Figure 5. Graham Sutherland, 'The Sluice Gate'. Original etching, 1924. Fourth (final) state, as published, with the second signature in the plate and the date added in Roman numerals. The plate reduced by a few millimetres. One of about 62 impressions in this state. 5 3/8in. x 5 1/4in.

Rembrandt was of particular importance as an inspiration to British etchers in the period of the 'Etching Revival', 1850-1950. At the outset, Francis Seymour Haden (1818-1911), seminal to the development of Modern British etching, was an enthusiastic admirer of Rembrandt. A surgeon and amateur etcher, elder brother-in-law of Whistler, Haden collected Old Master prints, in particular those of Rembrandt. He made a catalogue of Rembrandt's prints and lent Rembrandts from his collection to exhibitions organised by the Royal Society of Painter Etchers (RE), which he was instrumental in founding, serving as the first president for 30 years. Unusually at that date, Haden was almost exclusively a landscape etcher and the example of Rembrandt is evident in many of his finest plates (figure 2). In British art schools of the period Rembrandt was a major role model. The Royal College of Art in South Kensington was the principal training school for British etchers from the 1890s through to the 1930s and beyond. Frank Short (1857-1945) was appointed the first professor of engraving at the college (coincidentally he succeeded Haden as president of the RE in another long incumbency, of 27 years). Although Short's own prints with their emphasis on mezzotint do not necessarily bring Rembrandt to mind, his first year students began by making a copy of a Rembrandt etching; a tradition carried on by his successor as professor, Malcolm Osborne (who also followed Short as third president of the RE).
Osborne (1880-1963) had himself been a student of Short at the Royal College. Some of Osborne's portrait etchings show a close relation to Rembrandt (figure 9).
The pervasive influence of Rembrandt on British etchers was not confined to those connected with the Royal College or the RE however. Muirhead Bone (1876-1953), largely an architectural etcher, a theme not in itself ever treated by Rembrandt, trained at the Glasgow School of Art, though his initiation into the process of drypoint was carried out privately at home with his fellow student and future brother-in-law, Francis Dodd when they experimented using a nail as a graver. Several of Bone's early drypoints show his admiration for the Dutch old master (figure 3).
James McBey (1883-1959), another Scot, grew up in Aberdeenshire and largely taught himself to etch from manuals while working as a youth in a local bank (figure 4). Graham Sutherland (1903-1980) was a student at the Goldsmiths College in London. In 1924, before the impact of the discovery of Samuel Palmer's etchings determined the style of his etchings 1925-27 Sutherland showed in his work 'The Sluice Gate' (figure 5) that he had previously studied Rembrandt.
Gerald Leslie Brockhurst (1890-1978) only took up etching after he had finished his training at Birmingham School of Art, the Royal Academy Schools and in Italy,