The Dutch Golden Age painter Rembrandt was a prolific printmaker throughout his career, and is universally regarded as one of the greatest creators of old master prints. Though, like other prints, his are often loosely described as "engravings", the main technique he used was etching, with some prints entirely in true engraving or in drypoint. Many prints used a mixture of techniques, as was common at the time.

In all he produced about 300 prints. He is famous for revising prints, sometimes over a period of several years, producing an unusually large number of states, which have provided specialist scholars with a good deal of work. For some of his career Rembrandt had an etching press in his house; this is now recreated in the original room in the Rembrandt House Museum in Amsterdam.

He produced prints on a wide range of subjects: self-portraits and portraits, biblical and mythological subjects, genre scenes, landscapes, and other subjects. In particular, of the unprecedentedly high number of self-portraits by Rembrandt, 31 are etchings, ranging from very quick sketches to four highly-finished "official" self-portraits. Unlike his paintings, his prints circulated throughout Europe during his lifetime, contributing to his great reputation.

Some of his prints survive in a single impression (or copy), but these are mostly sketchy studies. Many of his most finished prints have had the plates reworked, initially by Rembrandt himself, to produce a later state, but then by others for two centuries or more after his death. Studies of the paper used, and any watermarks, help to clarify the dating of what are often several stages of creating the print, and then printing off batches of it.

Trained by Joris van Schooten in Leiden and by Pieter Lastman, Rembrandt quickly incorporated chiaroscuro into his etchings. Initially, Rembrandt produced a large number of reproductive or commercial prints. He began etching around 1625, at the same time as launching his career as an independent painter. Initially very close to the style of Jan Lievens, with whom he shared his studio, Rembrandt left the sculptural effects to work more on faces and the play of light – a characteristic he would develop throughout his career.

Living in Amsterdam since 1630, Rembrandt sought to break into the art market by innovating both in subject and technique, producing compositions captured on the spot of great quality. From 1636 onwards, Rembrandt distinguished himself by his mature treatment of self-portraits, a more humanistic representation of biblical subjects, and his growing mastery of engraving techniques.

Rembrandt found his true style in the less productive 1640s, abandoning a sometimes exaggerated Baroque for a more intimate Classicism, in both religious subjects and landscapes. He also gradually changed his approach to subjects, concentrating on the moment whose dramatic tension comes from putting the action on hold. Initially meticulous in the treatment of textures, Rembrandt concentrated on the structure of objects and lighting effects, the apogee in terms of composition and technique being the Hundred Guilder Print (completed in 1649, after a decade of work). In the 1650s, Rembrandt became more productive and artistically liberated.

"But what set this artist apart was a way he invented for making engravings. This one, entirely his own, was never used by others nor seen since and consisted of strokes of points of different strengths, with irregular, isolated strokes, which created a deep chiaroscuro of great intensity. And in truth, in a certain kind of engraving, Rembrandt was much more esteemed by professionals than in painting, in which he seems to have had exceptional luck more than merit of his own."