Anders Zorn was considered one of the best etchers of his day. Trained under the Swedish artist Axel Herman Haig while they were both living in London, Zorn took as his example the 17th-century work of Rembrandt van Rijn. This interest was characteristic of the etching revival (1850–1930), which viewed Rembrandt as its inspiration and emphasized the idea of the peinture-gravure (painter-engraver) as an ideal model of artistic printmaking.

Zorn was also a collector of Rembrandt’s prints and amassed more than one hundred eighty works on paper by the master. Rembrandt’s Self-Portrait with Saskia (1967.1.1) was among the prints he owned, and we can see its influence here. Both artists utilized etching’s unique ability to capture the tactile softness of fur and hair. In a nod to turn-of-the-century artistic bohemian life, Zorn has replaced Rembrandt’s porte crayon with a cigarette.

Excerpt from

Amy Wojciechowski, DMA label copy, 2017.

• Milwaukee Art Museum Blog
  Read this blog post about Anders Zorn and etching.