Transcriber's notes:

• A table of contents can be found on [page vi].
• A list of illustrations can be found on [page vii].

The Great Masters

in Painting and Sculpture

Edited by G. C. Williamson

REMBRANDT VAN RIJN

THE GREAT MASTERS IN PAINTING AND SCULPTURE.

The following Volumes have been issued, price 5s. net each.

BERNARDINO LUINI. By George C. Williamson, Litt.D., Editor of the Series.

VELASQUEZ. By R. A. M. Stevenson.

ANDREA DEL SARTO. By H. Guinness.

LUCA SIGNORELLI. By Maud Cruttwell.

RAPHAEL. By H. Strachey.

CARLO CRIVELLI. By G. McNeil Rushforth, M.A., Lecturer in Classics, Oriel College, Oxford.

CORREGGIO. By Selwyn Brinton, M.A., Author of "The Renaissance in Italian Art."

DONATELLO. By Hope Rea, Author of "Tuscan Artists."

PERUGINO. By G. C. Williamson, Litt.D.

SODOMA. By the Contessa Lorenzo Priuli-Bon.

LUCA DELLA ROBBIA. By the Marchesa Burlamacchi.

GIORGIONE. By Herbert Cook, M.A., F.S.A.

MEMLINO. By W. H. James Weale, late Keeper of the National Art Library.

PIERO DELLA FRANCESCA. By W. G. Waters, M.A.

PINTORICCHIO. By Evelyn March Phillipps.

FRANCIA. By George C. Williamson, Litt.D.

BRUNELLESCHI. By Leader Scott.

MANTEGNA. By Maud Cruttwell.

REMBRANDT VAN RIJN. By Malcolm Bell.

In preparation.

WILKIE. By Lord Ronald Sutherland-Gower, M.A., F.S.A., Trustee of the National Portrait Gallery.

TINTORETTO. By J. B. Stoughton Holborn, M.A. of Merton College, Oxford.

GIOTTO. By F. Mason Perkins.

EL GRECO. By Manuel B. Cossio, Litt.D., Ph.D., Director of the Musée Pédagogique, Madrid.

DÜRER. By Hans W. Singer, M.A., Ph.D., Assistant Director of the Royal Print Room, Dresden.

PAOLO VERONESE. By Roger E. Fry.

GAUDENZIO FERRARI. By Ethel Halsey.

Others to follow.

LONDON: GEORGE BELL & SONS

Buckingham Palace, London.

The Ship builder & his wife. (1633)

REMBRANDT
VAN RIJN

BY

MALCOLM BELL

AUTHOR OF "SIR EDWARD BURNE-JONES:
A RECORD AND REVIEW," ETC.

LONDON

GEORGE BELL & SONS

1901

PREFACE

In order to reduce the volume on Rembrandt, published in 1899, to the smaller dimensions demanded by the "Great Masters" series, it became necessary to dispense with some of the material included in it. This, it is hoped, has been done without seriously affecting the usefulness of the book. The story of the painter's life and work has been to some extent compressed, but everything essential has, it is believed, been retained. The chief omissions are the short descriptions of the pictures and the lists of the etchings, which, while occupying much space, were thought to be more suitable to a work of reference than to a handbook. The student who desires fuller information on these points will find it in the earlier volume.

CONTENTS

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Amand-Durand. "Œuvre de Rembrandt reproduit et publié par." 2 parts. Paris, 1880.

Baldinucci, Filippo. "Cominciamento e progresso dell' arte dell' intagliare in rame." Florence, 1686.

Bartsch, Adam. "Catalogue raisonné de toutes les estampes qui forment l'œuvre de Rembrandt et ceux de ses principaux imitateurs." 2 vols. Vienna, 1797.

Bell, Malcolm. "Rembrandt van Rijn and his Work." 4to. London, 1899.

Blanc, Charles. "L'œuvre complet de Rembrandt, décrit et commenté par." Paris, 1864 and 1880.

Bode, W. "Studien zur Geschichte der holländischen Malerei." Brunswick, 1883.

Bredius, A., and de Roever, N. Oud-Holland. A magazine published at Amsterdam.

Bredius, A. "Les chefs-d'œuvre du Musée royal d'Amsterdam." Paris, 1890.

Bredius, A. "Die Meisterwerke der Königlichen Gemälde Galerie im Haag." Munich, 1890.

Burger, W. "Les Musées de Belgique et de Hollande." Paris, 1858, 1860, and 1862.

Busken-Huet. "Het Land van Rembrandt." Harlem, 1886.

Chalon, John. Works of Rembrandt, etched by. London, 1822.

Claussin, Chevalier de. "Catalogue raisonné de toutes les estampes qui forment l'œuvre de Rembrandt." Paris, 1824.

Claussin, Chevalier de. "Supplément au Catalogue de Rembrandt." Paris, 1828.

Dargenville. "Abrégé de la Vie des plus fameux peintres." Paris, 1745.

Daulby, Daniel. "A descriptive catalogue of the works of Rembrandt and of his scholars." London and Liverpool, 1796.

Descamps. "Vies des peintres flamands et hollandais." Marseilles, 1840.

Dyk, J. van. "Beschryving van alle de Schilderyen op het Stadhuis van Amsterdam." Amsterdam, 1758.

Dutuit, E. "L'œuvre complet de Rembrandt décrit et catalogué par." Paris, 1880.

Eckhoff. "La femme de Rembrandt." 1862.

Félibien. "Entretien sur les Vies et les Ouvrages des plus excellents peintres." 1666-1688.

Fromentin, Eugène. "Les Maitres d'autrefois." Paris, 1877.

Galland, G. "Geschichte der holländischen Baukunst und Bildnerei." Leipzig, 1890.

Gersaint. "Catalogue raisonné de toutes les pièces qui forment l'œuvre de Rembrandt." Paris, 1751.

Hamerton, P. G. "Etching and Etchers." London, 1868.

Hamerton, P. G. Rembrandt's Etchings. Portfolio. London, 1894.

Havard, Henri. "L'art et les artistes hollandais." Paris, 1879.

Hoogstraten, Samuel van. "Inleyding tot de hooge School der Schilderkonst." Rotterdam, 1678.

Houbraken, Arnold. "De groote Schoubourgh der nederlandsche Kontschilders." Amsterdam, 1718-1719.

Humphreys, Noel. Rembrandt's Etchings. London, 1871.

Huygens, Constantin. "Autobiographie inédite." Library of the Academy of Sciences, Amsterdam.

Kolloff, Édouard. "Rembrandt's Leben und Werke," included in Historisches Taschenbuch of von Raumer. Leipzig, 1854.

Langbehn, Dr. "Rembrandt als Erzieher." Published anonymously, Leipzig, 1890.

Lemcke, C. Rembrandt van Rijn, in the Kunst and Künstler, Leipzig, 1877.

Lippmann, F. Original drawings by Rembrandt reproduced in Phototype. London, Berlin, and Paris, 1889-1892.

Madsen, Karl. "Studier fra Sverig." Copenhagen, 1892.

Michel, Emile. "Rembrandt sa vie, son œuvre et son temps." Paris, 1893.

Middleton, C. H. "Notes on the Etched Work of Rembrandt." London, 1877.

Middleton, C. H. "A descriptive Catalogue of the Etched Work of Rembrandt." London, 1878.

Orlers, J. J. "Beschryving der Stad Leiden." Leyden, 1641.

Oud-Holland. See [Bredius].

Piles, R. de. "Abrégé de la vie des Peintres." 1699.

Riegel, Herman. "Beitrage zur niederländischen Kunstgeschichte." Berlin, 1882.

Rovinski, Dmitri. "L'œuvre gravé de Rembrandt." Reproductions of all the states of all the etchings. St. Petersburg, 1890.

Sandrart, Joachim de. "Academia nobilissimae artis pictoriæ." Nuremberg, 1675-1683.

Scheltema, Dr. "Rembrandt, Discours sur sa vie et son génie." Paris, 1866.

Schmidt, W. "Handzeichnungen alter Meister in Königlichen Kupferstich Kabinet zu Munchen. Munich.

Schneider, L. "Geschichte der niederländischen Litteratur." Leipzig, 1888.

Seidlitz, von. "Rembrandt's Radirungen." Published in Zeitschrift für bildende Kunst. 1892.

Seymour Haden, Sir Francis. "Introductory Remarks to the Catalogue of the Etched Work of Rembrandt, selected for exhibition at the Burlington Fine Arts Club, London, 1877."

Seymour Haden, Sir Francis. "L'œuvre gravé de Rembrandt." Paris, 1880.

Seymour Haden, Sir Francis. "The Etched Work of Rembrandt, True and False." London, 1895.

Smith, John. "Catalogue raisonné of the Works of the most eminent Dutch, Flemish, and French Painters." London, 1829-1842.

Springer, Anton. "Bilder aus der neueren Kunstgeschichte. Vol. II. Rembrandt und seine Genossen." Bonn, 1886.

Vosmaer, Charles. "Rembrandt Hermannsz. Sa vie et ses œuvres." Paris and the Hague, 1877.

Weyerman, J. Campo. "De Levens Beschryvingen der nederlandsche Konstschilders." The Hague, 1749.

Willigen, van der. "Les artistes de Harlem." 1870.

Willshire, W. H. "An Introduction to the Study and Collection of Ancient Prints." London, 1877.

Wilson, T. A Descriptive Catalogue of the Prints of Rembrandt. Published as by "An amateur." London, 1836.

Woltmann, A., and Woermann, K. "Geschichte de Malerei." Leipzig.

Yver, Pierre. "Supplément au Catalogue raisonné de MM. Gersaint, Helle, et Glomy." Amsterdam, 1756.

CHRONOLOGICAL TABLE

REMBRANDT VAN RIJN

CHAPTER I

BIRTH AND EARLY YEARS

Down to the middle of the present century the story of Rembrandt, as generally accepted, was nothing but a mass of more or less ill-natured fiction. His drunkenness, his luxury, his immorality, his avarice, were heaped together into a somewhat inconsistent midden-heap of infamy. It was not indeed until his true rank among painters began to be properly appreciated that it occurred to anyone to ask whether this harsh judgment did not need revision; nay, more, to inquire upon what evidence it had been first delivered, and the investigation had not long been set on foot before the question took the form—"Is there any evidence, good or bad, at all?"

There were soon many workers in this untried field, and to all the thanks of the artist's admirers are due, but it is chiefly to M. Charles Vosmaer that his complete rehabilitation is to be credited, and it is bare justice to say that without availing himself freely of his researches and of M. Michel's equally careful and critical marshalling of the facts, then and since obtained by others, no future historian of Rembrandt can hope to advance beyond the threshold of his subject. One by one the cobwebs of myth with which, partly through malice, partly through ignorance, the master's image had been overwhelmed have been torn away, and we begin at last to see him as he really was, not impeccable, but intensely human, a kindly, patient, laborious, much-tried soul—one whom fortune, not altogether without his own provoking be it frankly owned, sorely buffeted, but one who, though well-nigh crushed, was never subdued; one whose courage sustained him to the last, whose one refuge against her flouts was in his art; who met, uncomplaining, neglect and contempt in his later years as he had in the heyday of his career received, unspoiled, unstinted praise and well-earned fame, and who said of himself in the height of his prosperity, "When I want rest for my mind, it is not honours I crave, but liberty."

Much concerning Rembrandt has been revealed by M. Vosmaer and his fellow-workers, by MM. Bredius and Scheltema, de Vries and Immerzeel, Elzevier and Eckhoff, van der Willigen, and other patient seekers, but much, nevertheless, still remains in doubt or darkness.

Even as to the date of his birth, there is considerable uncertainty. Orlers, a burgomaster of Leyden, in a description of that town published in 1641, and therefore while not only Rembrandt himself but many people who must have remembered his birth were still alive, states that Rembrandt, the son of Hermann, the son of Gerrit, and Neeltje, the daughter of Willems of Suydtbroeck, was born on the 15th of July 1606, and later writers for more than two hundred years accepted his assertion without question. Dr Bredius has, however, shown that on May 25th, 1620, Rembrandt was entered as a student in the Faculty of Letters at the University of Leyden and his age is given in the same document as fourteen, Rembrandt Hermanni Leidensis 14 jare oud, and as this was before his birthday in that year the question arises as to whether the statement means that he was in his fourteenth year or that he had passed the fourteenth anniversary of his birthday. For, the day of his birth not being in dispute, if we take the latter and more obvious interpretation it would necessarily follow that the fourteenth anniversary was in 1619 and that he completed his first year on 25th May 1606, so that the actual day itself must have been in 1605. There is further and still conflicting evidence to be reckoned with. In the British Museum there is a proof of an etched portrait of himself dated 1631 [B. 7], on which is written, in what is believed to be his own hand, "aet. 24, 1631." If this was written before the 15th of July it would point to 1606 as his birth year, thus agreeing with Orlers' statement, while if it was written after that day it would imply 1607. It should, however, be observed that M. Blanc reads the figures on the etching as 25, and if he be correct in this the choice must lie between 1607 and 1608; while, to add further to the mystification, Mr Sidney Colvin reads the age as 27, which makes the birth year 1603 or 1604.

Nor is 1607 without further support. Dr Scheltema discovered in the marriage register of Amsterdam the record of Rembrandt's official engagement to duly obtain his mother's consent to his marriage, signed by himself, and in this he gives his age on July 10th, 1634, as twenty-six, in which case his birthday would have fallen in 1607, but we know that he was at all times very vague as to dates and figures. On a delightful pencil drawing on vellum, in the Berlin Museum, of his wife Saskia, there is an inscription in his handwriting "Dit is naer myn huysfrow geconterfeit do sy 21 jaer oud was den derden dach als wy getroudt waeren due 8 junyus 1633"—"This is a portrait of my wife when she was 21 years old, on the third day after our marriage, the 8th of June 1633," a simple statement, which nevertheless contains a remarkable number of errors for so brief a document. Saskia, it is true, was twenty-one in 1633, but the marriage took place on the 22nd of June and in the year 1634.

If, then, Rembrandt could misdate an event so intimately connected with his life's chief joy, how should we expect him to be more accurate about one, which indeed concerned him nearly, but of which he naturally had no personal recollection. That he was uncertain we have happily positive proof, thanks once more to Doctor Bredius, for on the 16th of September 1653, in giving his opinion as an expert in a trial concerning the authenticity of a certain picture by Paul Bril, he can only declare that he is about forty-six.

Such is the evidence upon this fortunately not very important point, and it is small wonder that of the two great authorities, M. Michel and M. Vosmaer, the first accepts 1606 and the second 1607 as the true date. The question must still remain an open one, but when we consider that Rembrandt's mother did not die until 1640, only one year before Orlers published his book, and at a time when he had probably collected most of his material, and that nothing is more likely than that he should have applied to her for details, we may with safety conclude that the balance of probability is in favour of his date 1606.

Concerning the place of his birth there are no such doubts. If the visitor to Leyden, on his way from the station to the town, turns sharp to the right after crossing the second bridge, and on traversing a third keeps again to the right and continues with that branch of the Rhine known as the Galgewater on his right hand, he will before long find himself on the west side of the town, in a triangular open space, washed on two sides by the moat surrounding it, where once stood the White Gate guarding the entrance of the high-road from the Hague. On the left side of this, as one comes in from the country, and at right angles to it, close to where the buildings of the Zeemans-Kweekschool, or Naval School, now are, ran a short street called the Weddesteeg, in No. 3 of which Rembrandt was born.

It must have been a pleasant situation, facing the setting sun, with nothing but the town ramparts and the gleaming moat between it and the wide champaign. On the right hand the slow barges crept up and down the river, on the left the slow carts creaked to and from the town, while in front the broad sails of windmills swung round, and the whirr of the stones grinding malt for making beer hummed through the open doors. Up against the sky rose two, one almost opposite the windows of the house, the other a little to the left on the border of the Noordeinde, just inside the gate, of which Rembrandt's father owned half, while his stepfather Cornelis, the son of Clæs, with his son Clæs, shared the other half between them.

He was a prosperous and respected man was Hermann, or Harmen—the name occurs in both forms—the son of Gerrit, called after the fashion of the time Harmen Gerritsz, to which he himself added van Rijn, as his son did after him. Besides his own residence, and his share of the mill, he owned houses within the town and gardens without, with plate and jewellery and house-plenishings and all things proper about him, and had been appointed by his fellow-citizens to a municipal office of importance, representing the ward of the Pelican, in which he lived, where he did so well what was asked of him that he was selected again for it some years later. He was at the former date thirty-five or thirty-six, and at the time when this, his fifth and youngest child but one, was born, he had been married fifteen years, his wedding-day having been the 8th of October 1589.

[Bredius Collection, the Hague

PORTRAIT OF REMBRANDT'S MOTHER
(ABOUT 1628)]

Rembrandt's childhood, considering the condition of his father, was, we may be sure, at least a comfortable one, though of details we have none. We cannot even say where he learned to read and write, for neither of which exercises did he subsequently exhibit much affection. Probably at home, where maybe Coppenol, the great master of writing, at that time included among the fine-arts under the style of Caligraphy, taught him, and possibly gave him his first lessons in drawing also; for the art he professed, with its elaboration of curves and flourishes, and its, to our eyes, somewhat childish pictorial perversions, was a singular commingling of the two. One thing at least we may feel certain of, that it was at his mother's knee he began the study of the Bible, which she herself read so constantly, if we may judge by its frequent appearance in his portraits of her, and which he, following in her footsteps, knew so thoroughly and drew upon so often for inspiration.

The next fact we find chronicled is a passage in Orlers to the effect that his parents sent him to school to learn the Latin tongue, in preparation for the University of Leyden, that when he came of age he might by his knowledge serve the City and Republic; and in fulfilment of this laudable ambition we find that entry on May 25th, 1620, as a student in the Faculty of Letters, which has already been noted in another connection. But by this time, by what means we know not, the art craving was fully aroused, and his parents' ambitious scheme for his serving the City and Republic was as nothing beside his own irresistible desire to express himself in form and colour. He proved, we are told, but an unwilling scholar, the lines of Virgil and Ovid were lifeless to him, in comparison with those of Lucas van Leyden; and his elders, yielding with a fortunate wisdom to the inevitable, gave up the effort to make a statesman of him, and consented to apprentice him, according to his wish, to a painter to learn first principles from him.

CHAPTER II

ART EDUCATION AND EARLY WORKS

The exact date of this first step on the road to fame is also still somewhat uncertain. Vosmaer believes it was in 1619, but the assertion of Orlers that when his parents allowed him to abandon the unloved Latin, they apprenticed him to a painter, is so precise, that it is unreasonable to suppose that his father should have returned to the attack. We may consequently assume that the final desertion of the Muses and enlistment in the cause of the Arts came after, not before, that enrolment at the University—that is to say, late in 1620 or perhaps early in 1621. Further facts go to prove this point. His first apprenticeship, in accordance with the rules of the Guilds of Saint Luke, lasted three years, and came to an end therefore in 1623 or early in 1624. He then went to a second master in Amsterdam, but remained with him only six months; so that in either case the date of his leaving Amsterdam and returning to Leyden would have been some time in 1624. Now there is no doubt that it was in 1624 that this took place, and the only obvious conclusion is that his first apprenticeship did not commence before 1620.

The painter who was then chosen for the honour of first guiding the hand of the young Rembrandt, by which honour he is nowadays almost alone distinguished, was Jacob van Swanenburch. A man of good position, the son of one painter, the brother of another, and of an engraver, he was not, judging by his only known picture, "A Papal Procession in the Piazza of St Peter," artistically speaking, of much account, and it was probably more for personal reasons, and because of his propinquity, than for his conspicuous talents that he was selected. He was able only to impart "the first elements and the principles" of his art to his young pupil, as Orlers tells us; but indeed these were all that were needed by one with such an overmastering personality, with so powerful an artistic inspiration and energy. So successful was the process that Orlers describes his advance in craftsmanship as so swift and steady that his fellow-citizens were completely astounded by it, and could already foresee the brilliant career to which he was destined. We must, however, remember in weighing this statement that it was written when that career was at its most brilliant stage, and is to some extent the proverbial safe prophecy of one who knows.

That Rembrandt did make considerable progress during the following three years is, of course, certain; and when his apprenticeship drew to an end the question arose as to what was to come next. The experience of a young fellow-artist probably suggested the answer. About the time Rembrandt entered Swanenburch's studio Jan Lievensz, a fellow-citizen, a year younger than Rembrandt, who had, however, entered upon his artistic studies while Rembrandt was still struggling with, or against, the detested Latin, returned from completing his studies in the studio of Pieter Lastman at Amsterdam. The father of Jan was a farmer, a man in the same rank of life as Hermann the miller, and probably had business connections with him, so that the acquaintanceship between the two sons, destined to ripen into warm friendship, doubtless began in early boyhood.

Certain it is, at any rate, that when Jan returned from Lastman's studio to astound his townsmen with his precocity, the intimacy between him and Rembrandt became close; in a few years their names seem to have become as inseparable as those of Damon and Pythias, and it was no doubt from the enthusiasm of Lievensz that the impulse arose which, in 1624, sent Rembrandt also to study under Lastman. The experiment, however, was not a success. Lievensz had remained with him two years; Rembrandt wearied of it in six months. And, truly, though he enjoyed at that time an incomprehensibly large measure of popularity and success, Lastman, though a far better artist than Swanenburch, was not one of those whose names we nowadays inscribe on the roll of great painters. He had been, moreover, one of the large group who had trudged to far-away Rome, and come under the influence of Elsheimer there, and the exotic and ill-adapted traditions and conventions of the school were not calculated to appeal to so ardent and eager a seeker after truth as Rembrandt. He wanted to find nature, and was not to be put off by a diluted semi-Italian imitation of it; and so, after a few months' trial, he packed up his paints and canvases, and returned to his family in Leyden "to study and practise painting alone and in his own way," to quote again the garrulous Orlers.

That so indefatigable and untiring a worker as Rembrandt did not waste time, when once he was safely established in his father's house, is certain, for Orlers says that he worked incessantly as long as the light lasted; but we know of nothing that he produced until three years later, when he painted two still existing pictures, signing and dating both.

From this time his reputation and that of Lievensz ripened rapidly. Arent van Buchel, in his "Res Pictoriæ," mentions him in 1628; and Constantin Huygens, in a manuscript autobiography, discovered in 1891 by Dr Worp of Groningen, and written probably between 1629 and 1631, was enthusiastic concerning both, "still beardless yet already famous"—an appreciation that was not to be without its favourable influence on Rembrandt's future. Nor was this growing fame productive of mere empty praise. In February 1628, when he was only one-and-twenty, Gerard Dou, his first pupil, came to him and remained until he left Leyden for Amsterdam three years later.

Many causes probably combined to promote this change of residence. On the twenty-seventh of April 1630 the first break in the united family circle was brought about by the death of his father. The blow must have been a heavy one, for he must have been a kindly and sympathetic companion to his children, if we may judge by the refined and sensitive face which looks out at us from the portraits believed to be his, and a merry one to boot, with a pretty humour of his own, if M. Michel be justified in his conclusion that the etching of the bald man with a chain (B. 292) is also a portrait of him. The loss further brought changes into the family arrangements. The eldest brother, as far back as 1621, had been crippled by an accident, and on March 16th of that year a life-interest in the estate to the amount of 125 florins per annum had been formally established for his maintenance, so that the superintendence of the affairs of the mill fell to the second son Adriaen, who abandoned his trade of shoe-making to undertake it, and made nothing, or worse, of it.

The young artist's reputation as a portrait painter had, moreover, spread to Amsterdam some time before, and many commissions came to him thence. For a while he merely went over, stayed long enough to do the work, and returned again to Leyden, but as the demands upon his time increased this must have proved a wasteful, inconvenient, and finally impossible proceeding. Leyden, again, was a University town, where religion and philosophy were more thought of and more sought after than such a trifle as art, as indeed is still the case in some University towns that could be mentioned; while Amsterdam was a city of prosperous traders making more money than they knew how to spend or employ, and ready enough to devote some of their superfluity to portraits of themselves and wives, or pictures of incidents and places, and it was clearly desirable that one able and willing to satisfy their wishes in this respect should be upon the spot.

[Cassel Gallery

PORTRAIT OF REMBRANDT'S FATHER
(ABOUT 1631)

The little coterie of artists, too, was on the verge of dispersal in any case, by the loss of Rembrandt's closest tie with it, Jan Lievensz. He had sold a picture of a man reading by a turf fire to the Prince of Orange, who had presented it to the English Ambassador, and he in turn had passed it on to that king of picture lovers, Charles the First, who had been so well pleased with it that a pressing invitation to visit England had been sent to the painter, and accepted. Nor, probably, was it only the chance of obtaining more employment that attracted Rembrandt. The famous "Anatomy Lesson" bears the date 1632, and, even if the commission for it had not actually been offered during the preceding year, it may very well have been suggested in the course of conversation by the doctor who had added to his name, Clæs Pietersz, that of Tulp, taking it from a tulip which was carved on the front of his house, who figures so conspicuously in it. If this were so, it must have been evident to Rembrandt that to undertake so large and important a picture while living in another city would mean either risking the uniformity and continuity of his work, or settling down for a prolonged period in lodgings in Amsterdam, and this may well have confirmed his decision to at once establish himself there permanently.

Finally, I like to fancy, though it certainly cannot be proved, that Rembrandt had already, in one of his flying visits to that city, met the girl upon whom, while she lived, the larger part of his life's happiness was to depend. The evidence is, it must be owned, slight, but is not altogether wanting. Among the pictures of the year 1630, and, according to M. Michel, even of 1628 and onwards, we find a series of portraits of a fair-haired girl with a round, full forehead, and rather small eyes and mouth, which Dr Bode believes to be portraits of the painter's sister Lysbeth, while M. Michel considers that some of the later ones are really portraits of Saskia, urging the objection that many of them were undoubtedly painted after his removal to Amsterdam, whither there is not the slightest reason to suppose that Lysbeth accompanied him, what evidence there is pointing directly to the contrary. On the other hand, M. Michel admits that the type which is known to be Saskia blends almost indistinguishably with that supposed to be Lysbeth, and offers the distinctly dubious explanation that Rembrandt was, so to speak, so imbued with the features of his sister that he unconsciously transferred them to a large extent to the girl he loved. If, however, as we may quite reasonably suppose, Rembrandt had met and admired Saskia during his first stay in Amsterdam, and continued to do so during his after-visits, the occurrence of her features in his work would be what we ought to expect.

There was, on the other hand, but a single objection to the scheme—the parting with his mother; and to such an affectionate and home-loving nature as Rembrandt's the difficulty can have been no small one. Still, a man has to do a man's work in this life. Adriaen, his brother, and Lysbeth, his sister, were there to minister to her comfort, while Amsterdam was no great distance away; and though, doubtless, it was not altogether without tears that the widowed Neeltje consented to the departure of her youngest son, the decision was taken, and the consent yielded at last.

Indeed, it was inevitable that so great and, at one time, so popular an artist should, sooner or later, gravitate to the capital of his country; for, since the decay of Antwerp, Amsterdam was without a rival in the world for prosperity—the head-centre of commerce, the hub of the trade-universe. Sir Thomas Overbury, in 1609, describes it as surpassing "Seville, Lisbon, or any other mart town in Christendom." Evelyn, writing in 1641, says in his diary, "that it is certainly the most busie concourse of mortalls now upon the whole earth and the most addicted to com'erce."

Neither tempest nor battle could check her energy; and throughout the long desultory war from 1621 to 1648 between Spain and Holland, her traders hurried to and from the enemy's ports, supplying her even with the very munitions of war to carry on the contest; while for all this accumulated wealth there was but a limited outlet. Necessities being superabundant, it must be either hoarded or expended on luxuries, and among these pictures held high place. Quoting once more from Evelyn, we find him writing on August 13th, 1641: "We arrived late at Roterdam, where was their annual marte or faire, so furnished with pictures (especially Landskips and Drolleries, as they call those clounish representations), that I was amaz'd. Some I bought and sent into England. The reson of this store of pictures and their cheapness proceedes from their want of land to employ their stock, so that it is an ordinary thing to find a common Farmer lay out two or three thousand pounds in this comodity. Their houses are full of them, and they vend them at their faires to very great gaines." So, for a time, the Dutch painters drove a thriving trade; and as Amsterdam was by far the richest city, to Amsterdam the successful painter must needs repair.

CHAPTER III

DAYS OF PROSPERITY

Some time then in 1631 the die was cast, and the removal accomplished. There is reason to believe that he went at first to stay or lodge with Hendrick van Uylenborch, a dealer in pictures and other objects of art. Among his first proceedings on his arrival, was one sufficiently characteristic of him and destined to be repeated only too often in the future. He lent Hendrick money, one thousand florins, to be repayable in a year with three months' notice. Soon after, if not before, this indiscreet financial operation, as it proved later, he found the suitable residence he had meanwhile been seeking, on the Bloemgracht, a canal on the west side of the town, running north-east and south-west between the Prinsen Gracht and the Lynbaan Gracht, in a district, at that time on the extreme outskirts of the town, known as the Garden, from the floral names bestowed upon its streets and canals.

Here he settled to his work, and here in a short time fortune came to him. The enthusiasm aroused by "The Anatomy Lesson," when it was finished and hung in its predestined place in the little dissecting-room or Snijkamer of the Guild of Surgeons in the Nes, near the Dam, was immediate and immense. The artist leapt at once into the front rank, and became the fashionable portrait painter of the day. From three portraits, other than those of his own circle, painted in 1631, and ten in 1632, the number rose to forty between that year and 1634; or, taking all the surviving portraits between 1627 and 1631, we have forty-one, while from the five following years, from 1632 to 1636, there are one hundred and two. Commissions, indeed, flowed in faster than he could execute them, so Houbraken assures us, and the not infrequent occurrence of a pair of portraits, husband and wife, one painted a year or more after the other, tends to confirm this; so that those who wished to be immortalised by him had often to wait their turn for months together, while all the wealth and fashion of the city flocked to the far-off studio in the outskirts, the more fortunate to give their sittings, the later comers to put down their names in anticipation of the future leisure. From the beginning, too, pupils came clamouring to his doors, Govert Flinck and Ferdinand Bol, Philips Koninck, Geerbrandt van den Eeckhout, Jan Victors, Leendeert Cornelisz, and others, eager to pay down their hundred florins a year, as Sandrart says they did, and work with and for the lion of the day.

Not Fortune alone, however, with her retinue of patrons, and Fame, with her train of pupils, sought him out; Love, too, came knocking at his portal, and won a prompt admission. To the many admirable works produced at this time I shall return later, but three of those painted in 1632 call for further notice now. One is an oval picture, belonging to Herr Haro of Stockholm, representing the half-length figure of a girl in profile, facing to the left, fair-haired, and pleasant-looking rather than pretty; the second, in the Museum at Stockholm, shows us the same girl in much the same position, but differently dressed; while the third, in the collection of Prince Liechtenstein at Vienna, is a less pleasing representation of her in full face, wherein the tendency to stoutness and the already developing double chin detract from the piquancy of her expression and make her look more than her actual age, which we know to have been twenty at the time that these were painted.

We have heard her name casually already, in connection with the arrangements for Rembrandt's marriage, when discussing the date of his birth—for this is Saskia van Uylenborch, a cousin of his friend Hendrick, which fact may haply have had something to do with that ready loan of a thousand florins. Though poor Rembrandt, be it said, was, unhappily for him, never backward with loan or gift when he had money to give or lend. Saskia was born in 1612 at Leeuwarden, the chief town of Friesland in the north, across the Zuider Zee, and at the time when Rembrandt met her was an orphan, her mother, Sjukie Osinga, having died in 1619, and her father, Rombertus, a distinguished lawyer in his native place, in 1624. The family left behind was a large one, consisting, besides Saskia, of three brothers, two being lawyers and one a soldier, and five sisters, all married, who, as soon as the worthy Rombertus was laid to rest, seem to have begun wrangling among themselves concerning the estate; the quarrel, chiefly, as it appears, being sustained by the several brothers-in-law, and leading shortly to an appeal to law.

[Liechtenstein Gallery, Vienna

PORTRAIT OF SASKIA
(1632)

Among the less close relations was a cousin Aaltje, who was married to Jan Cornelis Sylvius, a minister of the Reformed Church, who, coming from Friesland, had settled in Amsterdam in 1610, and with them Saskia was in the habit of coming to stay. Where and when Rembrandt first met her we do not know. Probably at the house of Hendrick; it may have been, as has been said, in 1628 or earlier, for, if the acquaintance began in 1631, it ripened rapidly. Without accepting unhesitatingly all M. Michel's identifications of her, not only in portraits and studies but in subjects, such as that one which is known as "The Jewish Bride," now in the collection of Prince Liechtenstein, there is no question that she sat to him several times during the two years 1632 and 1633. The attraction was mutual; Rembrandt soon became a welcome visitor to the Sylvius household, and, in token doubtless of the kindness and hospitality which he there met with, he etched, in 1634, a portrait of the good old minister (B. 266).

The course of true love in this case ran smoothly enough; the young people soon came to an understanding; no difficulties were raised by Sylvius, who acted as Saskia's guardian; and the marriage was only deferred till Saskia came of age. The union, indeed, from a worldly point of view, was unexceptionable. Saskia, it is true, was of a good family, while Rembrandt sprang from the lower middle class, but he had already carved out for himself a rank above all pedigrees. Saskia was twenty, and he, with all his fame, was only twenty-six. The wedding, then, was decided on, and Rembrandt, painting Saskia yet again, put into her hands a sprig of rosemary, at that time in Holland an emblem of betrothal. It was possibly even fixed for some date late in 1633, when Saskia would have passed her twenty-first birthday.

Just at this time, to confirm, if that had been needed, Rembrandt's increasing reputation and prospects of future prosperity, he was brought into business relations with the chief personage in the land, Prince Frederick-Henry, who in 1625, on the death of his brother Maurice, had succeeded to the office of Stathouder, as the head of the Republic was officially entitled. Constantin Huygens, whose earlier enthusiasm for Rembrandt's work we have already noted, was the Prince's Secretary, acting in that quality as intermediary in his many dealings with artists, and clearly found time in the intervals of his duties to continue his acquaintance with Rembrandt. It was probably on his recommendation that the artist had painted in 1632 the portrait of his brother Maurice, and it was certainly at his suggestion that the Stathouder bought "The Raising of the Cross," now at Munich. Rembrandt, indeed, says as much in a letter to Huygens, still existing in the British Museum, in which he invites him to come and inspect the companion picture, "The Descent from the Cross," for which, though offering to leave it to the Prince's generosity, he considers two hundred livres would be a reasonable price. The picture was bought, and so content was the Prince with his purchase that soon afterwards he commissioned three other pictures to complete the set. The exact date of this event is unknown, but it cannot have been long delayed, for, in a letter written early in 1636 the painter informs Huygens that one of the three, "The Ascension," is finished and the other two half done.

With such guarantees of continued good fortune, there was nothing, when Saskia was once of age, to necessitate longer delay, in the completion of his happiness, but in the autumn she was peremptorily called away to Franeker, a town in Friesland, between Leeuwarden and the sea, where her sister Antje, the wife of Johannes Maccovius, professor of Theology, was lying ill, and where, on November the ninth, she died. This untoward occurrence put an end to the possibility of an immediate marriage, and Saskia went to spend the winter with another sister, Hiskia, who was married to Gerrit van Loo, a secretary of the government, and lived at Sainte Anne Parrochie, in the extreme north-west of Friesland; while Rembrandt, discontentedly enough, no doubt, toiled through the long winter months in his studio at Amsterdam.

In the spring of 1634, however, the sunshine returned again into his life, and he commemorated the advent, appropriately enough, by painting the bringer of it in the guise of Flora. The period of mourning was now at an end, and some time in May, probably, Saskia once more returned to Hiskia's to make preparation for the approaching day; while Sylvius, as her representative, and Rembrandt began to arrange the more formal business matters. On June 10th, as recorded by Dr Scheltema, Sylvius, as the bride's cousin, engaged to give full consent before the third asking of the banns; while Rembrandt, on his part, promised to obtain his mother's permission. Whether he merely wrote to Leyden for this, or whether, as is more probable, he went in person, we do not know; but in either case he wasted no time, for on the fourteenth he produced the necessary documents, and prayed at the same time that the formal preliminaries might be cut as short as possible. His appeal was evidently received with favour, for eight days later, on June 22nd, at Bildt, in the presence of Gerrit and Hiskia van Loo, he was duly married, first by the civil authorities, and afterwards by the minister Rodolphe Hermansz Luinga in the Anna-kerk.

As far as domestic happiness depending upon their relations with one another went, there is every reason to suppose that this union was a thoroughly successful one; but we cannot help, nevertheless, feeling some doubts as to whether it was altogether the best that might have been for Rembrandt. Frank and joyous, but strong-willed, not to say obstinate, recklessly generous and prodigal, and without a thought for what the future might bring forth, he needed some firm yet tender hand to check, without seeming too much to control, his lavish impulses. Impossible to drive, yet easy enough to lead, a giant in his studio, a child in his business relations with the world outside its doors, he should have found some steady practical head to regulate his household affairs and introduce some order and economy into his haphazard ways. Such, unfortunately for him in the end, Saskia was not. Devoted to him, she yielded in everything, and his will was her law. As her love for him led her to let him do always as he would, so his passion for her led him to shower costly gifts upon her—pearls and diamonds, gold-work and silver-work, brocades and embroideries; nothing that could serve to adorn her was too good or too expensive. She would have been as happy in plain homespun, as long as he was there; but to give largely was in the nature of the man, and the very fortune that she brought with her was an evil, even at the time, in that it led him to further extravagances, while in the future it proved a still more serious one.

Furthermore, Rembrandt, hot-headed and impetuous as he was, must needs fling himself into the family quarrels and suits-at-law, taking therein the part of the one who had stood by him and Saskia at the altar, Gerrit van Loo, in whom, though he had possibly never set eyes on him till he went north to his wedding, he had already developed so complete a confidence that, exactly one month later, on July 22nd, as Dr Scheltema discovered, he gave him a full power of attorney to act for him in all affairs connected with the property in Friesland. From this sudden and violent partisanship still more trouble arose in due course, owing largely to the fact that his championship of Gerrit was soon after justified by his winning one of the many cases brought before the court of Friesland in the course of the prolonged dispute.

For the time, however, there is no doubt their happiness was supreme, and if for her sake he was energetically brewing the storm that was to burst upon him later, there were as yet no threatening clouds upon the horizon. Nor, be it said, was it on her account alone that he scattered money broadcast. The impulse to collect works of art, pictures, engravings, casts and statues, armour and curious objects, had begun to influence him even in early days at Leyden, and had become by that time a perfect mania. On February 22nd, 1635, we find his name as a purchaser at the Van Sommeren sale, and thereafter he reappears again and again as buyer at various auctions. But not even in this could he attempt to be business-like. Baldinucci, a Florentine, in a volume published in 1686, gives many interesting details anent Rembrandt, which he obtained at first hand from one of his later pupils, Bernard Keilh, a Dane, and among them relates that, when at a sale he saw anything he coveted, he ran it up in one bid to a wholly impossible price, thus making sure of it, and at the same time, as he explained, paying honour to his art.

The Van Uylenborch family quarrels happily did not extend to the sisters, amongst whom the most amicable relations appear to have prevailed. At any rate, in the summer of 1635, we find Saskia revisiting Sainte Anne Parrochie, to be with Hiskia during her confinement, and subsequently at the baptism of the child, a mark of kindly feeling the more notable in that she herself was about to become a mother. In the early winter, having returned meanwhile to her home, she gave birth to a son, who, on December 15th, in the Oudekerk, was christened Rombertus, after her father. Rembrandt's delight in this small person is indicated by numerous sketches of him and his mother; but the happiness, like all that he experienced, was short-lived, for the child did not long survive its birth.

[Dresden Gallery

REMBRANDT AND SASKIA
(ABOUT 1635)

Rembrandt, at some time before his marriage, had removed from the Bloemgracht to Saint Antonies Breestraat, in the heart of the city, close to the Nieuwe Markt, and by 1636 had moved once more to the Nieuwe Doelstraat, whence the letter to Huygens, already referred to, was addressed. There can be no doubt that the change was an improvement, for the artist must then have been at the height of his prosperity and fame.

Throughout Holland, imitators of his style were springing up, for the public would have no other. His studio was freely sought by pupils; his home-life was passed in a circle of trusted friends, and the broadly sympathetic nature of the man, which aided so largely in raising him to the first place among portrait painters, is seen in the various pursuits of these.

Fellow-painters, apart from his pupils, were not conspicuous among them, and those we find are chiefly landscape painters—Roghman and van der Helst, Ruysdael and Berchem, van de Cappelle and Jan Asselyn. With ministers he was largely acquainted, probably through Jan Sylvius, who, however, died on November 19th, 1638, among them being Alenson, Henry Swalm, and Anslo; while Tulp probably first introduced the medical element, Bonus, van der Linden, and Deyman. Several dealers in objects of art, brought in by Hendrick van Uylenborch, or picked up in the course of business transactions, were among his friends—Pieter de la Tombe, Clement de Jonghe, Abraham Francen, and others; while the worthy though conceited Coppenol, and the jeweller, Jan Lutma, together with the burgomaster Six, were among those who remained faithful to the last.

Rembrandt's championship of Gerrit van Loo in the family differences began about this time to bear troublesome fruit. The losers in the action already mentioned, in the course of the year 1634 seem to have nursed an especial grudge against Saskia, and, to relieve their ruffled feelings, had been spreading abroad reports reflecting on her, asserting that she had "dissipated her paternal inheritance in dress and ostentation." There was, as far as Rembrandt himself, at least, was concerned, too much truth in the story to render the scandal altogether stingless. The thrust at Saskia, moreover, angered him more, probably, than one at himself alone would have done, and we find him accordingly rushing headlong into the law-courts with an action for damages against one Albert van Loo, declaring that "he and his wife were amply, even superabundantly, provided for."

Whether he was ever called upon to prove this statement does not appear; probably not, since the court found, in July 1638, that he had not sufficient grounds for action. It is doubtful how far he could have established its truth had he been required to do so. There can be small question that he believed it to be true, though his paying 637 florins the previous year for a book of drawings and engravings by Lucas van Leyden, and again, in October of the same year, 530 florins for a picture of Hero and Leander by Rubens, might only indicate his habitual indifference to ways and means. We know also that at the time he was getting from five to six hundred florins for his portraits, but, judging by the number known to exist—a very imperfect test it need scarcely be said—the demand for these was beginning to fall off, there being seven for 1636, four for 1637, two for 1638, and four for 1639, while even these small numbers include three of himself, and one believed to be his mother.

The strongest reason for supposing that he was in some financial embarrassment is found in his correspondence at the beginning of the latter year with Huygens. Writing in January from the Suijkerbackerij, a house on the borders of the Binnen-Amstel, whither he had removed at an unknown date, he announces the completion of the last two of the Stathouder's commissions, and only fifteen days later he presses for immediate payment of the 1244 florins due to him, on the grounds that the money would be then extremely useful to him. Since there was some delay, he renewed the appeal, though Huygens, on February 17th, had already given orders for the discharge of the debt. This unceremonious dunning, though by proxy, of a powerful Prince, does not seem altogether to indicate that superabundance of which Rembrandt boasted; but there was, as we know, a special reason, apart from any financial difficulties, which may have accounted for this urgent need of ready money.

He had decided to settle himself finally, not long after the birth on July 1st, 1638, of his second child, a daughter, christened at the Oudekerk on July 22nd, Cornelia, after his mother, and on January 5th, 1639, had purchased from one Christoffel Thysz a house in the Joden-Breestraat, now Number 68, for 13,000 florins. Though only one quarter of this sum had to be paid within one year, the rest being distributed over the following five or six, he seems for once to have been actually eager to pay the money, and by May had discharged half the cost and taken possession.

One birth and three deaths mark the year 1640. The first, of another daughter, on July 29th, who was also christened Cornelia, the elder child bearing that name having died in the meantime. The name, however, seems to have been an ill-omened one, for its second bearer did not survive a month, its burial being recorded in the Zuiderkerk on August 25th. Of the other deaths the first was that of an aunt of Saskia, who was possibly also her godmother, as she bore the same name, and certainly left her some property, since Ferdinand Bol was sent, on August 30th, to Leeuwarden with formal authority to take possession on her behalf. The other death must have been, to Rembrandt at any rate, a far heavier blow, for by it he lost, in September or October, his mother, to whom he was cordially attached, and from whom his residence in Amsterdam had only partially separated him, since we know by various portraits, painted subsequent to 1631, that either he visited her or she him with considerable frequency.

[National Gallery, London

PORTRAIT OF REMBRANDT
(1640)

An event arising out of the consequent settlement of the estate has given rise to the suspicion that, then at all events, Rembrandt was in difficulties, but it is again possible to take another point of view. The inheritance of each child amounted to 2490 florins, and a further 1600 remained to be divided later. The business was entrusted to Adriaen and Lysbeth, and Rembrandt, unhesitatingly accepting every suggestion made by them, contented himself with a mortgage on half the mill, the redemption of which was to be postponed indefinitely. No sooner, however, was the arrangement completed than he authorised his brother Willem to sell his rights for what they would fetch. This may mean, as M. Michel supposes, that he wanted the money promptly, yet wished to deal tenderly with a brother who was himself by no means beforehand with the world; but the two reasons seem somewhat inconsistent with the facts. That Rembrandt, even though pressed for money himself, should have practically forgone his due, and consented to take a small annual interest which he could, in case necessity arose, easily forgo, is quite reconcilable with what we know of him; but that, having acted so, he should have at once undone the good he proposed, by selling his claim to some stranger, who would certainly demand the full letter of his bond, is hard to believe.

Any other evidence concerning these presumed embarrassments is certainly against them. At this very time he was cheerfully accepting security for considerable sums of money lent, in addition to the original one thousand florins, to Hendrick van Uylenborch; and in later years, when his affairs came to be inquired into, Lodewyck van Ludick and Adriaen de Wees, dealers both, swore that between 1640 and 1650 Rembrandt's collections, without counting the pictures, were worth 11,000 florins, while a jeweller, Jan van Loo, stated that Saskia had two large pear-shaped pearls, two rows of valuable pearls forming a necklace and bracelets, a large diamond in a ring, two diamond earrings, two enamelled bracelets, and various articles of plate. Finally, Rembrandt also, at a later date, estimated that his estate at the time of Saskia's death amounted to 40,750 florins; and though the estimate was made under circumstances calculated to incline him to exaggerate rather than diminish the amount, it must be considered as approximately correct.

Poor Saskia was not destined to enjoy much longer her plate and jewellery. Death, having entered the family, was thenceforth busy. Titia died at Flushing on June 16th, 1641; and Saskia herself, after the birth of Titus in September of that year, possibly never enjoyed really good health again. By the following spring she was unmistakably failing, and at nine in the morning of June 5th, 1642, she made her will. She was not even then without hope of recovery, for there are express stipulations as to any further children she might bear, but the pitiful irregularity of her signature at the end of the document shows how forlorn this hope was; and, in fact, she died within the following fortnight, and was buried on the 19th of June in the Oudekerk, where Rembrandt subsequently purchased the place of her sepulture.

Upon what this loss must have meant to Rembrandt, with his affectionate nature and almost morbid devotion to a home-life I need not dwell, nor did Fate rest content with dealing him this single blow. The great picture, which forms the chief ornament of the Ryksmuseum at Amsterdam, "The Sortie of the Company of Banning Cocq," better known under the inaccurate title of "The Night-Watch," was no sooner completed, in the course of the same year, than it aroused a storm of vituperative criticism. The reasons for this I must defer till I come to the consideration of the paintings, and must only note the fact here, and the dwindling of Rembrandt's popularity, which appears to have been, to some extent at least, the consequence.

[Dresden Gallery

PORTRAIT OF SASKIA
(1641)

One dim ray of consolation alone seems to beam through the darkness that overshadowed him, Lievensz, who had long been absent, first in England and subsequently in Antwerp, came to settle in Amsterdam, and doubtless did all that in him lay to comfort his doubly-stricken friend. In the meantime the business matters so loathed by him, and now aggravated by their intimate connection with his bereavement, had to be attended to, though, through the consideration of Saskia's relatives, they were made as easy for him as well might be. Saskia, by her will, left everything practically to Rembrandt, confident that he would properly educate Titus and start him in life. Ostensibly, indeed, her share of the estate was left to Titus and any other children she might bear, but she expressly stipulated that he was not to be asked to provide any inventory or guarantees to anyone whatsoever. She particularly forbade the interference of any Chamber of Orphans, in especial that at Amsterdam. Rembrandt alone was to have control, and the property, principal and interest, was to all intents his own, unless—an important exception as we shall find—he married again. In that case half of the joint estate at the time of her death was to be put in trust for the child or children, though Rembrandt was still to enjoy the interest for life. It was obvious that the making at once of an inventory of all the property in his possession was the only right course to pursue, in order that the share which might eventually revert to Titus should be accurately known, for Rembrandt was but six-and-thirty, and his re-marriage by no means impossible. He, however, wished to avoid this course, doubtless through that over-mastering distaste for business to which I have had and shall have occasion to refer so often, and having the consent of Hendrick van Uylenborch, obtained permission from the Chamber of Orphans, on December 19th, to enter into possession of the estate without any estimate of its value being recorded.

CHAPTER IV

DAYS OF DECLINE

He was then starting upon the downward course which was leading him to utter ruin. In the course of the following years, Fashion, who had decreed that he was the one painter to patronise, shook her fickle wings and flew off to others, and thenceforth decried her former favourite with the more ignorant dispraise because of her equally ignorant pæans in the past.

It was in vain that the Stathouder continued his patronage, giving him a commission for two pictures, "The Circumcision" and "The Adoration of the Shepherds," for which, on the twenty-ninth of September 1646, he paid the sum of 2400 florins, just double what he had paid before. It was in vain that the rising artists could not fail to perceive his transcendent merits, and that pupils from all Europe sought him out, Michiel Willemans, Ulric Mayr, and Franz Wulfhagen, Christoph Paudiss, Juriaen Avens, Bernard Keilh, Cornelis Drost, Nicholas Maes, Carel Fabritius, Samuel van Hoogstraten, and many more. He had ceased, apparently, to attract the public. At any rate, though his productive energy was unabated, his affairs grew ever more and more involved.

In 1647, Saskia's relations began to be alarmed, demanding that the valuation of the property at the date of her death should be ascertained without delay, and Rembrandt replied that to the best of his belief it had been 40,750 florins. It is a little difficult to understand what right they had to formulate this demand, since, according to the will, the property was virtually Rembrandt's own, unless he married again, and this, to all appearance, he had, at that time, no idea of doing, though rumours to the contrary may well have reached their ears. A certain Geertje Dircx, the widow of one Abraham Clæsz, who had been engaged, probably not long after Saskia's death, as nurse to the infant Titus, who was always delicate, came in time to hope that she might aspire to rank as his step-mother; on January 24th, 1648, she made her will, neglecting the relations we know her to have had and bequeathing everything she legally could to Titus. Within two years, however, on October 1st, 1649, she repudiated her will, gave Rembrandt warning, and brought against him the equivalent of an action for breach of promise of marriage, to which he replied by an affidavit denying that their relations had ever been other than those of master and servant. In fact, her pretensions seem to have been only the delusions of her disordered brain, for in the course of the next year, 1650, she had to be removed and placed in confinement in a madhouse at Gouda, for which Rembrandt advanced the expenses, and, needless to say, never got them back.

We have not, moreover, far to seek for a reason for her explosion of temper in 1649 if she really believed her master meant to marry her, for on that very same October 1st, in reference to some otherwise unimportant disturbances of the neighbourhood by a drunken man, we find a certain Hendrickje Stoffels, of Ransdorp, in Westphalia, giving evidence on Rembrandt's behalf. Of the subsequent relations between her and Rembrandt there can be, unfortunately, no doubt whatever. She was at that time three-and-twenty, and a pleasant-looking girl enough, as her portrait, now in the Louvre, makes clear, and that her devotion to Rembrandt was not at all events self-seeking, the future made abundantly evident. As long as she lived, she remained attached to him, through evil fortune and ill-report, and, though there was too good reason for the step, she is generally believed to have never asked or expected him to "make an honest woman of her," as the phrase goes. To this belief, however, I hesitate to subscribe; indeed, I incline to the conviction that the description of her given in a lawsuit on October 27th, 1661, as his lawful wife, "huysfrouw," the very title he himself gave to Saskia, was strictly accurate. There is not, it must be admitted, another particle of direct evidence that it was so, though this in itself is not to be despised, but there are circumstances not a few that point in the same direction.

While the connection was irregular, and to begin with, at least, it undoubtedly was so, there was never any concealment or shamefacedness about the matter, nor do Rembrandt's friends, not even the respectable Burgomaster Six, seem to have looked askance upon it. It is true that in 1654 she was summoned, somewhat tardily, before the Consistory of her church, severely admonished, and forbidden to communicate. That, of course, was inevitable from their point of view, and only shows how absolutely open the arrangement was. How improbable it is then that in later years she should have deliberately perjured herself on the question when, if it were perjury, the evidence to convict her must have been overwhelming. There can, indeed, have been no doubt, long before this church summons, as to the relations between them, for in 1652 she gave birth to a child which did not, however, survive long, as we know that it was buried in the Zuiderkerk on August 15th.

In October 1654, a second daughter was born, and was christened on October 30th, Cornelia, in itself a somewhat significant circumstance. We cannot, I fear, claim any very subtle delicacy of taste for Rembrandt, it appertained not to his race or time; but it seems more than strange that he should have given to an illegitimate child the name which had been borne by his mother and by two luckless infants of the dead Saskia. Taking all these facts together, I venture to conjecture that we may still hope to hear some day of the discovery of proof that some time, probably between July when she was rebuked, and October when the child was baptised, Rembrandt, moved perhaps by the public disgrace of the girl once more about to become the mother of his child, was duly married to her.

Indeed, if he had not married someone, how came it that in 1665 Louis Crayers, the guardian of Titus, was able to establish, before the Grand Council, his claim on behalf of his ward against Rembrandt's estate, then in bankruptcy, for 20,375 florins, the half of the property at the time of Saskia's death three-and-twenty years before? Unless Rembrandt had married again Titus would appear to have had no shadow of a claim to principal or interest, yet the case was fought out to the bitter end, and it seems quite incredible that the creditors should have been ignorant of, or should have failed to produce, so important a piece of evidence in their favour. Since Titus' claim was allowed, it is obvious that Rembrandt must have remarried, and, if so, there can be no doubt that it was to the true and faithful Hendrickje.

I have, however, been led to anticipate too far in the attempt to make this reasoning clear, and must return to 1649, in which year Rembrandt took a second step on his road to bankruptcy by ceasing to pay either instalments of the sum remaining due for the house, or even the interest upon it. Indications of the approaching disaster now follow thick and fast. At some time between 1650 and 1652 the pearl necklace which appears in so many of the pictures was sold to Philips Koninck. In 1651, so wholly out of favour was Rembrandt's art deemed to be, that Jan de Baer, a young artist, on leaving the studio of Backer, under whom he had been studying, after hesitating for awhile as to whether he should turn to Rembrandt or Van Dyck for further instruction, chose the latter, because his style was most durable.

By 1653 Rembrandt seems to have finally abandoned himself to the current which was drifting him so rapidly to wreck. On January 29th he borrowed 4180 florins from Cornelis Witsen on the hopeless undertaking to repay it in a year, and three days later, on February 1st, his long-suffering landlord Thysz entered a claim for 8470 florins still owing to him. Rembrandt, with a sharpness due probably rather to his lawyer than to himself, demanded that the title-deeds should be delivered to him first. Then, on March 14th, he borrowed a further 4200 florins from Isaac van Heertsbeeck, also repayable in a year, and after trying, apparently in vain, through François de Koster, to recover some of the large sums of money that must have been owing to him, he obtained from Six yet another loan on the guarantee of Ludowyck van Ludick. With this temporary relief he in part paid off Thysz, but 1170 florins still remained to be paid, and for this amount the creditor obtained a mortgage on the house.

The end was now drawing near. One more effort, however, was made to avert the crash. A certain Dirck van Cattenburch, a collector of works of art, presuming that, in the state of Rembrandt's affairs, the large house in the Breestraat could only be an encumbrance to him, proposed to relieve him of it by a sufficiently curious arrangement. He was professedly to sell him another, doubtless a smaller one, for 4000 florins; but, in fact, he was to give Rembrandt the house and 1000 florins in cash. For the remaining 3000 florins Rembrandt was to deliver pictures and etchings of that value, and furthermore? to etch a portrait, in a style not less finished than that of Six, of Dirck's brother Otto, the secretary of Count Brederode of Vianen, which was to be considered the equivalent of 400 florins. How far this elaborate transaction was carried out is uncertain. Rembrandt obtained the 1000 florins, and handed over pictures and etchings of his own, or from his collection, valued by Abraham Francen and van Ludick at over 3000 florins, but we hear no more of the house or the portrait.

It was in vain that his friends seem to have developed a perfect mania for being etched or painted by him—Six and Tholinx, Deyman the doctor, the two Harings, father and son—neither loans nor earnings could for long stave off the evil day. As if ill-luck dogged the family, his brother Adriaen had so managed to misconduct the business of the mill that he and the sister Lysbeth were also on the verge of ruin, and Rembrandt, in the midst of his own troubles, had to come to their assistance. Small wonder, then, that the end was hastened. On May 17th, 1656, one Jan Verbout was appointed guardian to Titus in the place of Rembrandt, and on the same day, before the Chamber of Orphans, the unfortunate artist transferred his rights in the house to his son. Soon afterwards he was formally declared bankrupt, and on July 25th and the following day an inventory was made "of paintings, furniture, and domestic utensils connected with the failure of Rembrandt van Rijn, formerly living in the Breestraat near the lock of St Anthony." The inventory still exists, and is full of interest, giving, as it does, a complete description of every room in the house, from the pictures in the studio to the saucepans in the kitchen, but want of space forbids any extended extracts from it here.

The law seems to have moved slower in those days even than in these. Rembrandt continued for some time to dwell in the house, and, apart from the business worries, the little family appears to have been a united and contented one. How united we discover from the will that Titus made on October 20th, 1657, and rectified on November 22nd. By that time Rembrandt's utter incapacity for business was probably recognised even by himself, and all that Titus possessed was left to Hendrickje and her daughter Cornelia in trust for him. Nevertheless, as if to smooth over the slur upon his father's improvidence, he provided that Rembrandt might draw a certain share, on condition that he did not employ it to pay his debts, a most unlikely use, it is to be feared, for him to put it to, except, like Falstaff, "upon compulsion." The remainder was to go to Cornelia on her marriage or coming of age. The whole of the interest, in the event of Rembrandt's death, was to go to Hendrickje and Cornelia, and there are certain other arrangements of less importance concerning the disposal of the property on Cornelia's decease.

A month later the law at last gave forth its pronouncement, and the commissioners authorised Thomas Jacobsz Haring, an officer of the Court, to sell the effects of the bankrupt by auction. The worst had befallen; the home in which he had passed eighteen years, many of them happy, and all full of industry, was his no more. The little family was temporarily broken up. Rembrandt moved to the Crown Imperial Inn, kept by one Schumann in the Kalverstraat, which ran southwards from the Dam, a handsome and commodious house, which had at one time been the Municipal Orphanage, and was then the customary place for holding auctions. Whether Hendrickje, Titus, and Cornelia went with him we do not know. M. Michel concludes, from the fact that Rembrandt's daily expenses, included in the records of the case, were three or four florins, that they certainly did not; but if the already-mentioned provision of 125 florins a year was considered sufficient support for the crippled brother, more than eight times that amount might surely have sufficed for four people, two of whom were children.

On December 25th, the sale of Rembrandt's property began in the very house where he was lodging, but only a small portion of the goods was then sold.

The wheels of the law, once started, ground evenly and small. On January 30th, 1658, the commissioners ordered the repayment to Witsen and van Heertsbeeck of the money they had lent. The heirs of Christoffel Thysz were also paid, in spite of the protests of Louis Crayers, who had by then replaced Verbout as guardian of Titus, and, as such, asserted his prior claim on the estate to the extent, according to Rembrandt's own estimate in 1647, 20,375 florins. The other creditors, taking advantage of Rembrandt's afore-mentioned failure to make an inventory at the time, protested loudly that the demand was much exaggerated, and a cloud of witnesses was summoned to give such evidence as they could concerning the possessions of the pair at the time that Saskia died. Several of these statements have already been referred to in this narrative; but, in addition, Jan Pietersz, a draper, Abraham Wilmerdonx, director of the East India Company, Hendrick van Uylenborch, Nicholas van Cunysbergen, and others, gave testimony as to property owned by, or prices paid to, the bankrupt in former years.

In the meantime, on February 1st, 1658, at the request of Henricus Torquinius, the official who had charge of the business, the house in the Breestraat was sold to one Pieter Wiebrantsz, a mason, for 13,600 florins, but for some reason the bargain was not completed, and a second purchaser came forward with an offer of 12,000. There appear, however, to have been doubts as to his ability to pay, and it was finally transferred to a shoemaker, Lieven Simonsz, for 11,218 florins. Finally, in September, the pictures, engravings, and other objects of art were sold by auction, bringing in the ridiculous sum of 5000 florins, and all the possessions that Rembrandt had collected with such loving care and at so great a cost were scattered to the four winds.

It is pleasant to find that, in all this tribulation, many of his old friends still stood by him and endeavoured to help him to commissions. In 1660, for example, Govert Flinck, who was engaged on the decoration of the Grand Gallery in the Town Hall, having died, it became necessary to find someone to take his place. Rembrandt had never been much in favour with the town authorities, but on this occasion, possibly through the efforts of his old friend Tulp, who had been treasurer in 1658 and 1659, he was invited to carry on the work, and, as M. Michel has conclusively shown, painted for them a large picture of the conspiracy of Claudius Civilis. The opposition, however, apparently proved too strong, for it seems doubtful if the picture was ever seen in the place it was intended for. It did not, at any rate, remain there long.

On May 5th, 1660, we get another glimpse of the law proceedings when Heertsbeeck was ordered to pay back the 4200 florins which the Court had formerly awarded him, though Witsen was allowed to retain his 4180. On December 15th of the same year Hendrickje made a final effort to restore to some extent the prosperity of the household. With all proper circumstance, she entered on that day into partnership with Titus, legalising an association between them, informally established two years before, for the purpose of dealing in pictures, engravings, and curiosities. Both he and she contributed everything that they possessed to a common fund, and each was to be entitled to a half share of the stock. Rembrandt, partly, no doubt, from his proved incompetency for business, partly, perhaps, to keep out of the clutches of the creditors, was allowed no share whatever in the profits. As, however, it was necessary that Hendrickje, who knew nothing of such matters, and Titus, who was not yet of age, should have aid and assistance in the venture, and as no one was more capable of giving this than Rembrandt, it was provided that he should make himself as useful as possible in furthering the interests of the firm, and in return should have board, lodging, and certain allowances.

It was, perhaps, as judicious an arrangement as could be made for Rembrandt's sake, but it is not wonderful that the creditors, who saw all chances of their getting anything further vanishing into thin air, should have been fierce in their protests. How far the association prospered we do not know. Probably not too well, for Dr Bredius has gathered together a mass of evidence to show that a large proportion of the art-dealers in Amsterdam at that period came to disastrous financial ends. It served, at any rate, to keep a roof over their heads, and the wolf from the door, for we find them again settled down, this time in the Rozengracht, in a house opposite a pleasure garden called the Doolhof.

In 1661, an old friend again came to his support; for it was probably van de Cappelle, who was a dyer as well as a painter, who procured for him the commission to paint "The Syndics of the Drapers' Guild," which he so splendidly achieved. By this time there is some reason for supposing that yet another trouble was coming upon Rembrandt. As far as we know, he never executed any etchings after 1661, and M. Michel suspected that this might have been due to failing sight. A study, moreover, of the portraits painted from that time onwards, reveals the fact that a large majority of them, if not actually all, were conspicuously, some even enormously, larger than life, and that would in all probability be a symptom of the same misfortune. These two facts cannot, of course, be considered as furnishing absolute proof, but they certainly go to create a probability; nor can we regard the supposition that the overstrained nerves were giving way at last as in any way unlikely when we reflect how incessantly Rembrandt had worked his eyesight, and how minutely finished had been much of his work, especially among the etchings, many of which were undoubtedly executed by artificial light, after his day's painting was ended. It would be but one more burden of distress laid upon those heavily-laden shoulders.

In truth, the story of the few remaining years is but a record of stroke after stroke. On August 7th, 1661, the faithful Hendrickje was so seriously ill, that, in spite of its being a Sunday, she made her will, leaving, as was but right, all her property to Cornelia, but with the stipulation that, in case of her death, Titus was to inherit, though his father was to enjoy the income as long as he lived. That she recovered at that time we know from her appearance on October 27th, as a witness in the case of the drunken man already referred to; but the recovery must have been only temporary, for, after this last appearance, we hear of her no more, though we do not know the exact date of her death. There is, however, M. Michel believes, a reason for supposing it to have occurred in the autumn of 1662. On October 27th in that year Rembrandt sold the vault he had purchased in the Oudekerk, which was no longer his parish church. It was, nevertheless, an odd thing to do, since poor little Saskia lay there; and M. Michel, in seeking an explanation, conjectures that he was at that time under the necessity of providing for the burial of Hendrickje in the Westerkerk, and that the sale was a sheer necessity. There is, at any rate, no portrait of her known to have been painted after 1662, and the conjecture that she died that year is at least a plausible one.

[Louvre, Paris

PORTRAIT OF HENDRICKJE STOFFELS
(ABOUT 1652)

In the course of the same year, we hear of the last pupil coming to Rembrandt, Aert de Gelder, whose youthful enthusiasm may have brought some brightness, we may hope, into the life of the poor broken old man. Meanwhile, the echoes of the law courts still rumbled in his ears, for, on December 22nd, Isaac Van Heertsbeeck, who had evidently not complied with the previous order of the Court in 1660, was again commanded to refund the 4200 florins, and again appealed.

Rembrandt had by then so completely dropped out of public ken, that we only get dim and fleeting glimpses of him. In 1664, we hear of him moving to the Lauriergracht, still farther to the south-east, and it is not until affairs draw him from seclusion that we learn more of him, and then only indirectly. We may, perhaps, conclude, however, from the scarcity of his works during these last years, that his eyes, and possibly general health, were getting ever worse.

On January 27th, 1665, van Heertsbeeck's protracted struggle came to an end, and the Grand Council decided that by June 20th the money must be repaid. On June 19th, Rembrandt and Titus appealed to the law to anticipate the coming of age of the latter, so that he might be legally considered of years of discretion before the actual arrival of his twenty-fifth birthday, a request which must have been connected with a foreknowledge of the decision delivered the next day, June 20th, in favour of Louis Crayers. This meant that the rights of Titus to the full amount of his mother's fortune of 20,375 florins were allowed; but only 6952 florins remained, and of this, on November 5th, Titus was authorised to take possession in his own name. It was but a scanty fraction of what he should have had, but it was something, and the little windfall may have had some part in the return of the family to the Rozengracht. Of the next two years we know nothing, except that we learn from a portrait of Jeremias de Decker, a poet who wrote eulogistic verses on the painter, that neither the man nor the artist was entirely neglected. The first sounds that come again to us out of the darkness are those of wedding bells on the occasion of the marriage of Titus with his cousin Magdalena, the daughter of Cornelia van Uylenborch and of Albert van Loo, whose quarrel with Rembrandt years before had clearly been forgotten. The note of merriment was, however, too quickly changed for one of dolour, for ere the year was out Titus was dead, as we learn from the record of his burial in the Westerkerk, on September 4th, 1668.

In March 1669, the widowed Magdalena gave birth to a daughter, and, on the twenty-second of that month, Rembrandt stood by while the only grandchild he was to see was christened Titia. We catch thereafter some murmurs of that business which he so hated, in connection with the settlement of the respective shares which the little Titia and Cornelia were to draw from the remainder of the old association between their respective parents; and then again comes silence, until, from an entry in the Doelboek, the registry of deaths in the Westerkerk, we learn that the long, slow, downward path has ended, where all paths end, in the grave.

"Tuesday, 8 October, 1669, Rembrandt van Rijn, painter, on the Rozengracht, opposite the Doolhof. Leaves two children."

He was buried, at the cost of thirteen florins, at the foot of a staircase leading up to a pulpit on a pillar on the left-hand side as you go up the church; but when, some years back, a coffin, supposed to have been his, was opened, not a trace of his ashes was to be found.

[National Gallery, London

PORTRAIT OF REMBRANDT
(ABOUT 1664)

The subsequent history of the family may be briefly sketched. Within a fortnight of Rembrandt's death, on October 13th, his daughter-in-law Magdalena was also dead. On the 16th and 18th of March, and again on April 15th, Abraham Francen, the old and faithful friend, and Christian Dusart, acting on behalf of Cornelia, settled with François van Bylert, acting on behalf of the baby Titia, their respective portions of the small inheritance. François would seem to have been a kindly guardian, and Titia to have had a happy home, for, on June 16th, 1686, at the church of Slooten, she married his son, also named François, a jeweller, living in the Kloveniers-Burgwal, in the heart of her native town. Here she bore, and buried also in the Westerkirk, three children, one in 1688, one in 1695, and one in 1698, and herself died November 22nd, 1725, leaving a fourth child, who only survived her three years.

Cornelia married a man named Suythoff, and with him travelled to Java, where, in the town of Batavia, she gave birth to two sons, one on December 5th, 1673, called Rembrandt, the other, on July 14th, 1678, named Hendrick.

REMBRANDT THE PAINTER

CHAPTER V

EARLY YEARS (1627-1633)

Of the blank spaces in the record of Rembrandt's career, none is so long or so inexplicable as that which begins with his return from Amsterdam to Leyden in 1624. Here the track breaks off abruptly, and we can be sure of nothing until we come to the first known pictures signed by him, and dated 1627.

We will take first the picture discovered by Sir J. C. Robinson about twenty years ago, and presented by him to the Berlin Gallery. It represents a wrinkled old man, seated at a table. Papers and account books lie around him, and are heaped up in the background, and on his left, resting on a thick volume, stands a fat purse. A pair of scales are in front of him, and beside them a dozen or so of coins. Lifting a candle in his left hand, he throws the light of it upon a piece of money. The work, though promising, is in no way startling, and he would have been an acute critic who could have foretold from it the lofty height to which the painter of it was to soar. It is signed, with one of the ever-varying forms of his signature, R.H., combined in a monogram, followed by the date 1627.

The other picture known to belong to this first year, "St Paul in Prison," is in the Museum at Stuttgart [No. 225], and presents much the same merits of close observation, much the same defects of timid execution as the last. It represents the saint seated in a straw-strewn dungeon, lighted by a single beam of sunlight, surrounded by books, with the sword that symbolises him, meditating before writing. The signature in this case is a double one: the first, consisting of his full name, with one of his curious mis-spellings, Rembrand, and underneath fecit; the second an elaborate R followed by f. 1627, and below the down stroke, crossing the tail of the R, a smaller L, which Dr Bode suggests stands for Leydensis.

Three other pictures, all undated, are attributed to this year or the next, a "Philosopher reading by Candle-light," painted on copper, "A Study of Himself," at Cassel [No. 208], and a "Portrait of his Mother," which was lent for a time to the Ryksmuseum at Amsterdam, but is there no longer.

In the Cassel picture, small as it is, the breadth and vigour of treatment, the courage of the work are so remarkable that it is difficult to believe that it is of the same period as the previous pictures. It is a study of little more than the head, presenting one of those effects of contrasted light and shade which he so loved that pseudo-art slang has nicknamed them of late years Rembrandt effects. The shadows are a little dark, the contrasts are a little forced, wanting the true gradations, but the power displayed is so great, the frankness of the handling so certain that, especially in a photograph, the little study has all the appearance of a life-sized picture.

There are again two pictures dated in the following year, 1628. "Samson captured by the Philistines," at Berlin, is a not too successful first attempt at a composition of several figures, but it is of interest to the student as showing the sternly practical bent of Rembrandt's imagination, the intense craving for a strictly probable conception of the scene which, though at times it led him over the border of the simple into the absolutely ludicrous, more often gives that wonderfully impressive vitality and depth of feeling to his pictures. Here, as elsewhere, he aims not at all at heroic attitudes and over-dramatic effect; he makes no attempt to invent the scene as it ought to have looked, but endeavours to realise how it did look. The Philistines, he knew, were afraid of Samson, and he will not bate a jot of their terrors. One of them advances in fear and trembling, carefully keeping Delilah between himself and the object of his dread; while the other hides unequivocally behind the bed-curtains.

Here, also, we find an instance of his habit of painting in accessories because they were picturesque and available, quite regardless of their appropriateness, in the Malay kriss thrust into Samson's belt; and here we find for the first time that blending of the features of the two earlier monograms, the R.H. of the one, with the L. of the other, into the thenceforth frequent combination R.H.L. with the date 1628.

The second picture, bearing the same monogram and date, is in the possession of Herr Karl von der Heydt of Elberfeld, showing a man in full armour, standing by a fire in a courtyard, and closely observed by soldiers and servants, which Dr Bode not unreasonably believes to represent "The Denial of St Peter." Seven other pictures are attributed to about that date, one of which is believed by its possessor, Dr Bredius, to be a "Portrait of Rembrandt's Mother" (see [illustration, p. 6]). There are also a copy of this, showing a little more of the figure, attributed to Rembrandt, but probably by another hand; two portraits supposed to be "The Painter's Father," one lent by Dr Bredius to the Museum at the Hague [No. 565], the other in the Museum at Nantes; a "Portrait of a Boy," at Hinton St George, and a doubtful one of "A Young Girl," called Rembrandt's sister Lysbeth, at Stockholm [No. 591]. A "Judas with the Price of the Betrayal," in the collection of Baron Arthur de Schickler of Paris, is considered by M. Michel to be the identical picture to which Constantin Huygens referred in that eulogy which has been mentioned in the painter's life. A "Raising of Lazurus," in the collection of Mr Yerkes in New York, completes the list.

There is only one picture bearing the date 1629, a small "Portrait of Himself," at Gotha [No. 181]; but there are eleven others believed to have been painted about that time. Two are in the Mauritshuis at the Hague. A "Bust of Himself" [No. 148] is a strong, resolute piece of work, and a marked advance on all that he had done before. The other picture at the Hague [No. 598] is supposed to be his elder brother Adriaen. There is less doubt about a portrait in the Ryksmuseum at Amsterdam [No. 1248], painted about that time, though bearing a forged signature and the impossible date 1641. It is that of a man with a short peaked beard and grey moustaches martially brushed up, and a long aquiline nose. The same features occur frequently in the earlier pictures and etchings, and M. Michel has made out a very good case for their being those of Harmen Gerritsz, the painter's father.

There are three other "Portraits of Himself," "A Head of a Boy," "A Young Man Laughing," and a "St Peter," all painted about that time; but of more importance are two small subject-pictures. The first, signed R.H., but not dated, "Christ at Emmaus," in the possession of Madame André-Jacquemart of Paris, is the earliest example of that presentment of a group of figures lighted by artificial light, to which Rembrandt was so partial. Here, as in most cases, the source of the light is hidden, as it stands on a table, on the right of the picture, in front of which Christ is seated, in profile to the left, his silhouette sharply cut against the radiance. At his feet one of the disciples kneels. The second, seated in the centre, on the further side of the table, lifts up his hands in amazement. On the left, in the background, the secondary softer illumination, so frequently introduced in similar effects by Rembrandt, is provided by the glow of firelight on two women engaged in cooking. The other is "The Presentation in the Temple," in the collection of Consul Weber at Hamburg. Like the last, it is signed, with the full name Rembrandt however, but is not dated, and the effect is to some extent marred by the harshness of the contrasts of light and shade, his later complete grasp of subtle transitions being still imperfectly developed.

Six out of the seventeen pictures attributed to 1630 or thereabouts are signed and dated, and one, a reproduction of the "Portrait of his Father," in the Hermitage at St Petersburg [No. 814], is signed with the monogram R.H.L., but not dated; while a different portrait of the same, at Rotterdam [No. 237], is signed R. alone. Four of these are portraits: one, at Hamburg, of "Maurice Huygens," the brother of the painter's admirer Constantin; one, in the collection of Count Andrassy at Buda-Pesth, his own; one, at Cassel, of an unknown "Old Man" [No. 209]; and one, in the Ferdinandeum at Innsbruck, though called "Philon the Jew," is probably his father. One of the two subject-pictures, in the Six collection, Amsterdam, is a sketch, broadly but expressively handled, of "Joseph interpreting his Dreams," signed with the full name Rembrandt, 1630. The other, signed R.H.L. 1630, in the collection of Count Stroganoff, is of doubtful import. It represents an old man seated in a cave, resting his head upon his right hand, while his left rests on a large book. Beside him lie a cloth embroidered with gold, various gold vessels, and other objects of value. In the distance is seen a town in flames, from which the inhabitants are hurriedly escaping. What it is intended to represent is an unsolved riddle, and the title of "A Philosopher in Meditation," though convenient to identify it by, has not otherwise much significance. The remaining eleven pictures are studies or portraits, of which the old woman, belonging to the Earl of Pembroke, a bust of "A Young Girl," the property of Dr Bredius, and lent by him to the Hague Museum, and another "Portrait of an Old Woman" resembling somewhat in features the picture at Wilton, but known, for some mysterious reason as, "The Countess of Desmond," may be mentioned.

At what time in 1631 Rembrandt moved to Amsterdam we have no means of judging, nor can we say with any certainty which pictures of that year were painted before, which after, his change of residence. A "Bust of his Father," signed R.H.L. 1631, the property of Mr Fleischmann, was probably among the former. The "Young Man with the Turban," at Windsor, must also, presumably, have been painted before his removal, if M. Michel is justified in his belief that it is a portrait of Gerard Dou. Of the others we know nothing that points either way.

Rembrandt was now beginning to find himself. The dry precision, the timid carefulness have disappeared. His hand moves easily about its appointed task, not indeed, as yet, with the splendid freedom of later years, but with an assured confidence. He knows what he wants to do, and begins to feel that he can do it. The commissions that finally necessitated his establishment in Amsterdam showed him also, we may suppose, that other people appreciated the fact, and we may, perhaps, refer to this growing confidence in himself the great increase in the number of pictures signed that year. There are eleven, bearing both date and signature, two signed, but undated, and two which, though bearing neither date nor signature, are believed to have been painted about that time.

[Hermitage, St. Petersburg

PORTRAIT CALLED COPPENOL
(1631)

Of the first class, a picture of a man reading, in the Museum at Stockholm [No. 579], known as "St Anastasius," bears yet another version of the painter's name, the d being absent in this case, so that it reads Rembrant. A "Holy Family," at Munich [No. 234], signed Rembrandt, is an example of a propensity, which he never thoroughly shook off, to over-compose his pictures.

The same over-marked arrangement, though, to a far less degree, is also observable in the pyramidal group in the otherwise splendid "Presentation in the Temple," at the Hague [No. 145]. This is signed with the initials R.H. alone, interlaced, but seven others bear the three, R.H.L., including the portrait of Gerard Dou, already mentioned; a portrait, said to be his mother, at Oldenburg [No. 166], wearing a semi-oriental dress, and reading, from which circumstance the picture has obtained the name of "The Prophetess Anna"; and the "Portrait of a Merchant," long called "Coppenol," in the Hermitage at St Petersburg [No. 808].

Of the two undated pictures, "Zachariah receiving the Prophecy of the Birth of John the Baptist," in the collection of M. Albert Lehmann, Paris, bears the full name Rembrandt. The mysterious figure at Berlin [No. 828C.], a young woman in a rich dress, seated by a table, on which lie pieces of armour, a book, and a lute, while other arms, including a shield, decorated with a gorgon's head, hang on the wall above her, gaming for her the fanciful titles "Judith" or "Minerva," has only vague traces of the initial R. Of the last class, one is a copy, formerly in the Beresford-Hope collection, of the "Portrait of his Father," in the Ryksmuseum, the other is a small figure of "Diana Bathing," in the collection of M. Warneck, Paris.

Once satisfactorily established in Amsterdam, Rembrandt increased his annual production marvellously. The number of pictures known or believed to belong to each of the four preceding years, are, in succession, four, nine, twelve, and twenty, the numbers for the four succeeding years are, respectively, forty-two, thirty, twenty-six, and twenty-seven; or, taking the average of each period, we find that the first would give a little more than eleven pictures per annum, the second, very nearly thirty. 1632, in especial, when he was new to Amsterdam, was a year of extraordinary energy.

[Imperial Museum, Vienna

PORTRAIT OF A MAN
(1630-1632)

[Imperial Museum, Vienna

PORTRAIT OF A WOMAN
(1630-1632)

We find also, at the same time, a vast increase in the number of signed pictures, yet still note a surprising variety in the form the signature takes. No less than thirty are signed, and all but two of these are also dated. Nine of them bear the monogram, R.H.L., and ten others have the same, with, for the first time, the addition van Rijn, while one has the plain initial R. with van Rijn added. One, forming a sort of transition with the other group, is signed Rembrandt H.L. van Rijn, and nine are signed with the full name, in three of which the d is missing. Thirty-four of the pictures are portraits, and six of them form pairs representing husband and wife—namely, "Burgomaster Jan Pellicorne, with his son Caspar," and "Suzanna van Collen, his Wife, and her Daughter," in the Wallace collection; an unknown Man and his Wife, in the Imperial Museum, Vienna, though these four are only believed to belong to that year; the portraits of "Christian Paul van Beersteyn," and "Volkera Nicolai Knobbert," his wife, in the possession of Mr Havemeyer of New York, alone bearing the date. There is also a portrait at Brunswick [No. 232], fantastically called "Grotius," the companion of which was painted next year; another, believed, with good reason, to represent "Dr Tulp," formerly in the collection of the Princess de Sagan, which is also one of a pair, though the picture of the wife was not painted until two years later; and a third, in the collection of M. Pereire, Paris, of a man, whose wife was also not painted till the following year. Twelve others represent actually or conjecturally known individuals, but two of these, if, as is probable, they represent the painter's father, must have been painted earlier, as would also be the case with four others more doubtfully described, two as his mother, two as his sister. One at Cassel [No. 212] almost certainly represents "Coppenol, the Caligraphist," and an admirable picture in Captain Holford's collection, is undoubtedly "Martin Looten," a merchant of Amsterdam; while, even in that busy year, he found time once to paint his own portrait. The other four include the two of "Saskia," already mentioned in the Life, and two men, one said to be "Matthys Kalkoen," and one, a certain "Joris de Caulery."

So engaged was he on portraiture, that he only found time for three small figure subjects, if, indeed, they were painted that year, for none is dated. One, in the Wallace collection, is "The Good Samaritan"; the second at Berlin [No. 823], represents "Pluto in his Chariot carrying off Proserpine," quite the most successful of Rembrandt's rare appeals to classical mythology for inspiration; while the third at Frankfort [No. 183], is a somewhat indifferent rendering of "David playing the Harp before Saul."

I have left to the last, the great work of that year, the famous "Anatomy Lesson," at the Hague. In producing this, the largest and most ambitious work he had yet attempted, one, moreover, the success or failure of which could scarcely help having a marked influence on his future career, Rembrandt, we cannot but perceive, was not altogether at his ease. There are obvious signs that the hand that could already move with such courage and freedom, when the mere satisfying of himself was in question, was hampered by a return, partial at least, to his earlier timidity, when so much was at stake. He was so anxious to do his best that the spontaneity, conspicuous in most of his work, escaped in the process. The result is a little stiff in consequence, and the work somewhat dry and frigid; but the life and expression in the various heads is, nevertheless, so excellent, that it is impossible to regard it without delight and admiration.

Portraits again took up much of his time in 1633, among them the two companions to the portraits of the year before, and another pair, "Willem Burchgraeff," at Dresden [No. 1557], and "Margaretha van Bilderbeecq," his wife, in Frankfort [No. 182]. The painter's masterpiece, however, in matrimonial groups, is the "Shipbuilder and his Wife," at Buckingham Palace.

[The Hague

THE ANATOMY LESSON
(1632)

[Cassel

PORTRAIT OF JAN HERMAN KRUL
(1633)

There are thirteen other signed portraits of that year, including one of "Jan Herman Krul," at Cassel [No. 213], two of "Saskia"—one at Dresden [No. 1556]; one, called however, "Lysbeth van Rijn," which belonged to the late Baroness Hirsch-Gereuth—and two of himself, one, the oval portrait in the Louvre [No. 412], and the other in the collection of M. Warneck at Paris. Out of these twelve signatures, only one is the monogram R.H.L., the other eleven being signed with the full name, and from only one of these, "A Head of a Girl," in the collection of Prince Jousoupoff, is the d missing.

Three subject-pictures also belong to that year, in all probability; "An Entombment," in the Hunterian Museum, Glasgow; a small picture described as "Petitioners to a Biblical Prince," belonging to M. Léon Bonnat of Paris; and "A Philosopher in Meditation" [No. 2541], in the Louvre. The last, indeed, though undated, may almost certainly be attributed to that year, since its companion, another "Philosopher in Meditation," also in the Louvre [No. 2540], is signed R. van Rijn, 1631. But the great event of the year must have been the patronage which came to him from Prince Frederick-Henry, resulting in the purchase of two pictures, both of which, in later years, after passing to the gallery at Düsseldorf, were transferred to Munich.

In both we see Rembrandt at his most characteristic—his determination to tell his story clearly, to concentrate his light upon the chief figure, the keynote of his theme, to get the true and expressive actions of his personages, not even yet free of some exaggeration, without troubling a jot as to the minor detail of correct costume. So, in the first, "The Elevation of the Cross" [No. 327], the cross, with the tense figure wrung with anguish, slants right athwart the picture, and stands out against the murky sky and dim surrounding crowds with startling incisiveness. So the four men occupied in raising it display an almost passionate energy; so a soldier wears a more or less classical helmet and breastplate over a sleeved doublet unknown to Rome; a man behind is dressed in the peasant's ordinary garb of Rembrandt's day; and another, wearing a doublet and soft flat cap, seems to be Rembrandt's self; while the centurion on horseback superintending the carrying out of the sentence is a frank Turk as to his headgear, a nondescript for the rest of him. The other, "The Descent from the Cross" [No. 326], while displaying many of the same qualities, merits and defects alike, is more deliberately composed, suffers indeed from that over-composition already noticed, being too obviously built up into that high pyramidal form, which we found in "The Presentation in the Temple." There is, nevertheless, a very delicate sentiment of pathos in it, and that Rembrandt himself was content with it, is shown not only by his correspondence with Huygens on the subject, but by the fact that he repeated it on a larger scale during the following year. Yet so curiously capricious was he in adding or withholding date and signature that neither has a date, and only "The Descent from the Cross" is inscribed with what appears to be C. Rlembrant f.

[Munich Gallery