Dutch Farmhouse in Light and Shadow

This study of the shaded entrance to a farmhouse is one of Rembrand's earliest landscape drawings, dating from around 1636. He depicted this same building from further away on another sheet, also in Budapest. Above the shaded mass of the house walls, drawn with straight lines, the strongly illuminated vine leaves and tendrils spiral playfully. It is this optical effect, the contrast between light and shadow that fascinated Rembrandt when he produced this drawing.