, no. 19, New York, 1995]
• Citations
  Franklin, David. The Cleveland Museum of Art. London: Scala Arts & Heritage Publishers Ltd., 2012. Reproduced: p. 42 - 43

  Watkins, Catherine Bailey. Rembrandt's 1654 Life of Christ Prints: Experimentation, Tradition, and the Question of Series. 2011. Reproduced: P. 2015, fig. 84

  Monney, Gilles, Camille Noverraz, and Vincent Barras. Pierre Decker: médecin et collectionneur. Lausanne : Éditions BHMS, 2021. Mentioned and reproduced: pp. 74-75
• Exhibition History
  Monotypes: Painterly Prints. The Cleveland Museum of Art (organizer) (May 31-October 11, 2015).

  Treasures on Paper from the Collection of the Cleveland Museum of Art. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (March 9-June 8, 2014).
• Cite this Page
  {{cite web|title=The Blindness of Tobit: The Large Plate|url=false|author=Rembrandt van Rijn|year=1651|access-date=13 December 2025|publisher=Cleveland Museum of Art}}