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ELIZABETH A.SHARP 



N 
£3oo 

-KB 



LITTLE BOOKS ON ART 

GENERAL EDITOR : CYRIL DAVENPORT 



REMBRANDT 



LITTLE BOOKS ON ART 

Demy \^mo, 2j. ^d. net, 

SUBJECTS 

^ MINIATURES. Alice Corkran 
" BOOKPLATES. Edward Almack 

GREEK ART. H. B. Walters 

ROMAN ART. H. B. Walters 

.THE ARTS OF JAPAN. Mrs. C. M. Salwey 

JEWELLERY. C. Davenport 

CHRIST IN ART. Mrs. H. Jenner 

OUR LADY IN ART. Mrs. H. Jenner 
s CHRISTIAN SYMBOLISM. H. Jenner 
A ILLUMINATED MSS. J. W. Bradley 
• ENAMELS. Mrs. Nelson Dawson 

FURNITURE. Egan Mew 

ARTISTS 

ROMNEY. George Paston 

DURER. L. Jessie Allen 

REYNOLDS. J. Sime 

WATTS. Miss R. E. D. Sketchley 

HOPPNER. H. P. K. Skipton 

TURNER. Frances Tyrrell-Gill 

HOGARTH. Egan Mew 

BURNE-JONES. Fortun6e De Lisle 

LEIGHTON. Alice Corkran 

REMBRANDT. Mrs. E. A. Sharp 

VELASQUEZ. Wilfrid Wilberforce and A. R. Gilbert 

VANDYCK. Miss M. G. Smallwood 

DAVID COX. Arthur Tomson 

HOLBEIN. Beatrice Fortescue 

COROT. Ethel Birnstingl and Mrs. A. Pollard 

MILLET. Netta Peacock 

CLAUDE. E. Dillon 

GREUZE AND BOUCHER. Eliza F. Pollard 

RAPHAEL. A. R. Dryhurst 




. 7^^„,A„,„y/- 



AND T 



. f \\ 



:♦ 



REMBRANDT 



BY 

ELIZABETH Af^SHARP 



WITH FORTY ILLUSTRATIONS 



METHUEN & CO. 
56 ESSEX STREET W.C 
LONDON 



First published, tQ04 



CONTENTS 

CHAPTER I 

INTRODUCTION 

Independence of Holland — Protestantism — Separation from Flanders — 
Protection against the sea — Dutch commerce — Growth of Amsterdam 
— Spanish oppression — Union of Utrecht — Renewed hostilities with 
Spain — Thirty Years' War — Agriculture — Dutch East India Com- 
pany — The spice trade — Drainage of the Lake of Beemster — Specu- 
lation in tulip bulbs — Leyden University — Growth of Literature and 
Art — Political reformation — Calvin — The Act of Abjuration page i 

CHAPTER II 

PRECURSORS 

Northern art and the Reformation — Growth of the Dutch School — 
Portraiture — Landscape — Marine Painting — Rembrandt's precursors 
and instructors — Various art centres — Italian influence — Dutch tech- 
nique — Demand for portraiture — Sixteenth-century painters — Rem- 
brandt's masters — Ravesteijn — Hals — Rembrandt's biographers . la 

CHAPTER III 

YOUTH — LEYDEN 

Leyden — Its university and prominent men — Rembrandt's parents and 
home — Rembrandt's birth — Boyhood — Surroundings — Interests — 
Schooling — Apprenticeship — Swanenburgh — " Vanitas" — Lastman's 
studio in Amsterdam — Technique — Etching — Etchers of the six- 
teenth century — Rembrandt the etcher — His progress as painter — 
Contemporaries — Return to Leyden — Guilds of painters — Theatre 
of Anatomy — Self-portraiture — Early paintings — Early etchings — 
Early portraits — Biblical subjects — Portraits of his mother — His 
Leyden period — Method of development — His technique — Huijgens' 
record of Rembrandt in Leyden ... 22 




vi CONTENTS 

CHAPTER IV 

MARRIAGE — AMSTERDAM 

Rembrandt's home in Amsterdam — Lisbeth — His temperament — Con- 
dition of Amsterdam in the seventeenth century — Cosmopolitanism 
— Comparbon of Rubens and Rembrandt — Rembrandt's interests 
and study — Nude studies — His position in Amsterdam and pros- 
pects — The "Anatomy Lesson" — Success — His contemporaries — 
Commbsions — Chiaroscuro — Paintings of 1632 — Portraits of young 
women — ** The Shipbuilder and his Wife" — Rembrandt's models — 
Coarseness of manners — Acquaintance with Saskia — Portraits of 
Saskia — Her parentage — Betrothal— Portraits of himself— Marriage 
— Saskia's influence — Portraits of Saskia and himself . . Page 54 

CHAPTER V 

SACRED SUBJECTS — ETCHINGS — PORTRAITS 

Commissions from Prince of Orange — Rembrandt's letters — Price of 
pictures — Method of work — Biblical subjects — Chiaroscuro — Etch- 
ing — Method of study — Rembrandt's predecessors — His originality 
— Earliest plates — " Ecce Homo" — His pupils — "Raising of 
Lazarus" — " The Angel Appearing to the Shepherds" — " Death of 
the Virgin" — Rembrandt, the fashionable portrait-painter — Millais' 
criticism — Notable portraits — "The Standard-Bearer "—Portraits 
of old women . . . . ... 83 

CHAPTER VI 

"the MARCH out" — DEATH OF SASKIA 

Rembrandt's children — His wife's delicacy — Her portraits — Action for 
defamation — Their monetary condition — Purchase of a house — 
Second civic commission — The civic guards and their Doelens — 
" The Night Watch " — Its importance in Dutch art- Its history 
and title— Its colour scheme— Method of the painter's middle 
period — A luminarist rather than a colourist — Problems of light — 
Opinions of contemporaries — Acme of prosperity — His pupils — Hb 
house and its contents — Mania as collector — Nude studies — His 
rivals — Saskia's death — Effect on his work — Etchings . . . 105 



CONTENTS vii 

CHAPTER VII 

LANDSCAPES— HENDRICKJE STOFFELS 

Landscapes — Etched and painted — Method of expression — Hercules 
Seghers — Landscapes at Budapest and Crakow — Glasgow — Prob- 
lems of artbtic expression — Important portraits — Religious com- 
positions — Mature work — "The Supper at Emmaus" — Head of 
Christ — Peace rejoicings in 1648 — " The Pacification of Holland " 
— Prices of pictures — Titus — His nurse — Her portrait — Transac- 
tions between master and servant — Hendrickje — Her portraits 
— Rembrandt's friends — His home — Portraits — ' ' Burgomeister 
Six" ...... P^^ 130 

CHAPTER VIII 

BANKRUPTCY — LAST DAYS 

Bankruptcy — Causes — Commercial depression — Rembrandt's mone- 
tary difficulties — Claim on behalf of Titus — Partnership between 
Titus and Hendrickje — Finest etched portraits — Solace in work — 
Portraiture — Second anatomy picture — Biblical subjects — Prolific 
years — De Piles' records as to the painter's latest method of por- 
traiture — Studies of old women and of himself — House in the 
Rozengracht — Commissioned picture for the town hall — "The 
Syndics of the Cloth Hall" — Highest achievement — Death of 
Hendrickje — Latest paintings — Rembrandt's last pupil — The 
•' Family Group" at Brunswick — Last portraits of himself— Death 150 

CHAPTER IX 

SUMMARY 

Neglect and misrepresentation — Solitary genius — His mental ancestry 
— Before his time he outstripped the comprehension of his contem- 
poraries — Authentic records — Huijgen's autobiography — Sandrarts' 
opinion — Rembrandt's self-portraits are his autobiography — Not 
embittered by life — The typical Hollander — His character and 
mental equipment — Uncompromising as a painter — Technical per- 
fection — Chiaroscurist — Colourist — Etcher — Appreciation by John 
La Farge — Rembrandt the supreme painter of woman and of old 
age — The master painter . . . . 168 

CATALOGUE OF PICTURES . . . . . 184 

BIBLIOGRAPHY . . . . ... 189 

INDEX . . . . ... 200 



LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS 

PAINTED PORTRAIT OF REMBRANDT . Frontispiece 

(National Gallery.) 

PAGE 

Rembrandt's mother with hand on her chest. 1631 26 

Etching. Second state. 

three studies of an old man walking on crutches 28 

Pen and bistre. (British Museum.) 

BUST OF REMBRANDT . . . . . 40 

Pen, bistre, and Indian ink wash. (British Museum.) From a 
photograph by Franz Hanfstaengl. 

PAINTING OF REMBRANDT WITH THE STEEL GORGET . 44 
(The Hague Museum.) From a photograph by Franz Hanfstaengl. 

PAINTING OF REMBRANDT'S MOTHER . . . 46 

(The Vienna Museum.) From a photograph by Franz Hanfstaengl. 

THE ANATOMY LESSON . . . . . 62 

(The Hague Museum.) From a photograph by Franz Hanfstaengl. 

A LADY WITH A FAN . . . . . 68 

A pen and bistre sketch, touched with red chalk and heightened 
with white. From the portrait known as La Femnu d' Utrecht^ 
dated 1639. (British Museum.) 

ETCHING OF REMBRANDT's WIFE SASKIA WITH PEARLS 

IN HER HAIR . . . . . 80 

Second state. 

PAINTING OF REMBRANDT AS AN OFFICER , . 82 

(The Hague Museum.) From a photograph by Franz Hanfstaengl. 

DESCENT FROM THE CROSS . . . . 84 

Etching, 1683. Second state. 

THE GOOD SAMARITAN ARRIVING AT THE INN . . 90 

Drawing in pen and bistre and bistre<wash. (British Museum.) 



X 



LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS 



PAGE 
THE RAT-KILLER . . ... 92 

Etching. 1632. Second state. 

ANGEL APPEARING TO THE SHEPHERDS . . . 94 

Etching. Second state. 

CHRIST BEFORE PILATE, OR THE ECCE HOMO . . 96 

Etching. 1635. Third state. 

THE RESURRECTION OF LAZARUS . . . 98 

Large plate. Etching. Fifth state. 

THE DEATH OF THE VIRGIN . ... lOO 

Etching. 1639. Second state. 

THE MARCH OUT, MISNAMED THE NIGHT WATCH . II4 

(Amsterdam.) From a photograph by Franz Hanfstaengl. 

PAINTED PORTRAIT OF REMBRANDT . . . 122 

(National Gallery.) From a photograph by Franz Hanfstaengl. 

STUDY OF A LIONESS EATING A BIRD . . . I24 

Black chalk and Indian ink wash, heightened with white. 
(British Museum.) 

CHRIST HEALING THE SICK . ... I26 

The etching known as the Hundred Guilder Piece. Second state. 

CHRIST CRUCIFIED BETWEEN TWO THIEVES . . I28 

Etching known as The Three Crosses. 1653. 

LANDSCAPE WITH THREE TREES . . . 13O 

Etching. 1643. 

THE CANAL . . . . . I32 

Etching. First state. 

LANDSCAPE . . . . . . I34 

(A painting in the National Gallery.) From a photograph by 
Franz Hanfstaengl. 

PAINTED PORTRAIT OF ELIZABETH BAS . . . I36 

(Amsterdam.) From a photograph by Franz Hanfstaengl. 

PAINTING OF HENDRICKJE STOFFELS . . . I44 

(National Gallery, Edinburgh.) From a photograph by J. 
Valentine and Sons. 



LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS 



XI 



REMBRANDT DRAWING AT A WINDOW 
Etching. Second state. 

PAINTING OF JAN SIX . . . . . 

(Six Collection, Amsterdam.) From a photograph by Braun, 
Clement, and Cie. 

PORTRAIT OF JAN SIX. 1647 • ... 

Etching. Second state. 

JACOB HAARING, WARDEN OF THE DEBTOR'S PRISON IN 
AMSTERDAM, CALLED " THE OLD HAARING " 
Etching. Second state. 1655. 

ETCHED PORTRAIT OF JAN LUTMA (THE ELDER), GOLD- 
SMITH AND SCULPTOR. 1659 
First state. 

ETCHED PORTRAIT OF ARNOLD THOLINX, INSPECTOR 
OF THE MEDICAL COLLEGES 
(Amsterdam.) 

PORTRAIT OF NICHOLAS BRUYNINGH 

(Cassel Museum.) From a photograph by Franz Hanfstaengl. 

THE WOMAN WITH AN ARROW . 
Etching. 1661. Second state. 

PAINTING OF THE SYNDICS OF THE CLOTH HALL 
(Amsterdam.) From a photograph by Franz Hanfstaengl. 

LANDSCAPE WITH A COTTAGE, CANAL, AND TREES 

Drawing in pen and bislre and bistre-wash. (British Museum.) 

FARM BUILDINGS AND BROOK, NEAR HIGH EMBANK 
MENT ..... 
With pen and bistre and bistre-wash. (British Museum.) 

CHRIST PRESENTED TO THE PEOPLE 
Etching. Second state. 

ETCHED PORTRAIT OF EPHRAIM BONUS. 1647 . 

First state. The small portrait-sketch of Bonus en grisaille by 
Rembrandt is in the Six Collection, Amsterdam. 



PAGE 

146 
148 



ISO 



152 



154 



. 156 


. 158 


. 160 


. 162 


. 172 

) 


. 176 


. 178 


. 180 



REMBRANDT 



CHAPTER I 

INTRODUCTION 

ndependence of Holland — Protestantism — Separation from 
Flanders — Protection against the sea — Dutch commerce — 
Growth of Amsterdam — Spanish oppression — Union of 
Utrecht — Renewed hostilities with Spain — Thirty Years' 
War — Agriculture — Dutch East India Company — The spice 
trade — Drainage of the Lake of Beemster — Speculation in 
tulip bulbs — Leyden University — Growth of literature and 
art — Political reformation — Calvin — The Act of Abjuration. 

TWENTY-FIVE years before the birth of 
Rembrandt the independence of Holland 
rom the tyrannous rule of the Spanish overlords 
vas declared, in 1581, under the leadership of 
William the Silent. Three years after the birth 
)f the great Dutch painter, that typical repre- 
lentative of Dutch independence, a truce of 
waive years was concluded with Spain. The 
cessation of hostilities, of the long physical and 
nonetary strain, the consciousness of self-mastery, 

B 



2 REMBRANDT 

resulted in an impetuous forward movement in 
every direction, material and mental. In litera- 
ture and in art there arose a spirit and tendency 
racially idiosyncratic, foreign to the aims and 
temperament of the great schools of Italy, France, 
and Spain. For Holland was the first country 
unreservedly to accept the reformed teachings of 
Protestantism ; and Rembrandt was the first great 
Protestant painter whose work was the outcome 
and expression of sturdy independence in religious 
and political thought, an independence that carried 
Holland of the seventeenth century to the high 
position of leadership in Europe, not only in 
finance, but also in matters of art and learning. 

To indicate in a measure the national conditions 
of prosperity, their possibilities and moulding in- 
fluences at the time of Rembrandt's birth ; the 
social and religious environment in which he grew 
up ; the materials upon which his genius developed 
— to this end a short historical survey may be 
acceptable, not only of political conditions, but also 
of Rembrandt's precursors in painting, of those 
pioneers who made ready the way for the remark- 
able outburst of talent and genius that appeared 
in the beginning of the seventeenth century. 

The Low Countries, Holland and Flanders, were 
in earlier mediaeval days allied in interests of state 
and commerce, and united, notwithstanding racial 
diversities, in matters of defence against a common 



INTRODUCTION 3 

foe. They were allied, too, in the art of paint- 
ing, each modelled on the early German schools of 
Cologne, although, aftef the introduction of the 
use of oil as a medium, Flanders took the lead 
and held it until the final separation between 
the two countries — a separation not only in 
government, but also in religion. Various causes 
led to the desire for independence, to the casting 
off the restricting influences of feudal govern- 
ment. Not the least important was the spirit 
of manly strength, the need for united action in 
the ceaseless fight for existence that the Dutch 
people had waged with the elements themselves 
against the encroachments of the sea, below 
whose level much of their land lay, and against 
whose onslaughts they fortified their shores with 
huge dykes, and further protected their arable 
land by a system of canals and dams. Neither 
feudal nor papal authority could ensure them 
against such a foe ; by the sweat of their brow 
alone could they hold their lands secure. Symbolic, 
indeed, is the Dutch insignia of the Lion strug- 
gling with the waves, and their national motto, 
**Luctor et Emergo" (**I struggle and I rise"); 
significant of the hardy people who could conquer 
the sea, could draw their wealth from the ocean, 
and wrest arable land from its grasp. They were 
able to become the great water carriers of Europe ; 
also they did not scruple, when necessary, to 



4 REMBRANDT 

break down the dams, and thus make the sea 
their protector against invasion that threatened 
extinction. This unique geographical position, 
which developed the national ingenuity and 
mother - wit and prescribed methods of living* 
differing from those of any other country — not 
excepting Venice — prepared the Dutch to make a 
sturdy stand against the extortion, injustice, and 
cruelty of their overlords, spiritual and temporal ; 
made them ready to accept the simpler integrity 
of the reformed religion, and finally to free them- 
selves from feudal thraldom. 

For many years prior to the Spanish accession 
the commerce and industries of Holland had been 
steadily growing. After the tremendous impulse 
given to international trade by the Crusades, the 
chartered towns with their municipal authorities 
had been the means of fostering important in- 
dustries, for which, in many cases, the raw material 
was imported from England, such as wool and 
flax, manipulated by Flemish and Dutch weavers 
to a finer texture than procurable in England. 
Silk, hides, furs. Oriental stuffs, etc., went to the 
Netherlands by the great waterway of the Rhine, 
and Holland was the chief timber mart of the 
world. The great importation of spices was 
centred in Holland, especially in Amsterdam — the 
headquarters also of the great fisheries. Thus 
the Dutch metropolis became, in the heyday of 



INTRODUCTION 5 

its prosperity, not only the great storehouse, but 
also the Bank and Exchange of Europe. 

This powerful city, wrested from the sea, built 
on piles like Venice, owed its security largely 
to the support of the seafaring band of ** Sea- 
Beggars," out of which grew the fine commercial 
and naval fleet of Holland, which eventually de- 
molished the Spanish treasure fleet, and shared 
the mastery of the seas with England. 

After the Spanish accession the foreign rulers, 
aware of the wealth and growing power of this 
northern possession, and realising that the grow- 
ing Protestantism was a serious menace to the 
spirit of feudal dependence in the Dutch, did 
everything in their power to stamp out the heresy 
and re-establish the rule of the Roman Church. 
They drained the country's resources with grievous 
impositions and established the Inquisition. Alva 
and his Bloody Council in the short space of six 
years put 18,600 people to death. His pitiless 
rule succumbed before the growing strength 
of the victorious northern counties, consolidated 
in .1574, after the celebrated and prolonged 
siege of Leyden. The counties of Holland and 
Zealand bound themselves together in a com- 
mon cause, re-established Protestantism, and, 
under William the Silent, threw off" the Spanish 
yoke. At the Union of Utrecht, in 1579, 
the constitution of the Dutch Republic was 



6 REMBRANDT 

virtually agreed upon, and two years later 
the independence of the northern provinces of 
Holland and Zealand was declared, and the 
government placed in the hands of the States- 
General. Thereupon began an era of prosperity 
for the Dutch people throughout the seventeenth 
century, strengthened by the truce of twelve 
years. 

The Flemish Netherlands, however, were more 
vacillating in their policy, divided in their aims and 
religious opinions, and thus protracted the rule of 
the Spaniards and that of their heirs over them. 
In 162 1 hostilities recommenced upon the refusal 
of the Dutch to renew the truce on terms of 
Spanish occupancy, Austrian rule, and re-estab- 
lishment of Roman Catholicism. In the renewal 
of the war Dutch interests and prosperity suffered 
less than previously for several reasons. Holland 
was united and strengthened at home, richer and 
more powerful abroad ; the Spanish power on 
land and sea was on the wane ; its vast Empire 
was shrinking and passing, in part, into the 
hands of its enemy the Dutch ; it could no 
longer lay exclusive claim to the Atlantic. Much 
of the struggle was fought away from the 
original seat of war — was waged in foreign waters 
by England and Holland. Thus the heart of the 
mother country lay yet awhile in peace. More- 
over, the terrible Thirty Years' War had broken 



INTRODUCTION 7 

out between Teuton and Czechs over questions 
of Austrian succession, embittered by an under- 
lying* strife between Catholicism and Protestant- 
ism, and was of major importance in European 
affairs. And though Holland, as every other 
European country, suffered the loss of men and 
the crushing burden of overtaxation, nevertheless 
the country was saved from the horrors of civil 
war and from the presence of a foreign enemy on 
its soil, its cities from devastation and famine. 

In the days of peace the energ'y and enter- 
prise of the Dutch showed in every direction of 
human affairs. To this period of their up- 
welling prosperity we owe many of the civilising 
elements that have entered into daily life — ^such 
as the wholesale cultivation of vegetables and 
the storage of edible roots for winter use — one 
great factor in the lessening of the scourge of 
leprosy prevalent in Europe. Given a vigorous 
race inured to work and endurance, trained to 
foresight through opposition, and cramped by 
the limits of a small sea-girt land, there results 
of necessity the overflow of population into other 
areas of activity beyond their borders : in other 
words, the growth of important colonies. Thus 
it was with the Dutch. Their commercial relations 
with Spain prior to and during the war pointed out 
a road for enterprise, the possibilities of securing- 
lands for self-expansion beyond the seas. Eager 



8 REMBRANDT 

minds coveted the Spanish and Portuguese colonies 
in the East and West Indies. Roving seamen 
went to spy out the lands, and their eagerness viras 
whetted by Linschoten's account of Portuguese 
Bombay, by his maps and charts, his observations 
and notes upon routes. Eager to find a short 
route to China and India, the first exploration to 
the North Pole was fitted out in 1594, and others to 
the North and South Poles in 1595-6-8. In 1602 
the Dutch East India Company was formed and 
founded the city of Java in Batavia, and in 1605 
the Company's third fleet secured the Moluccas^ 
and with it the monopoly of the spice trade ; and 
in 1607 the Dutch trade flourished in the East 
and West Indies, from Newfoundland to the 
Straits of Magellan, in Africa from the Tropic 
of Cancer to the Cape of Good Hope. 

It is difficult now wholly to realise the import- 
ance of the spice trade, and what in point of 
wealth its monopoly implied. But it must be 
remembered that in those warlike days, when 
intercommunication was slow and very precarious, 
the food supply was also precarious and little 
varied. Till the seventeenth century luxuries 
were few, and every form of spice was welcomed 
wherewith to make new platSy to tickle the palate 
of the gourmet, or to disguise the high flavour of 
overlong-kept meats. To raise a sufficient supply 
of foodstuffs this ingenious people drained the 



INTRODUCTION 9 

Lake of Beemster, and converted i8,ocx) acres 
into arable land, and they — the first in Europe — 
began to cultivate and store large quantities of 
roots, potatoes, or turnips, and winter grasses for 
animals. Thus they became by degrees the great 
market-gardeners of Europe. With prosperity, 
peace, and security, when the arts of peace turned 
to the expression of beauty in life, the Dutch gave 
their attention also to the growth of flowers ; 
out of this there arose an enormous industry in 
roots and bulbs, and to this day the Dutch remain 
the great horticulturists of Europe. So great 
grew this mania for speculating in tulip bulbs, 
that in 1637 enormous fortunes were made and 
lost in this business, even at a time when war 
taxation was very heavy. 

• Not only did Holland become the chief com- 
mercial centre of Europe, but also the chief seat 
of learning. To commemorate the great siege of 
Leyden, a university, which for two centuries 
ranked first in Europe, was founded in that city. 
Leisure, the outcome of prosperity during the 
rapid growth of the virile Republic, stimulated 
thought to great issues in all departments of 
learning — in science, jurisprudence, in physics. 
Literature flourished ; Holland was the great 
printing press of Europe ; no ban was laid upon 
the publication of books, nor on the free expression 
of thought. A fine expfessive literature arose in 



lo REMBRANDT 

prose and poetry, rivalled only by the extra- 
ordinary growth of the arts of painting and etch- 
ing, as exemplified by Ostade, Jan Steen, Ruysdael, 
Hobbema, Van de Velde, and Rembrandt. 

Before discussing the condition of art at the 
date of Rembrandt's birth, one other point must 
be considered, the vital cause which more than 
any other not only contributed to the strength of 
Holland, but sounded the first note of modernity 
in European government that has had such strik- 
ing expansion in England, America, and else- 
where. The Hollanders, in adopting the reformed 
religion, therewith inaugurated a political reforma- 
tion. The vital cause that went to the making of 
the dignity of the personal freedom of the subject 
was the adoption of Calvin's democratic views at 
the time of the Reformation instead of those of 
Luther. Roman Catholicism upheld the power 
of the ruler, the divine right of kings. As a 
corollary, the right of the people was non-existent 
save as expressed in the right of the king. Ruling 
nobles considered their will — as lieutenants of the 
king — equally binding on a people who existed to 
labour for the welfare of their overlords. Luther 
revolted from papacy, but upheld the power of the 
king and the teaching that the people must be of 
the same religion as their ruler. Calvin was 
democratic in his attitude, and upheld the rights 
of man as an integral part of his teaching. 



INTRODUCTION 1 1 

To quote Mr. Thorold Rogers: **The Act of 
Abjuration was the first appeal which the world 
has read on the duties of rulers to their people. 
. . . The Dutch were the first to justify their 
action [of revolt] by an appeal to the first 
principles of justice. They were the first to assert 
and prove that men and women are not the 
private estate of princes to be disposed of in their 
industry, their property, their consciences, by the 
discretion of those who were fortunate enough to 
be able to live by the labour of others. They were 
the first to affirm that there must be a contract 
between the ruler and the people." In short, 
they were the first * * to argue that governments 
exist for nations and not nations for governments ; 
the first also to permit and to acknowledge re- 
ligious toleration, and to concede it to others. 
The logical outcome of their religious attitude, 
their political faith, emphasised by the terrible 
experiences of the Inquisition, resulted, after the 
establishment of Calvinism in Holland, in the 
spread of a wise tolerance of other faiths to such 
an extent that the much-persecuted Jew settled in 
Amsterdam, took wealth with him, and did his 
share in the development of the internal and 
foreign commercial relationships and prosperity.** 



CHAPTER II 

PRECURSORS 

Northern art and the Reformation — Growth of the Dutch 
school — Portraiture — Landscape — Marine Painting — Rem- 
brandt's precursors and instructors — Various art centres — 
Italian influence — Dutch technique — Demand for portraiture 
— Sixteenth-century painters — Rembrandt's masters — Rave- 
steijn — Hals — Rembrandt's biographers. 

THE revival of painting in Northern Europe 
arose out of conditions differing materially 
from those affecting Italian art. Based equally 
on an awakening of national feeling, of racial 
unity (however defective and intermittent), the 
Italian renaissance was directly the outcome of 
classical research and dependent for patronage 
on the growing power of the papacy. Northern 
art, though it also received its original impulse 
from the Church, became secularised and de- 
veloped contemporaneously with the art of print- 
ing and with the growth of the teachings of the 
Reformation. Originally an outgrowth from, and 
similar in aims and technique to, Flemish art, the 
Dutch school of the later sixteenth and seven- 
teenth centuries wrought out a powerful and 
'haracteristic expression of its own — national, 

12 



PRECURSORS 13 

personal to the race, and expressive of the life 
and ideas of the time. The feature in common 
between the Flemish and Dutch arts, whereby 
they differed from Italian art, was the art of por- 
traiture in the widest sense. Idealism was not 
with them a characteristic quality or aim ; in the 
northern presentment of religious subjects the 
symbolic presentment of idealised thoughts and 
visions was not attempted. The absorbing in- 
terest was the realistic delineation of facts, the 
analytic portrayal of visible emotion, resulting 
often — especially in the earlier period — in the ex- 
aggeration of depicted grief or ecstasy, lacking 
in control or beauty of expression. The natural 
outcome of the political and religious division 
between the neighbouring countries of Holland 
and the Netherlands was the rise of a new and 
expressive direction in the national painting in 
Holland, which led to the great school of the 
seventeenth century, culminating in Rembrandt, 
in the growth of landscape art under Goyen, 
Hobbema, Ruysdael, and of marine painting 
under Willem van de Velde the younger, etc. 

In order to understand Rembrandt's influence, 
his position amid his contemporaries, and his 
ascendency, it may be well to survey rapidly the 
aims and tendencies of his immediate predecessors, 
among whom were men whose paintings had in- 
fluenced his boyhood and his ideals, and others 



14 REMBRANDT 

who were his actual instructors. Until the middle 
of the sixteenth century Flemish art led the 
northern schools ; and the Antwerp school, which 
culminated in Rubens, born about thirty years 
before Rembrandt, had a wide influence. In 
Holland there were several active art centres in 
the most important and commercially active cities 
— Amsterdam, Haarlem, Leyden, the Hague, 
Dordrecht. In each city was a painters' gxiild, 
and a young artist had . little or no chance of 
success or patronage until he had qualified him- 
self to be elected to membership. The influence 
of the Italian Renaissance had made itself felt in 
the north. Painters journeyed to Italy to study 
there, and brought back new methods of com- 
position, of approach to their subject, new ideas 
of costumes and drapery, of architectural setting 
and backgrounds ; and, most important of all, of 
chiaroscuro, of the lighting of their pictures. The 
great period of Italian art was over. Michel- 
angelo died in 1564, Titian in 1576, Paolo Veronese 
in 1588, Tintoretto in 1594. The great wave of 
the Italian Renaissance was spending itself in the 
imitative, uninspired work of the Eclectics under 
the Carracci, of the mannerists and the naturalists. 
Happily the native impulse in Holland was too 
strong to be seriously deflected by foreign in- 
fluences, but men such as Pinas, Lastman, and 
Elsheimer had studied in Italy and influenced their 



PRECURSORS 15 

countrymen strongly ; while Honthorst or Gerardo 
della Notte, as he was called in Italy, had an 
abiding influence on young Rembrandt with his 
striking, rather theatrical studies of figures 
silhouetted against vivid lamp or candle light in 
a wholly dark environment. The appeal of such 
scenes to the young chiaroscurist is very obvious. 
Although religious painting had been practised 
in Holland prior to the Reformation, it was always 
in the form of a picture ; frescoes and the cover- 
ing of large wall surfaces were climatically im- 
possible ; and indeed the adoption of highly-glazed 
surfaces and fine finish generally was in part due 
to the need of protection against damp, a need 
which led the Dutch from the first to consider 
technical safeguards of the highest importance. 
These votive paintings were not solely religious 
subjects, for it was usual for the donor to have 
the portraits of himself, wife, and family intro- 
duced. With the development of the prosperity 
of the cities the art centres quickened also. At 
the Reformation religious subjects were little in 
demand, and when depicted by brush became the 
layman's interpretation and not that of ecclesias- 
tical tradition. Holland under Calvinistic rule did 
not make the mistake fallen into by Scotland and 
England of confounding the expression of a defi- 
nite range of subjects in art with the expression 
of art itself. Curiously enough, historical painting 



1 6 REMBRANDT 

proper in the political sense had no attraction 
for the Dutch — their minds were not of epical 
mould. With the rise of the burgher to pre- 
dominance came the desire for commemorating* 
notable men of the city, prominent guilds and 
corporations ; and it was a natural step therefrom 
to study the life of the people in detail during the 
security of hard- won peace, in the occupations 
and amusements, serious or banal, of their home 
life. During those sinister last thirty years of 
Spanish supremacy a group of artists arose in 
Haarlem, Leyden, Delft, or Amsterdam — a 
strong advance-guard to the brilliant group who 
formed the glory of the Dutch school of the 
seventeenth century. The earlier men, little 
known outside their own country, and not suffi- 
ciently reckoned with by foreigners, nevertheless 
determined the character of Dutch art, gave it its 
** pattern,'* so to speak, and decided its scope 
and tendencies. They established certain artistic 
national traditions, and prepared the way for 
their more brilliant followers. The most import- 
ant among these men were Vroom, Miereveld, 
Ravesteijn, Lastman, Pinas, Hals, van Schooten, 
van de Venne, de Keyser, Honthorst, Old Cuyp, 
Goyen, E. van de Velde, Roghman. Out of 
these one or two had direct influence upon 
Rembrandt. It will be well to consider for a 
moment the few who were his particular pre- 



PRECURSORS 17 

cursors. Jan Pinas has been quoted as a master 
of Rembrandt, but neither Orlers nor Sandrart 
consider him as such. Both he and Lastman, 
Rembrandt's master in Amsterdam, had studied 
in Italy. Pinas was noted in his day, but his 
painting is characterless save for careful finish 
and decided Italian influence in effects of light. 
He and Pieter de Grebber used styles of costume 
for women, rich draperies and turbans that were 
afterwards adopted by Rembrandt in historical 
and contemporary subjects. Joris van Schooten, 
of Leyden, is quoted by van Leeuwen as Rem- 
brandt's master. He was a man of importance 
in his town, and in 1626 painted for the Doelen 
near the White Gate large ** Regent pieces" of 
grouped officers in brilliant coloured dress, hal- 
berds and scarves, realistically treated with the 
figures juxtaposed, but in no sense composed. 
Rembrandt must certainly have been familiar with 
these paintings that hung so near to his own 
home. His most important precursors, however, 
were Ravesteijn and Frans Hals. Joannes van 
Ravesteijn was born in 1572 and lived in the 
Hague. He was chosen by the Municipality as 
painter of portraits and civic compositions for the 
Doelen and Town Hall. In 16 18 he painted his 
celebrated group, ** The Magistrates seated at a 
Banquet receiving the Officers of the Guard." 
Admirably characterised, rich in colour, warm in 



1 8 REMBRANDT 

tone, and painted with a generous impasto ; the 
whites reflected with brown, the brown and golden 
tones, the amber-coloured flesh, and luminous 
passages have affinities with Rembrandt's work. 

More remarkable still is the work of that bril- 
liant genius, Frans Hals, of Haarlem. Born in 
Antwerp, though educated at, and thereafter a 
resident in, Haarlem, this virtuoso of the brush, 
whose technical prowess was of so high a quality, 
was the connecting link between Rubens and the 
Dutch school, the link through whom the open 
masterly brushwork of Rubens became known in 
the north. The extraordinary elan of Hals' brush- 
work, his swift stroke — so full of knowledge, so 
sure of effect — his brilliant handling of colour, the 
play of light in the modelling of flesh, the char- 
acterisation of his heads, the synthetic expression 
that disdained high finish to cover painstaking 
labour — these qualities cannot have failed to im- 
press the young painter, who, though he did 
not desire to travel or to become Italianised, 
nevertheless cared to possess examples of the 
finest painting procurable by him, and was ready 
to acknowledge genius wherever he met it. 
When young Rembrandt first took brush in 
hand he would have known of the repute of the 
great master ; and when in Amsterdam, or 
journeying by canal from Leyden to the capital, 
he must often have spent several hours at 



PRECURSORS 19 

Haarlem studying the new methods of the genial 
improvident painter. There is reason to suppose 
that Hals' influence began after Rembrandt's 
short studentships in Amsterdam, when he had 
weighed the close, firm, highly finished, un- 
original methods of his immediate predecessors 
and teachers and had found them wanting. On 
returning to his birth-town to work according to 
his own will, he would on the way refresh him- 
self, and study — if not eagerly for the first time, 
at any rate with more seeing eyes, more affinity 
of mind — the spontaneous mastery of brushwork 
in Hals' work, the harmonies of colour, at times 
so subtle, the living characterisation of heads, 
the vivid presentment of the actual, the careful 
though intuitive choice of pose and expression, 
the obvious delight of the master in the painting 
of flesh and in his handling of light — though not 
primarily of shadow — and realise that therein lay 
the direction for his own development, based on 
a sound training in the fundamental laws of 
draughtsmanship and use of colour. 

Before closing this chapter it may be well to 
indicate the reliable sources from which the 
various lives of Rembrandt have been drawn. 
Many were the fictitious stories circulated about 
him to his discredit, founded in most part on lack 
of understanding of the ways and habits of the 
seventeenth century, on hasty assumptions, on 



20 REMBRANDT 

false stories circulated and chronicled by his 
enemies. Now, through the careful researches 
and labours of such eminent writers as Scheltema, 
Thor6 (whose pseudonym is W. Burger), Vosmaer, 
Bode, and Bredius, who have made a thorough 
investigation of contemporary documents, public 
registers and archives, a more correct estimate 
is possible. 

The first writer to mention Rembrandt is his 
contemporary, J. J. Orlers, who published a 
Descriptiofi of the Town of Ley den in 1641, in 
which he alludes to several painters and artists 
of his day. His information concerning men prior 
to 1607 he derived from van Mander. In 1661 
Cornelius Bie published his Het Gulden Cahinety 
but he relates nothing fresh about Rembrandt. 
Simon van Leeuwen, in his Description of the Town 
of Leyden^ 1672, has modelled himself on Orlers 
and is less reliable. Joachim de Sandrart's bio- 
graphy is of much greater value. Born in Frank- 
fort of noble parentage in 1606, he worked as 
an artist in Amsterdam in 1638-41. His book 
appeared in German in 1675, ^^^ ^^ Latin in 
1683, compiled from notes, etc. His references 
concerning Rembrandt end with the year 164 1, 
and his description of him as a man who produced 
simple work with nothing drawn from poetry or 
history, shows that whatever may have been his 
personal acquaintance with Rembrandt he himself 



PRECURSORS 21 

was so committed in taste to the German school 
of historical painters, and in probable sympathy 
with the Italian style then in vogue, that he was 
as unable as most other of his contemporaries to 
grasp Rembrandt's point of view, to gauge the 
importance of Rembrandt's "simple" expressive 
work, or to foresee his influence. Samuel van 
Hoogstraten, born in Dordrecht in 1627, was 
for three years a pupil of Rembrandt, whom he 
called his second master. In his hileyding tot de 
Hooge School der Schilderkonst (Rotterdam, 1678), 
he gives and quotes current opinions and impres- 
sions, and a few personal details concerning the 
great painter. Later, Hoogstraten's pupil, Arnold 
Houbraken, a painter and engraver, relates many 
stories and details about Rembrandt, probably 
learnt from his master, which he colours and 
distorts to give them force and thereby unin- 
tentional inaccuracy. He was the first to pro- 
mulgate the hearsay as authentic narrative, and 
in this was followed by other writers whose sources 
of information were even less accurate than his. 
It was left to the nineteenth century to disentangle 
fact from fiction, and present to us in clearer light 
the superb painter, the inimitable etcher, and to 
prove to us finally that the best biography of the 
man lies in the study of his work. 



CHAPTER III 

YOUTH — LEYDEN 

Leyden — Its University and prominent men — Rembrandt's 
parents and home — Rembrandt's birth — Boyhood — Sur- 
roundings — Interests — Schooling — Apprenticeship — S wan- 
enburgh — **Vanitas" — Lastman's studio in Amsterdam — 
Technique — Etching — Etchers of the sixteenth century — 
Rembrandt the etcher — His progress as painter — Contem- 
poraries — Return to Leyden — Guilds of paiilters — Theatre of 
Anatomy — Self-portraiture — Early paintings — Early etch- 
ings — Early portraits — Biblical subjects — Portraits of his 
mother — His Leyden period — Method of development — His 
technique— Huy gens' record of Rembrandt in Leyden. 

IN the early days of the seventeenth century 
Leyden, a flourishing" cit}'^, ranked second 
in importance to Amsterdam. Its industries 
flourished, its cloth factories were the first in 
Europe, its burgher merchants were its aristo- 
crats. The memory of the terrible experiences of 
the famous war, become a thrilling tradition to 
the rising generation of Holland, was fading in the 
growing prosperity of this fair, cultured city. The 
celebrated University, founded in commemoration 
of the victorious siege, was Leyden's chief witness 
to her intellectual supremacy in the Republic, and 



YOUTH— LEYDEN 23 

indeed in Europe. Students flocked to it from all 
parts of Holland, from all parts of Europe ; it 
counted among its professors such distinguished 
men as Scaliger, Lipsius, Vossius, and Arminius, 
whose name is associated with the Calvinistic 
struggle. 

Rembrandt's parents lived at the corner of the 
Weddesteg (the little street of the slaughter- 
house), near the Wittepoort (the White Gate), in 
a house on the angle of the ramparts at a point 
where the Rhine divides and forms a natural moat 
round the town and feeds its canals with moving 
water. Much of the old town still stands — houses 
with crows' nests and gables, busy tree-shaded 
canals, the stone-paved market-square dominated 
by a great windmill, the picturesque central Burg 
dating from Saxon days and dominated by the 
tower of the old cathedral. The ramparts have 
gone ; the town has grown out beyond the Rhine 
limit on the western side ; a school for young 
seamen stands on the place of the painter's early 
home. 

Rembrandt Harmenszoon, or Harmensz, van 
Rijn was the son of Harmen Gerritsz van Rijn, 
a miller, and of his wife Neeltje (Cornelia), the 
daughter of Willems, a Leyden baker. Rem- 
brandt's father belonged to the lesser burgher 
class, and lived in comfortable prosperity. An old 
print published in Vosmaer's biography shows the 



24 REMBRANDT 

position of his mill and house with its enclosed 
garden, and finally destroys the legend that the 
painter was born and lived in a mill near the 
village of Leydersdorp. It has been proved, 
moreover, by M. Rammelman Elsevier, a dis- 
tinguished palaeographer and descendant of the 
famous printers of Leyden, in the Konst en Letter- 
hode^ that Harmen lived in the Weddesteg from 
1599-1646. That he was a man of some educa- 
tion and worth is witnessed by the fact that he 
held more than once the post of * * Chief of the 
Parish of the Pelican District." Recent researches 
show that he owned a grave in the church of 
St. Peter's ; and that, according to his will, he 
died possessed of a windmill, several houses, 
plate, jewels, linen, and other household items, 
also of some gardens outside the town. Rem- 
brandt was the fifth of six children born to the 
miller and his wife. The exact date of birth is 
uncertain ; authorities are divided whether to 
accept July isth, 1606, 1607, ^^ 1609 — 1606 is 
the most probable, being that given by the early 
biographers, Orlers (whose Description of Leyden 
was published in Rembrandt's lifetime), Leeuwen, 
and Houbraken. Vosmaer (Rembrandt's chief 
Dutch biographer) rejected this date for 1608, upon 
Dr. Scheltema's discovery of the entry dated 
July loth, 1634, in the marriage registers of 
Amsterdam : ** Rembrandt Harmensz, of Leyden, 



YOUTH— LEYDEN 2 5 

aged 26." In the British Museum there is an 
etched portrait of Rembrandt by himself, inscribed : 
^T. 24y anno i6ji, Charles Blanc points out that 
the figure 24 may be read as 25, and thus bring 
the date into accord with the preferred date of 
birth 1606. But I should like to point out that 
the inscription **anno 1631 " does not necessitate 
the birth date 1607, unless the etching were 
executed after ]\x\y 15th. Therefore it is possible 
still to accept the inscription as a proof of the 
birth date 1606. One of two documents found by 
Dr. Bredius (the Curator of the Mauritshuis at 
The Hague) tends to further confusion. It is the 
proceS'Verbal of a committee of experts convened 
in September i6th, 1653, to decide upon the attri- 
bution of a picture to Paul Bril, and speaks of 
Rembrandt as ** about forty-six." If accepted 
literally it places the birth date in 1607 ; but if we 
accept it as meaning * * in his forty-sixth year " the 
birth date remains 1606. The second document 
is a Register of students of the Faculty of 
Letters at Leyden in 1620, in which Rembrandt's 
age is stated as fourteen, and thus again confirms 
the birth date as 1606 ; and this date we propose 
to accept, and the more readily as it is upheld by 
such competent critics as Messrs. Bredius, Bode, 
Karl Woermann, and E. Michel. 

Little is known of Rembrandt's boyhood. 
Though details of his early life are lacking, we 



26 REMBRANDT 

are very familiar with the appearance and cha- 
racter of his parents, from the many drawings 
and paintings the youth made of them. Very 
familiar is the thin, resolute face of the miller 
with his beak nose, small keen eyes, and com- 
pressed determined lips — a man of will, per- 
sistence, and activity, who, judging from the lines 
of his face, had overcome manifold difficulties on 
his road to success. The mother we know still 
better. From the loving, respectful care the son 
bestowed on her portraits, from his studies of her 
habitual positions of repose or during her daily 
occupations, it is easy to infer how strong and 
wise was the influence she exerted on the mind 
and character of her impressionable, warm- 
hearted son. The lines of a strong character 
and a generous, kindly disposition are written 
in the loved face, already aged and marked by 
time and suffering when the boy was old enough 
to draw her at home and watch while she 
sat in her armchair with folded hands, or read, 
horn spectacles on nose, from the pages of the 
great Bible spread open before her. Of his 
brothers and sisters we know little ; of their child- 
hood, nothing. In after days Rembrandt drew 
one or two portraits of his elder brother, the 
miller, and in his early days in Amsterdam he 
used his sister Lysbeth's quiet fair face as the 
model for many of his women characters. But it 



YOUTH— LEYDEN 27 

is a significant fact that even from his earliest 
days he seems to have been little attracted by- 
childhood, by immaturity, as such. His passion 
was to depict life in full abounding expression. 
In his veins, along his nerves, ran the strong, 
passionate energy of life in expansion, not life in 
the bud, actual not potential, of his powerful 
nation ; and nothing immature or weak stayed 
his pencil, unless deliberately selected for a 
definite purpose. Hence we may infer that in his 
childhood he stood somewhat apart from his 
brothers and their playmates, sought his own 
interests and amusements, and almost uncon- 
sciously began the quest that should absorb his 
whole lifetime, with, perhaps, only Lysbeth for 
confidant and admirer. Else there would surely 
remain some sketches or drawings of these play- 
mates, some Ostade-like scenes of youth that had 
impressed him strongly. Yet, as a boy, his 
artistic imagination was stimulated in a hundred 
ways. There was much at his very door to see 
and watch. The coming in and out of market 
folk, incidents of the slaughter-house, the pic- 
turesque meetings at the Doelen in the Wedde- 
steg, of the archers, or halberdiers, with their 
brilliant scarves and feathered hats ; the market- 
ing of the housewives, the transport of mer- 
chandise in the slow barges on the canals ; the 
arrival of travellers in lumbering coaches, on 



28 REMBRANDT 

horseback or by canal, and the endless horde of 
beggars, crippled and in rags, that the protracted 
wars had thrown upon the country. Endless 
things there were to watch while daylight lasted, 
and at night, in winter, expressive faces to draw in 
the glow of the firelight, or by the light of lamp or 
candle that threw fantastic shapes and shadows 
on ceilings and walls, and left the remote corners 
in gloom, effects never forgotten, which haunted 
the painter throughout life. As a child he found 
untiring interest in turning over the pages of 
the great Bible with its fine engravings, and in 
listening at his mother's knee while she told him 
Bible stories in reverent homely speech, and thus 
stored his mind with sacred lore from which, later, 
he drew so constantly, and depicted in accordance 
with his personal interpretation. 

At other times he loved to wander out by the 
White Gate with its Gothic towers, across the 
river into the low-lying meadow-land, past the 
richly cultivated gardens to the wide stretches of 
pasturage beyond with their canals and low line 
of willows and sedges, past the isolated cottages 
with their high, pitched roofs surrounded by trees 
to protect them from the bitter winds, and near to 
the windmills that here and there dominated the 
level land stretching away to the dyke-guarded 
sea. 

In such surroundings a different phase of life 



YOUTH— LEYDEN 29 

would attract the boy and enthrall his spirit. 
There, he would find himself face to face with 
nature, with the play of elements, with the ex- 
pression of life in an impersonal aspect, immense, 
mysterious, now kindly, now terrifying. There, 
the straight lines of cattle-dotted fields and water- 
channels carry the eye over the great spaces to 
the low, distant horizon, where it touches the 
vast covering dome of sky, that by comparison 
reduces the habitable land to a few acres always 
at the mercy of powerful elements. There, all the 
petty details of life are forgotten — the evidences of 
human toil are reduced to the simplest expression. 
In their place, a marvellous procession of clouds, 
densely gathered, or wind-scattered athwart a 
sky of rain-swept blue — an ever-changing suc- 
cession of cloud-forms, delicate as a shadow or 
compact and purple-grey, revealing in their pas- 
sage the glitter of tremulous leaves, a red splatch 
of roof, the sharp white line of water, or the 
sudden swaying of trees as their tops are caught 
by the passing blast. Exquisite days of golden 
stillness would be alternated with the deep 
fascination of invading mists, of silvery veils 
softening and beautifying, or of sullen grey en- 
croaching and concealing, with now and again 
a sharp shaft of light piercing a rent of cloud, 
isolating and irradiating one spot of earth, and 
deepening the mystery of gloom around. Such 



30 REMBRANDT 

visions would sink into the boy's mind, and 
deepen his impressions, quicken his perception 
of the relative value of life, strengthen the 
growing need and desire to give outward ex- 
pression to the ceaselessly growing, imperative 
emotions stirring within him. Pencil and paper 
would be his invariable companions ; and doubt- 
less his instruction in the then important art of 
calligraphy gave firmness and strength to his 
hand, and trained his eye in the appreciation of 
the beauty of the black line incisively drawn on 
white, a natural preparation for the handling of 
the etching-needle. 

His parents evidently recognised that there was 
promise of no ordinary sort in their son, and gave 
him as good an education as lay in their power. 
They arranged for him to attend Latin classes for 
the ultimate study of law at the University, in the 
proud hope that he might afterwards be of service 
to his country and town. But he preferred the 
school of Nature to the teaching to be procured 
from the professor's desk, and record is not neces- 
sary to assure us that the boy frequently played 
truant. Wherefore, when he was about fifteen, 
his parents consented that he should follow his 
own bent and be apprenticed to a painter. 
Leyden was a flourishing art centre in those days, 
and boasted of local talent. The Town Hall trea- 
sured the celebrated ** Last Judgment " by Lucas 



YOUl^H— LE YDEN 3 1 

van Leyden, also a large altar-piece by his master, 
Cornelius Engelbrechtsz, concerning which van 
Mander wrote that ** mighty monarchs had made 
proposals for its acquisition, but their offers were 
politely declined by the magistrate, who did not 
wish to part with so glorious a production by his 
fellow-countryman." Leyden never tired of the 
rumour of how the Emperor Rudolph, wishful to 
buy the great picture, had offered to cover it with 
gold coin. Few names have come down to us of 
the members of the Painters' Guild from among 
whom a teacher was selected. We know that 
Joris van Schooten (i 587-1651) had adorned the 
walls of the neighbouring Doelen with a large 
portrait group of officers ; that Isaac Claesz van 
Swanenburgh had been commissioned in 1578 
to paint a series of panels for the Cloth Hall 
representing the various processes of sheep-shear- 
ing, spinning, weaving, dyeing, and packing, 
interesting little historical notes, now hidden away 
in a remote corner of the old hall. Jacob van 
Swanenburgh, the son of Isaac, a mediocre 
painter but a man of good repute and social 
standing, was eventually chosen ; to him Rem- 
brandt was apprenticed for three years and 
lived in his family, as was the habit of the day. 
Swanenburgh had followed the example of Jan 
Schorel, who was appointed in 1527 superin- 
tendent of the works of the Vatican by his 



32 REMBRANDT 

countryman, Pope Adrian VI., and other contem- 
porary artists, and had studied in Italy, where he 
had taken to himself a wife. Rembrandt worked 
hard, and was kindly treated by his master, who 
mixed in the best society of the town and did not 
exploit his pupils as was the frequent habit of the 
day. The exact year of Rembrandt's apprenticeship 
is not known, possibly 1620 — the year the Pilgrim 
Fathers left Holland to found New Amsterdam in 
America — or 1622, when he would be sixteen 
years old. Among other forms of work he had 
set him to do were the still-life compositions 
called ** Vanitas," arrangements of various objects 
symbolising mortality, peculiar to Leyden, and 
much appreciated by the stern orthodox burghers. 
These **Vanitas" were introduced by the local 
artist David Bailly, to whose work Rembrandt's 
** Money-Changer " shows some affinity. 

Rembrandt made such rapid and remarkable 
progress that Swanenburgh soon realised he 
could teach him nothing, and prophesied a brilliant 
future for his pupil. Rembrandt determined to 
seek a wider field and better teaching, and arrange- 
ments were made for him in 1624 to study under 
Pieter Lastman in Amsterdam. This choice was 
not a good one, though Lastman was held in 
high repute in those days. He, too, was under 
Italian influence, a careful draughtsman who 
finished highly, but was spiritless in his composi- 



YOUTH— LEYDEN 33 

tion. A few examples of his work are to be found 
in public galleries — such as "Ulysses and Nau- 
sicaa" and "David Singing in the Temple" in the 
Brunswick Museum, " The Raising of Lazarus" in 
the Mauritshuis, all very flat and uninteresting ; 
and the Russian Count Stelsky possesses a "Peter 
and Paul before the Altar to the Unknown God," 
which, however, has been so much repainted as 
to look wholly modern. Although Rembrandt 
remained with this master only a few months, six 
probably, he was, nevertheless, influenced by him 
in his love of Oriental detail, in certain forms of 
drapery, costume, and architecture. He possessed 
one of Lastman's sketch-books, and from him 
borrowed details of background for his " Rape of 
Proserpine" and "The Baptism of the Eunuch." 
Lastman is credited also with having influenced 
his pupil in the treatment of chiaroscuro. It may 
be so ; he may have done this as instructor, but 
nothing in the treatment of his pictures would 
lead one to such a conclusion. The study of 
chiaroscuro was one of the great problems that 
Dutch art set itself to solve. Unattracted by the 
problem of expressing ideal emotions or abstract 
thoughts on canvas, these energetic practical 
Hollanders devoted themselves to the perfecting 
of the technique of the art of painting, and mastery 
of handling was necessary for any painter who 
sought the patronage of his fellow-townsmen. 

D 



34 REMBRANDT 

In one branch of his art Rembrandt learned much 
from Lastman — that of etching — a form of art in 
which he was to attain such perfection, such 
originality, that in his own century and ever since 
he has ranked as the supreme master. Etching, 
whether practised first by Italians or Germans, 
owed its development for purposes of illustration 
to the rise of the art of printing. Early in the 
days of the Reformation the different forms of 
engraving were encouraged in Holland for the 
illustration of the Bible, books of science, etc., 
and it became one of the reliable methods of liveli- 
hood for artists in the same way as drawing in 
black and white for periodicals is in our own day. 
Between the days of Diirer and Rembrandt there 
are few names of noted etchers. De Goudt and 
Jan van de Velde copied the pictures of Elshei- 
mer and De Molyn. Goltzius was noted for the 
regular precision of his strokes ; Magdalene van 
de Passe, de Soutman, de Wierix, van de Velde, 
and de Goudt developed a more picturesque, 
more personal style with delicate tones produced 
by fine irregular lines, that made a tissue of 
shadow thick or slighter at will. By the painter- 
etchers, etching was much used when the art 
of landscape drawing became national, to catch 
fleeting aspects, or to suggest qualities of colour, 
movement, or the noting of fugitive impressions. 
Etching, the most personal of the arts, was 



YOUTH— LEYDEN 3 5 

assiduously cultivated by young Rembrandt, to 
whose impetuous temperament the laborious, 
lengthy process of line engraving was uncongenial. 
Throughout his career, during formative and 
mature periods alike, he made it the expression 
of his peculiar temperament ; used it, with hand 
wholly obedient to brain and eye, to express the 
most subtle, as well as the most fleeting, of his 
emotional moods. 

Rembrandt may or may not have been in 
Amsterdam for only six months, but if so, they 
were months of extraordinary moment. From 
Lastman himself he learned much of value besides 
technical instruction ; moreover, he was face to 
face with the best contemporary work being done 
in Holland — the work of Honthorst, de Keyser, 
and, above all, of Frans Hals, of Haarlem. In this 
great art centre he heard and weighed the theories 
advanced by the advocates of the two opposite 
styles of painting then in vogue. The ** Italian 
school" with its clear methods was condemned 
as foreign and out of date by the growing group 
of national naturalists, whose brown method and 
treatment of chiaroscuro were in turn denounced 
by their travelled opponents as untrue and 
ignorant. Among the " browns " ranked the 
famous painters, Ravesteijn, Honthorst, Bramer, 
van Gbyen, and Roghman, Rembrandt's pre- 
cursor in the poetically realistic conception of 



36 REMBRANDT 

landscape with its aerial perspective, warm tones, 
and science of chiaroscuro. 

Acquainted with the leading people of Leyden, 
thanks to Swanenburgh, the young painter deter- 
mined to make his independent essay in his native 
town, and there he settled in 1624 and worked 
for seven years, befriended by Esaias van de Velde 
and other artists. These early years were among 
the most important in his life. He observed, 
pondered, and experimented. Potentially he was 
a great man then ; for already he saw, as only 
the greatest artist sees — saw, as it were, a new 
revelation of familiar things, and saw with so 
acute a creative insight that he realised he could 
himself gain knowledge and experience no one 
else could teach him — knowledge that he could 
not learn in the studios of Amsterdam ; that 
neither Florence, Rome, nor even Venice could 
teach him ; that only Rembrandt van Rijn, in his 
own familiar environment, amid familiar circum- 
stances, could learn to know. He sought neither 
masters nor schools for instruction. He simply 
worked, steadily, patiently, passionately; worked 
at his art as at a trade — for it was regarded 
primarily as a trade in Holland — and through this 
very conscientiousness, thoroughness, and mastery 
of his trade, he made it the means wherewith he 
expressed the great aims and ideals of his life. 
So advanced was he in technical proficiency that 



YOUTH— LEYDEN 37 

by his twenty-first year he had a pupil of promise, 
a fellow -townsman, born in the same year as 
himself, who in due time became famous as 
Gerard Dou. 

It is not known where his studio was in 
Leyden, but Houbraken relates "that he never 
left off working in the house of his parents while 
daylight lasted" ; and doubtless there is some truth 
in the stories that he developed his love of 
chiaroscuro by watching the play of light and 
shade in the dusky corners and among the dark 
beams of his father's mill, lighted by its one win- 
dow. His years of apprenticeship entitled him to 
become a member of the Artists' Guild (though of 
the fact there is no record), without which it was 
difficult— in fact, impossible — for a young painter 
to gain customers. M. van der Willigen, in his 
Artists of Haarleniy has given an interesting 
account of the valuable records left by the power- 
ful Guild of St. Luke, which at the end of the 
seventeenth century boasted of 174 painters of 
repute. The laws of the guild were severe. **No 
one without the pale of the society could sell or 
introduce his pictures." Many painters, therefore, 
found themselves forced to join the guild in order 
to obtain the ordinary advantages of their own 
work. " Every year two sales were announced by 
the officers of the guild ; each member could bring 
to the sale whatever he wished to sell." Even 



38 REMBRANDT 

with the advantages of the guild, painters, unless 
very prolific and very popular, were not neces- 
sarily prosperous — as shown by the endless 
impecuniosity of Frans Hals, one of the most 
famous members of the Guild of St. Luke. Private 
patronage, also, did much to encourage young 
painters of mark. There were portraits needed 
of noted burghers, statesmen, soldiers, or sailors ; 
there were the ** Regent -pictures " to celebrate 
the various companies of archers, arquebusiers, 
etc. , and adorn the walls of their Doelen ; there 
were also the anatomy pictures, with which the 
walls of the medical and surgical lecture-halls 
were adorned. It will easily be understood that 
in a country of realistic tendencies the new 
scientific study of anatomy would be eagerly 
entered into. These lecture-halls, with their busts 
and pictures of professors, with their collection 
of minerals, stuffed animals, human skeletons, 
and curiosities, were practically museums of 
natural history that were visited with interest by 
the inhabitants of the town. This is shown in 
an engraving by W. Swanenburgh, dated 1610, 
representing the Theatre of Anatomy, Leyden. 
The professor, in a central space, stands at 
the dissecting-table, on which are the opened 
bodies. Along the line of seats are arranged the 
curiosities of all kinds ; for instance, a human 
skeleton riding a skeleton horse, and two other 



YOUTH— LEYDEN 39 

skeletons arranged to represent Eve giving Adam 
the apple beneath a tree. Other skeletons hold 
banners with Latin mottoes, such as ^^Nascentes 
morimur," **Mors ultima linea rerum." Surgical 
instruments are carefully elaborated lying under a 
glass case. And in the body of the hall visitors — 
men and women — are moving and looking about ; 
to one lady a professor is showing a flayed human 
skin, at which she looks with a polite interest 
that denotes a total lack of imagination. We are 
told that even the country-folk made these halls 
one of the ** sights" to see on market-days. A 
French traveller, Mons. le Monconys, visited 
Leyden in 1663, and in his Journal (published at 
Lyons in 1677) describes the Theatre of Anatomy 
as " very pretty, shaped like an amphitheatre of 
wood, very clean," and as containing "an in- 
finity of skeletons of men and animals and several 
rarities. " 

For seven years Rembrandt remained in Leyden, 
and ** practised painting alone and according to 
his own mind." We know that he worked steadily 
in his father's house. A temperament mentally 
solitary, experimental, questing, he did not care 
to live alone. The tenor of his life has shown 
this : throughout he needed the sympathetic com- 
panionship and protective care of woman ; his 
mother, his sister Lysbeth, Saskia, Hendrickje 
tended him one after the other. This is probably 



40 REMBRANDT 

a reason why he worked in his father's house 
and, as far as we know, did not set up a separate 
studio of his own. Nor, indeed, was it yet neces- 
sary, for he had his models at hand beside him 
daily : his mother, his father, his sister, and 
still more important to him at that period, him- 
self. With an endless curiosity he watched the 
well-known faces, and studied in his own the 
varied emotions he saw ; he painted the grave 
placidity of expression and control of the women, 
and of the older man ; then turned to his own 
mirror and analysed one expression after another 
on his own face — laughter, anger, inquiry, re- 
pose, even vacancy of expression — admirable 
exercises that bore such remarkable after-fruit. 
His own portraits — drawn, etched, and painted — 
give a deeper insight into the spiritual biography 
of the man than any series of facts can do. He 
began this practice in Ley den, when his face was 
yet unlined, when outlook and expectancy showed 
through the bright, clear eyes, before emotion 
and suffering had traced their lines on his rugged, 
plebeian face, with its thick nose and sensitive 
mouth. From the first he was a pioneer who 
ceaselessly strove to solve the great problems of 
human life, and of beneficent light, to him the 
symbol of all life. Naturally his earliest work 
is experimental, akin in manner and manipula- 
tion to that of his contemporaries. He was pre- 



YOUTH— LEYDEN 4 1 

cocious and open-minded, original and confident, 
he nevertheless turned to the great ones in art 
to learn from them all he could. His mania for 
collecting seems to have been coincident with his 
first earnings, for he early possessed a set of en- 
gravings by the Lorraine artist, Callot — etchings 
and engravings would obviously be the first form 
of art to come within his reach, and as soon as 
his own etchings became of any value, he used to 
exchange them for those of other artists. 

Rembrandt's two earliest-known paintings date 
from 1627 : **The Money-Changer," in the Berlin 
Gallery, and ** St. Paul in Prison," in the Stuttgart 
Museum. The latter picture, for which he proudly 
received a few guilder, was sold in 1867 for 4,000 
francs. Both are carefully studied and finished, 
painted under contemporary influences, and in no 
wise remarkable. An indication of his maturer 
insight into character is suggested by the serious 
intentness of St. Paul's face ; the candlelight 
arrangement in the ** Money-Changer" he bor- 
rowed from Honthorst and others, whom he later 
wholly eclipsed by his treatment of chiaroscuro. 
In his early work he strives after forcible dramatic 
effects to express strong emotion, not having yet 
learned to express it through the suggestion of 
deep inner feeling in his subjects. The psycho- 
logical aspect of life and its expression appealed 
to him later. 



42 REMBRANDT 

There is a touch of originality in the concep- 
tion of the small ** Christ at Emmaus " (1629), 
now in the possession of Mme. E. Andr^ at 
Paris. The light is focussed in such wise on one 
startled disciple and on the wall behind that the 
long magician-like figure of the revealed Christ 
is silhouetted as a grey shadow against the wall, 
a slanting line from head to floor, where crouches 
the second disciple. An answering note of grey 
is the grey coat hung on the wall ; and there is 
an exquisite bit of genre painting in the back- 
ground, where the housewife is busy at the fire, 
unconscious of the pregnant moment. A similar 
use of a slanting line of strong colour, to express 
dignity, is shown in the ** Rape of Proserpine,'* 
painted about 1631. 

**The Supper at Emmaus" was a favourite 
subject that Rembrandt both etched and painted. 
The change from the tentative effort of youth 
with its forced dramatic sentiment to the full 
maturity of technique and power of expression is 
markedly realised by the comparison of the little 
picture of 1629 with the beautiful ** Christ at 
Emmaus " (in the Louvre) of 1648, so simple 
and admirable in composition, with the light 
radiating to the white cloth from the head of the 
Breaker of Bread, with his wonderful eyes and 
rapt expression, from whom there breathes the 
revealed essence of Divinity. 



YOUTH— LEYDEN 43 

The earliest examples of group composition 
date from 1628: "St. Paul seated at a Writing- 
table," now at Nuremberg, ** St. Peter among 
the Servants of the High Priest," in a private 
collection at Berlin, and " Samson's Capture by 
the Philistines," at Berlin, signed with the letters 
**R. H. L." (Rembrandt Harmenszoon, Leyden). 
To this year, also, belongs probably the earliest 
known painting of himself, entitled ** Rembrandt 
with the Disordered Hair," and one of his 
mother, in the collection of Dr. Bredius in the 
Hague Museum, executed with timidity and 
elaborate care. The earliest known etchings 
date also to 1628 : a head of his mother, a 
portrait of himself bareheaded, and "A man on 
Horseback," signed "R. H." A comparison of the 
work of 1628 shows that his power as an etcher 
was in advance of his possibilities as a painter. 
He is more certain with the needle, and at greater 
ease with his medium ; consequently there is 
finer characterisation in the etched portrait of 
his mother than in the painted one. 

In the following year, 1629, Rembrandt made his 
first essay with the pyramidal form of composition. 
If, in "Judas bringing back the Thirty Pieces of 
Silver," in the collection of Baron Schickler, there 
is exaggerated emphasis in the pose of the traitor 
writhing in remorse before the High Priest, 
there is, nevertheless, spiritual conviction and 



44 REMBRANDT 

dramatic power. **The Old Man Asleep by a 
Fireside/' in the Turin Gallery, attributed to 
Rembrandt's fellow-student Lievens, is considered 
by Dr. Bredius and Herr Hofstede de Groot to 
be probably by Rembrandt, since it compares well 
in technique and portraiture with a small portrait 
by him of the miller in cap and red feather, be- 
longing to Mr. W. B. Chamberlain, Brighton. 
It is important to note that at the outset of the 
painter's development he began the long series of 
fine characteristic portraits that occupied him 
throughout his life ; and that to 1630 belongs the 
remarkable signed ** Head of an Old Man," in the 
Cassel Gallery, showing psychological insight. 
Of greater importance, if less fine as a painting, 
is one of the early painted portraits of himself, 
** Rembrandt with the Steel Gorget," 1629-30, now 
at the Hague, with large clear eyes and serene, 
inexperienced face — the first of the extraordinary 
series of intimate painted portraits which forms a 
better biography of the painter than any published 
writing. He used the steel gorget, and in **St. 
Peter among the Servants of the High Priest" 
a suit of armour — his earliest studio proper- 
ties — as a method of focussing the light. This 
biblical subject is a forerunner of many executed 
with brush or with etching-needle, treated from a 
personal point of view. A close student of the 
Bible, Rembrandt sought for a convincing and 



YOUTH— LEYDEN 45 

independent interpretation through the actualities 
of his day and hour. The framework of the well- 
known, well-loved biblical stories remains the 
same ; but the conventions of the Roman Catholic 
tradition are discarded by him for the simple pre- 
sentment of themes that Protestantism required, 
expressed through the medium of the familiar 
heartfelt events of daily life. In this early picture 
Dutch boors are introduced, and a man in con- 
temporary armour, for the painter was studying 
all types and conditions of men who came in his 
way, all manners of dress, tricks of pose and 
movement. With his etchings he was daily 
learning to abbreviate details and to make com- 
plete studies aside from the study of colours. 
He made several etchings of beggars that 
swarmed in the cities ; beggars by trade and 
beggars through fortune of war, crippled, tattered, 
blind, admirable studies of humanity in the 
rough. The earliest examples, **A Beggar 
Warming his Hands over a Chafing-dish," and 
**A Beggar, a Sketch," date about 1629. To 
this year, also, belongs also one of his earliest 
drawings of himself — a bust portrait — in the 
British Museum, of special interest when com- 
pared with his ** Rembrandt Bareheaded," for it 
will be seen how superior the rapid drawing is to 
the etched portrait. 1630 was a year of great 
importance in the artist's career ; in it he began 



46 REMBRANDT 

to emerge from the immaturities of studentship 
to greater security of hand and purpose, towards 
mastership. To it belong some admirable por- 
traits of his mother — lovingly treated, faithful, 
pathetic ; for instance, " His Mother in a Black 
Hood," in Mr. A. Sanderson*s collection at Edin- 
burgh, ** Mother Reading," belonging to the Earl 
of Pembroke, and another portrait of her in the 
Windsor Collection, wearing a large velvet hood 
richly embroidered inside. He also etched his 
own head five times, and that of his father four 
times. 

Several important group compositions date to 
1630; notably the beautiful etchings "Christ 
Disputing with the Doctors," and ** Simeon in the 
Temple," similar to the ink and bistre drawing of 
the same subject in the British Museum. Both 
the etching and the drawing were obviously 
preliminary studies for the painting **The Pre- 
sentation in the Temple," Rembrandt's finest 
achievement in 1631. To the previous year be- 
long also the interesting plate known as **The 
Little Circumcision" and the sketch in red 
chalk, in the British Museum, entitled "The En- 
tombment of Christ," and considered to have 
originally been a composition for "The Raising 
of Lazarus." Three important paintings of 
Rembrandt's Leyden period have completely 
disappeared — "Lot and his Daughters," "The 



YOUTH— LEYDEN 47 

Baptism of the Eunuch," and **St. Jerome at 
Prayer." Some idea of their style and com- 
position is given in Van Vliets' engravings after 
the originals, dated 163 1 ; and though it is im- 
possible to judge the excellence of Rembrandt's 
execution, the engravings attest to extraordinary 
care in the finish of details. Judged by the 
greater freedom of execution the **St. Jerome 
at Prayer" is evidently the later of the three 
pictures, and for it the piainter made a careful 
drawing in red chalk, now in the Louvre. 

The exact date of Rembrandt's removal to 
Amsterdam is not known, but it is generally 
supposed that his Leyden period terminated in 
1 63 1. We learn, however, from recently dis- 
covered documents in the Archives of Holland, 
that in the summer of 163 1 he was still living in 
his father's house, but that he was domiciled in 
Amsterdam in 1632. So that if he moved to the 
capital it must have been in the latter end of 
163 1. Owing to this uncertainty, it is difficult to 
decide which of his works of that year were 
executed in Leyden, which in Amsterdam. It is, 
therefore, simpler to classify all the work of 163 1 
as belonging to the Leyden period, and thus 
separate his life into three distinct periods divided 
by the years 1632, the year of his marriage to 
Saskia and of the " Anatomy Lesson," and 1642, 
the year of **The Night Watch" and of the 



48 REMBRANDT 

death of Saskia. **The Rape of Proserpine" 
and **Lot and his Daughters" date prior to his 
marriage, and both belong in treatment to his 
early period. For at this point of his develop- 
ment his work shows curious inequalities. Side 
by side with admirable studies of beggars, 
tramps, still-life, etched or drawn, are group- 
subjects, which reveal the still youthful student 
in the manner of the composition, in the relative 
treatment of foreground and background and 
in the suggestion of emotion. In the **Rape 
of Proserpine," for example, where details of 
foreground are carefully painted with realistic 
skill, the expression of emotion is forced and 
theatrical rather than dramatic. The young man 
had as yet insufficient personal acquaintance with 
the joys and sorrows of life to enable him to con- 
ceive his subject from within ; moreover, mytho- 
logical subjects had no real attraction for him, 
and belonged to a form of culture that did not 
appeal to him. In these compositions he is still 
under the influence of Lastman, corrected, how- 
ever, by a reminiscence of Poussin, whose work 
he knew through engravings. His development 
proceeded along two main channels : portraiture 
or study of the individual, commissioned or other- 
wise ; and biblical subjects, used less for their 
stories as such than as studies of groups of people 
swayed by a single or dominant emotion, as a 



YOUTH-LEYDEN 49 

means of expressing the ideas and needs of his 
own class and their less lettered brethren, as the 
interpretation of the elemental passions of simple 
hearts. The latter tendency is first shown in 
**The Holy Family in the Carpenter's Shop," in 
the Pinacothek at Munich — a forerunner in senti- 
ment of Holman Hunt's ** Shadow of the Cross." 
This beautiful ** Holy Family" represents a 
young Dutch Mary sitting with her babe on her 
lap. The little Dutch Christ, wrapped in a fur 
cloak, has fallen away from her breast in con- 
tented sleep, his feet warmed in her hand, and 
behind the cradle is seen the strong fine figure of 
Joseph, reminiscent, perhaps, of the conventional 
Italian type. There are no outward signs of 
divinity ; it is a simple trinity of human life made 
one by the sanctity of love ; the divinity lies in 
the innocence of the child, in the protective love 
of motherhood. 

Chief in importance in 1631, however, ranks 
the exquisite small ** Presentation in the Temple," 
now at the Hague, not only for the great 
beauty of its gem-like painting, but because it 
is the first of the wonderful series of pictures 
in which chiaroscuro is used as the vehicle of 
highest and most poetical emotion, for the ex- 
pression of the painter's individuality, personal 
interpretation and impressions of the problems 
of life. 



E 



so REMBRANDT 

There are points of similarity between this 
picture and an etching of the subject made in 
1630, probably a preliminary study. In both is 
the elaborate architecture touched with points of 
light as with jewels glittering in swimming shadow; 
in both is the great flight of steps in the back- 
ground thronged with people. There are differ- 
ences in the grouping of the principal figures, and 
the painting is the finer realisation. In it the 
light pours down from an unseen window upon the 
head, shoulders, and outstretched right hand of 
the High Priest, and falls on the kneeling figures 
of the white-bearded Simeon, the Babe, and on 
the placid white figure of Mary with Lysbeth*s 
face. The radiance from the Child^s head illumines 
the boor-like figures of two spectators. The 
manipulation is fine and finished in the manner 
of the Dutch school of the day. The originality 
is in the treatment of chiaroscuro. 

Rembrandt's personal handling developed out 
of his conscientious self-training, his mastery of 
the known laws of painting, his interest in the 
tendencies of his notable contemporaries, his 
realistic study of nature, and especially out of 
his ceaseless observation of the play of light and 
shade. His excellent workmanship, a marked 
characteristic of the Dutch race, admitted of no 
slovenliness. Painting was a trade, a handicraft, 
and the painters prided themselves on the perfec- 



YOUTH— LEYDEN 5 1 

tion of their technique as the necessary means for 
personal expression. 

From the first Rembrandt was an expert crafts- 
man ; his patient training* resulted in a reliable 
subjection of hand to mind, a reliance of mind on 
hand which alone could produce masterly work of 
a high quality combined with individual expres- 
sion. Throughout his life he continued the real- 
istic study of objects for the training of eye and 
hand, even as late as 1650, to Which year belongs 
the etching of the Damier^ or Shell. Definite 
character in brushwork showed itself first in the 
study of single heads, when the mind was concen- 
trated on one object, one impression, when the 
hand was free to follow the lead of the mind un- 
impeded by exigences of grouping and composi- 
tion. The first evidence of personal handling is 
seen strongly in the Cassel head of an old man in 
a black cap, where the impasto is thick and the 
definite strokes of the brush visible. Neverthe- 
less the head is still mask-like against the rim of 
the cap and the background, which is behind the 
head and in no sense environs it. The question 
of a head in relation to the planes of the picture, 
of the head well within the luminous atmosphere of 
the environment and not looking out of the frame, 
is successfully treated in the more mature * * Por- 
trait of a Polish Nobleman," in the Hermitage, in 
which dryness of skin surface gives place to 



52 REMBRANDT 

roundness of muscle and texture of the skin with 
its wonderful light-reflecting property. The char- 
acter of fierceness suggested by eyebrows and 
moustaches is further emphasised by the high 
jewelled bearskin hat, by the fur round the collar- 
less neck, and by the particular sweeps of the 
brush in working in the light of the luminous 
background against which the dark edge of the 
left cheek and chin is shown. The whole scale of 
tones is very rich and warm. 

Another portrait belonging to 163 1, and probably 
also painted in Amsterdam, is that of Maurits 
Huygens, secretary of the Hague State Council, 
and brother to the distinguished statesman and 
poet, Constantine Huygens. To the latter we owe 
our scant knowledge regarding Rembrandt's posi- 
tion as an artist in Leyden from the point of view 
of his contemporaries, and from an undoubtedly 
credible source. In this lately discovered auto- 
biography Constantine Huijgens records his im- 
pressions of Rembrandt's Leyden work ; and he 
refers to ** Judas Bringing Back the Thirty Pieces 
of Silver " as not a recent work. He throws new 
light on Rembrandt's position among his fellow- 
countrymen at this stage, when he records his own 
impression of Rembrandt ** as the greatest painter 
of the coming age," and adds that Rembrandt's 
work was even then engraved by van Vliet (who 
was a pupil of Rembrandt), Savery, and others. 



YOUTH— LEYDEN 5 3 

He also tells us that ** the manner in which Rem- 
brandt harmonised the theatrical and often coarse 
characteristics, the exaggerated lights, the fantas- 
tic costumes then in vogue, and gave dramatic 
force to his compositions by dazzling effects of 
light, aroused the respect and admiration of his 
countrymen. " 

A Dutch poet, in a book published in 1630, also 
speaks of the young painter as an instance of pre- 
cocity, and in disproof of the doctrine of heredity, 
describes him * * beardless yet already famous . . . 
made of other flour than his father." 



CHAPTER IV 

MARRIAGE — AMSTERDAM 

Rembrandt's home in Amsterdam — Lysbeth — His temperament 
— Condition of Amsterdam in the seventeenth century — 
Cosmopolitanism — Comparison of Rubens and Rembrandt 
— Rembrandt's interests and study — Nude studies — His posi- 
tion in Amsterdam and prospects — The * * Anatomy Lesson " 
— Success — His contemporaries — Commissions —Chiaroscuro 
— Paintings of 1632 — Portraits of young women — "The Ship- 
builder and his Wife" — Rembrandt's models — Coarseness 
of manners — Acquaintance with Saskia — Portraits of Saskia 
— Her parentage— Betrothal — Portraits of himself — Marriage 
— Saskia's influence — Portraits of Saskia and himself. 

1EYDEN presently became too restricted an 
^ area for the activities of the young artist : 
his fame had spread beyond his native town. He 
needed further outlets and greater freedom than 
was possible to him while living under his paternal 
roof. Commissions came to him from Amsterdam, 
so that he felt it imperative for him to have his 
own studio in the metropolis. During his student 
days there he had instituted relationship with the 
dealer Hendrick van Uylenborch, who was also 
doubtless the means of selling many of the young 



MARRIAGE— AMSTERDAM 5 5 

man's etchings and, possibly, his paintings., A 
legal document, discovered by Messrs. Bredius 
and de Roever, dated Amsterdam the 20th June, 
163 1, by which Rembrandt lent the dealer 1,000 
florins, is a proof of the promising condition of 
the young man*s finances. From Uylenborch*s 
house Rembrandt sought and prepared a home 
for himself in a warehouse on the Bloemgracht ; 
and for a short time, until his father's death, his 
sister Lysbeth was his companion, his housekeeper, 
and frequently his model. Hitherto his mother 
had been his favourite study in the evening hours. 
Now the fair young face of his sister, with placid 
eyes, slightly compressed mouth, and fair curling 
hair, was beside him ; and several paintings of her 
exist, as for instance the oval bust-portrait at 
Milan, in which she wears a richly embroidered 
fur coat, disclosing a finely gathered chemisette ; 
but he did not seem to care to etch her features. 

To Rembrandt with his independent and ex- 
perimental temperament, the rigid orthodoxy of 
Leyden and the cramping influences of the 
academical society rendered imperative the need 
of a wider environment. Of peasant build, born 
and bred in the ordinary burgher class, he was 
too natural and simple to desire the companion- 
ship of polite society, or to submit to its etiquette. 
To him the externals of life were of value for 
what they gave him, not for what they were in 



S6 REMBRANDT 

themselves. What he demanded was physical 
well-being, opportunities for the study of life, and 
for the exercise of his great powers. 

During the seventeenth century Amsterdam was 
the most flourishing and the most cosmopolitan 
city in the world. Built on piles driven into the 
muddy ooze, it was intersected, like its southern 
rival Venice, by numerous canals and refreshed 
by the purer waters of the encircling Amstel and 
of the wide estuary of the Ij. Merchandise from 
all parts of the world came to its great storehouses. 
From the Orient came fine silks and furs by the 
great waterway of the Rhine ; over sea came 
wool and flax from Britain ; and the strong fleets 
of the East India Company brought treasured 
spices from Java and the Moluccas, and gems in 
the rough for the experts of Amsterdam to cut 
into sparkling jewels. To this great centre of 
barter came all nationalities, and the cosmopolitan 
mind of the painter found there congenial nourish- 
ment whereon to thrive. Peaceful men of com- 
merce came from all parts of Europe, even from 
India and Ethiopia, and to this centre of religious 
tolerance came all the oppressed and exiled. 

Bourgeois and parochial in habit, Rembrandt's 
eager questing brain found full satisfaction in the 
great northern city. He had no desire to travel 
in Italy to study other cities, or to learn to see 
through the eyes of another race. He grasped 



MARRIAGE— AMSTERDAM 57 

eagerly the opportunity to study humanity in its 
most varied aspects through the manifold types 
that passed along the busy quays of the floating 
city, thronged by men of diverse races and colour, 
types of Orient and Occident, in their various 
bizarre costumes. All passed alike before the 
vision of the painter — a great observer rather than 
an active participator in life. 

Herein lay the great difference between himself 
and Rubens. The Fleming was a man of action, 
who lived the life he depicted, whose work is 
the chronicle of what he saw and did, the com- 
prehensive chronicle in paint of his era. The 
Hollander was the observer, the seer, who pene- 
trated below the accidents of body and environ- 
ment to the living soul and its drama. Of great 
fascination for pen or etching-needle was the 
Jewish type with its endless variations, come 
from different countries, Spain, Portugal, or 
Poland ; men who sought freedom for the ob- 
servance and exercise of their religion, and to 
live unfettered by cruel restrictive laws. Rem- 
brandt haunted the Jewry of Amsterdam, talked 
to them and studied their physiognomy, painted 
them and their costumes with a sympathy unsur- 
passed by any artist except by his modern country- 
man Israels. He would not travel, but he lost 
no opportunity of knowing what manner of men 
lived outside his own world, and he realised that 



S8 REMBRANDT 

beneath the external difference of race and creed 
throbbed similar needs, similar desires, and similar 
capacities for joy and suffering. 

He was not ignorant of foreign art, contem- 
porary or older. His collection of paintings, 
drawings, and engravings, known to us through 
the auction catalogue of Gerard Moet, prove how 
catholic was his taste, how constant his interest 
to know how other men worked, how keen his 
desire to investigate the methods of other paint- 
ers. To this end he made several drawings after 
Italian masters, such as Raphael's ** Baldassare 
Castiglione " ; but he was too much himself, too 
strong a personality to copy stroke for stroke, 
and the result is a paraphrase in which Rem- 
brandt's signature is always discernible. Even 
in his most faithful known effort, the copy of a pen 
drawing of Mantegna's ** Calumny of Apelles," a 
careful comparison shows that the Dutchman's 
drawing is more dramatic than that of the Paduan 
master, and less classical in feeling. The draperies 
lose the statuesque folds, the severe simplicity of 
line ; the limbs lose their sculptural roundness and 
classical dignity, while Rembrandt has intensi- 
fied the dramatic feeling by giving a look of ap- 
prehension to the victim. The most marked 
divergence is in the treatment of shadow. In 
Mantegna's drawing the shadow is so disposed 
as to allow the figures to stand out in a carefully 



MARRIAGE— AMSTERDAM 59 

calculated high relief against an even background. 
Rembrandt lacks the sense of architectural decora- 
tiveness ; his shadows produce an atmospheric 
effect, so that the approaching figures to the right 
merge slightly into the background ; the king's 
throne and figure is brought forward with greater 
emphasis, and the sculptural balance of an even 
background is destroyed by the dramatic disposi- 
tion of the shading. These two drawings, both 
now in the British Museum, disclosing as they do 
the temperaments and aims of the two artists, serve 
as an admirable example of the respective quali- 
ties and tendencies of southern and northern art. 
The date of the copy is uncertain, but it probably 
belongs to Rembrandt's later period. Drawings, 
too, he made from Persian miniatures that had 
been executed by Persian artists for the Mogul 
Emperors in India ; five are in the British 
Museum, and Vosmaer describes two in the van 
der Willigen Collection as bearing the inscription 
in Rembrandt's handwriting, **Na een ostindies 
poppetje geschets " and **Na Oostind poppetje," 
probably copied for their bizarre and jewelled 
dresses ; since * * turqueries " of all sorts attracted 
him, and were used by him for their richness of 
hue — such as the Chinese parasol in a picture of 
Mary Magdalen — for their value in focussing and 
reflecting light.* 

Then, too, in this city to which all the great 



6o REMBRANDT 

ships of the earth came with goods and curios, 
he studied rare animals, as well as rare types of 
men, and we have in the British Museum a valu- 
able study of an elephant with its loose, tough 
skin, and still finer studies of lions and of 
lionesses lying down, sleeping, or eating. It 
was about this time, or just before he settled in 
Amsterdam, that he began his series of nude 
studies — at first in etching and in chalk. The 
earliest known is the study of a woman bathing, 
in black chalk slightly washed with bistre, a 
sketch for the etching ** Diana at the Bath," both 
in the British Museum, and for the picture in 
the collection of M. E. Warneck, Paris. 

To Amsterdam the artist came full of hope, 
with a bright future opening before him and a 
reputation so well established that his portraits 
rapidly became the fashion and his sitters numer- 
ous. His future lay secure in his hands, and 
it depended on himself, on his selection of and 
adherence to a definite aim in life, what manner 
of success he should command — whether of riches 
and worldly honours as court painter and cour- 
tier, or of success awarded by posterity rather 
than by contemporaries, dependent on heart-whole 
devotion to his art. At first no such choice was 
necessary ; his early development carried him 
toward accomplishment intelligible to, and appre- 
ciated by, his clients, who recognised his precocity 



MARRIAGE— AMSTERDAM 6 1 

and cleverness, and sought him in preference to 
his compeers. In portraiture lay his great oppor- 
tunity ; in portraits of statesmen, burghers, or 
merchants and their wives, whose lives were 
devoted to the furthering of the political and 
commercial prosperity of the*country. 

Descartes visited Amsterdam in 1631, and obvi- 
ously found the material atmosphere antipathetic 
to him, for he writes thence to a friend : ** There 
being in this great town where I am no man 
except myself who does not pursue commerce, 
each one is so attentive to his profit that I might 
live here all my life without being seen of any- 



one." 



Rembrandt's first great opportunity to dis- 
tinguish himself civically came to him when he 
was commissioned by Dr. Nicholas Tulp, one 
of the leading surgeons of Amsterdam, to paint 
an ** Anatomy Lesson," in commemoration of his 
term of professorship to the Corporation of 
Surgeons. Similar anatomy pictures and other 
so-called ** Regent-pieces " had been painted in 
Amsterdam, the Hague, Haarlem, and Leyden by 
Hals, Ravesteijn, Schooten, van Loo, van Bray, 
etc., composed more or less after a conventional 
pattern — a group of figures clearly defined and 
so juxtaposed as to give respectful prominence 
to each figure. Hals, only, had made a deviation 
in the composition of his magnificent ** Banquet 



62 REMBRANDT 

of the Officers of the Arquebusiers of St. Adrian," 
painted in 1627. By his grouping of the officers 
round the table, by the decorative arrangement 
of lines in the ruffs, scarves, and flag, by the 
harmonious colouring, and still more by the per- 
vasive sense of lusty life and vigour, he had 
raised this form of portraiture from the mere 
chronicle in paint to a work of art. What Hals 
did for the Regent-picture Rembrandt now did for 
the realistic and, heretofore, repulsive Anatomy- 
picture. His originality shows itself in the dispo- 
sition of his composition and the arrangement 
of light. He succeeded in producing the greatest 
picture of its kind, the first of the three great 
civic pictures which sharply divide his career into 
three periods, corresponding with three phases 
of his development as a painter. 

In this picture Rembrandt has omitted the 
usual typical accessories of the dissecting-room ; 
the ghastliness of the body under dissection is 
minimised by the play of light and the still 
cleverer suggestion of the superior attraction of 
a dominant mind. Dr. Tulp, in professional 
black robes, sits behind the dissecting-table, and 
explains the action of tendons and muscles of the 
forearm, which he has picked up with his forceps, 
and further illustrates his point by closing the 
finger and thumb of his left hand. His strong 
face is framed by his broad-brimmed black hat 



MARRIAGE— AMSTERDAM 63 

and his flat, white, lace-edged collar. To his left 
are ranged seven bareheaded fellow-members of 
the guild against a background of grey walls 
softened by grey-green shadows. These heads 
are treated with great care, and, with the ex- 
ception of two, are lifelike and full of character ; 
keen faces, eager and attentive. Six of the 
audience are in black robes, with full white ruffs ; 
the fine central figure, craning forward intently, 
.vith bright complexion and curling grey hair 
that show prominently against the circling rows 
of white ruffs, wears a silk coat of soft puce-rose, 
a note of colour that balances with the hues of 
the dissected arm. The light is focussed on the 
corpse, whose face is partly and feet wholly in 
shadow, and falls full upon the faces and ruffs of 
the group in such a manner that though the eye 
rests first upon the pallid flesh, white loin-cloth, 
and deal table, it travels immediately from the 
dead to the living, and is arrested by the spell of 
keen minds revealed in the illumined faces. The 
modelling of the faces is admirable — save in two 
heads near the background, that are puppet-like 
and forced in composition — the contours are soft 
and melting, the handling is in the fine finished 
style of the painter's first period, which lacked 
individuality in the brushwork. The painting 
of the professor's hands is very clever. The 
** Anatomy Lesson " remained in the ** Sny- 



64 REMBRANDT 

kamer " of the Surgeons* Guild in the St. 
Anthony Gate till 1828, when William I. bought 
it for 32,000 guilders and placed it in the 
Mauri tshuis. In later life Rembrandt painted 
another ** Anatomy Lecture," partially destroyed 
by fire in 1723. The fragment in the Rijks- 
museum, Amsterdam, shows that the painter this 
time did not deviate from the accepted realistic 
convention, and that his superiority lies in the 
strength and mastery of his brushwork and 
chiaroscuro ; the repulsiveness of the finished 
picture was, to all accounts, in equal proportion 
with the powerfully detailed realism. 

The success of the earlier commission con- 
firmed Rembrandt's reputation as one of the 
leading portrait-painters in Amsterdam. Success 
was his, endless possibilities lay open to him. 
He felt the impetus of growing mastery, felt 
himself the equal of the best of his contempo- 
raries, and knew that he had springs of strength 
yet untried to draw upon. As yet he had not 
run counter to prevailing taste and tradition. 
These he had used to the uttermost and improved 
upon them. His eager eyes were straining on- 
ward, his desires outdistancing his accomplish- 
ments and impelling him to soar on equal 
wings of imagination and will towards the 
future. His contemporaries were worthy rivals, 
painters practically unknown in England, such 



MARRIAGE— AMSTERDAM 65 

as Cornelius van der Voort, highly thought of 
in his day, and Werner van Valckert. Among 
the living men of the generation immediately 
preceding him were the prolific portrait-painter, 
Michel van Miereveld, of Delft ; Jan van Raves- 
teijn, the fashionable portrait -painter of the 
Hague ; Nicholas Elias, the master of van der 
Heist and painter of several fine corporation 
pictures; Frans Hals, the great Haarlem painter; 
and most important of all, Thomas de Keyser, of 
Amsterdam, whose early ** Anatomy Lesson" in 
the Rijksmuseum at Amsterdam was painted in 
1 61 9. De Keyser was an accomplished crafts- 
man, faultless in drawing, fine in colour, broad 
and flexible in handling, accurate in modelling, 
simple and dignified in composition ; a man of 
taste and discretion in dealing with the severe 
dress of the day, as shown in his fine " Portrait 
of a Scholar," and the small " Four Burgher- 
masters of Amsterdam receiving the News of the 
Arrival of Maria de Medici at Wesel," possibly 
the sketch only for a larger canvas, but full of 
life, dignity, and reserve. Michel ranks this 
painter side by side with Hals, and only just 
below Rembrandt. The special point Rembrandt 
had now to consider, concerning which he could 
learn from de Keyser, was the treatment of 
the commissioned portrait. With this he could 
exercise little or no choice in the question of 

F 



66 REMBRANDT 

costume, especially with that of Dutch sitters as 
distinct from those of Flemish birth. He had to 
represent and harmonise severe Puritan blacks 
and whites, the disproportionate ruffs, the tall 
black hats of the men, the white or black caps of 
the women. When he had painted members of 
his own family, or models, he decked and draped 
them as he pleased. Now such choice was 
denied him ; the consequent restrictions, however, 
proved incentives to master a difficulty and to 
make necessity bend to his will. He made sober, 
charming harmonies with these portraits ; he 
eliminated the crudeness from the black, and 
harmonised it with a soft, environing, grey-green 
background ; he warmed the whites of ruff and 
cap to tone with rich quality of the flesh hues ; 
he so concentrated the interest on the face and 
proportioned the interest of the accessories in 
due degree that the result looks natural and 
simple. Dr. Bode counts two or three portraits 
painted in 1631, and states that the artist had ten 
in hand in 1632, and at least forty between 
1632-4. His manner of painting had lost all 
trace of timidity and evidence of search, which at 
times had produced a tightness in handling. His 
brushwork became broader, freer, yet lost none 
of its conscientiousness ; the touch fluent and 
certain in intention, the impasto richer, the 
colours warmer in harmony. He had reached 



MARRIAGE— AMSTERDAM 67 

greater issues in his knowledge and use of 
chiaroscuro ; he no longer forced the light and 
dark of his picture into a theatrical symbolism of 
dramatic emotion. Through his own joys and 
sorrows he was probing deeper into the mys- 
teries of human emotion, and learning to express 
them by suggestion rather than by insistence on 
outward gesture. 

Foremost among the productions of 1632 is the 
remarkable portrait of Coppenol in the Cassel 
Museum, whose identity with the sitter is called 
in question by Dr. Bode. It represents an honest 
self-satisfied man holding in his left hand a pen, 
which he cuts carefully with a penknife. Coppenol 
was a famous teacher of calligraphy — an accom- 
plishment which in those days ranked as a fine 
art — a man of proverbial vanity, whose friendship 
with the painter is further demonstrated by the 
two admirable etchings of 1651 and 1658. The 
peculiar mark of the painting is the signature, 
which, in this instance, is the monogram RL, 
followed by the designation van Rijn, a form of 
signature used by Rembrandt in 1632 and on one 
work of 1633, **The Philosophers," in the Louvre. 
To the same year belong the fine portraits of the 
merchant, Martin Looten, belonging to Captain Hol- 
ford ; that of an old man, belonging to the Duke of 
Bedford, and the remarkably fine painting of the 
Poet Krul in rich cloak and wide felt hat, white ruff. 



68 REMBRANDT 

and spotted satin coat. Mr. Pierpont Morgan 
has recently acquired an interesting example of 
this period, the portrait of Nicholas Ruts, dated 
1631,^ in brown robe and wide green fur-bordered 
cap. The grey-bearded face is full of character, 
and the hands beautifully painted. According to 
a water-colour copy in a private collection at the 
Hague, made by Delfos in 1799, this picture was 
painted in 1632 ; a second copy, of the bust 
only, is in Amsterdam. The number of extant 
portraits of young women by Rembrandt is not 
large ; they belong for the most part to this period 
of his career, when he was the fashionable por- 
trait-painter, and had not developed idiosyncrasies 
that differentiated his work from the prevailing 
style of the day. That he was sought as a por- 
trait-painter by the fair ladies of the day is unde- 
niable ; but it is equally evident that while he 
painted their portraits with scrupulous care and 
mastery over material, the subtle secret of his 
finest art lies dormant, untouched by these calm, 
controlled beauties, whose first duty towards 
society is always to suppress evidences of emo- 
tion. Among the finest of these is the " Lady 
of Distinguished Appearance seated in an Arm- 
chair " ; the lovely " Portrait of a Young Lady " 
wearing a large lace collar, pearls and jewels, 

^ Exhibited at the Winter Exhibition at Burlington House in 
1903. 



MARRIAGE— AMSTERDAM 69 

which, together with the dainty low cap and jewels 
in her soft wavy hair, emphasise the delicate flesh 
tones ; and the ** Portrait of a Young Lady with a 
Fan," whose curly hair is confined by no cap, and 
whose delicate head is well poised above the fair 
neck framed by the wide lace collar. About this 
time, too, Rembrandt painted several double por- 
traits, such as that of a ** Young Couple," dated 
1633 » ^^^ the more important portraits of ** Jan 
Pellicorne and his Son," and of ** Susanna Pelli- 
corne (wife of Pellicorne) and her Daughter," in 
the Wallace Collection. In both pictures the dark 
backgrounds and brownish floors are an advance 
on the light grey-brown environment in his earlier 
portraits. 

Occasionally, Rembrandt shows an afllinity to 
Velasquez. For instance, in the fine later portrait 
of his son Titus, the handling of the dress recalls 
that of the Spaniard ; as in the above picture do 
also the lighting of the room, austerity of outline, 
and silhouetting of the figures. To this time also 
belong a few small portraits of children — not 
favourite subjects with Rembrandt. One is now 
in the Wallace Collection, and others belong to 
the Rothschild family and to Prince Youssoupoff. 
The most celebrated of all the double portraits, 
however, is the magnificent "Shipbuilder and his 
Wife " at Buckingham Palace, more mature than 
any previous work. The grey-bearded man is 



70 REMBRANDT 

seated, compass in hand, at his table strewn with 
charts and papers. His wife with one hand on the 
door gives him a written paper over the back of 
his chair. The composition is simple, the colour 
scheme very quiet, the dresses dark, the acces- 
sories homely. The light falls on faces, ruffs, and 
papers. The large, generous execution, the soft 
warm light and rich transparent penumbra, the 
reserve in means by which the genial characters 
and simple environment are portrayed, make this 
rank as one of Rembrandt's early masterpieces. 
He here shows himself to be, as Michel writes, the 
* * consummate master of every secret of his art — 
truth of perspective, correctness of drawing, 
vigour and delicacy of modelling, expression of 
surfaces and textures — by variations of touch, 
harmony of colour, and the intricacies of chiaro- 
scuro." To 1634 belongs the fine oval portrait of 
the **01d Lady" in the National Gallery, treated 
with breadth and sympathy. The wrinkled, plump 
old face is encased in a white winged cap and 
goffered ruff, lines of fur are on her black dress, 
and her hands are concealed in her sleeves. With 
pardonable pride she has had recorded on the back- 
ground her age of eighty-three. 

It had been Rembrandt's habit to use the various 
members of his family as his models. One among 
other reasons was the great difficulty of finding 
female models in Leyden. That in Amsterdam it 



MARRIAGE— AMSTERDAM 7 1 

was easier is obvious from the number of nude 
studies he executed, about that time, with pencil 
and with the etching-needle ; but the type of model 
was of the coarsest and ugliest. Rembrandt, who 
cared for truth of effect more than beauty of form, 
took what came to hand, and studied his available 
models relentlessly, curiously, persistently, in 
attitudes dignified and undignified alike ; so that, 
having studied anatomy with avidity at the 
Surgeons' Guild, he now studied the anatomy of 
the living body, the movements of sinew and 
muscle, the play and strain of the delicate texture 
of skin, and the extraordinary changing, complex 
shifting, and weaving of light upon its surfaces. 
Owing to the subject of several of his drawings 
and etchings, Rembrandt has frequently been 
accused of coarseness carried to an unjustifiable 
degree. While fully admitting this, it is well also 
to remember that the manners of his day, judged 
by our standard, were coarse. The genre pictures 
of Holland and Flanders by Teniers, Ostade, 
Jan Steen, prove this. Rembrandt came of 
peasant stock and lacked the restraint, the culti- 
vated exterior, the outward or, at least, obvious 
appearance of educated decorum ; qualities, how- 
ever, which tend sometimes to kill spontaneity of 
impulse and individuality in the social unit. This 
education he lacked, and evidently, in the heyday 
of his youth, he felt the full impulse of a vigorous 



n REMBRANDT 

and healthy nature. Moreover, he was ever con- 
sumed with the eager curiosity of genius cease- 
lessly questing and seeking to wrest from Nature 
her closely guarded secrets ; so that he made use 
of any and every means that came to him to attain 
his end. Important facts in Rembrandt's life 
prove more conclusively than any biographical 
assurances that he was not essentially an immoral 
man : such as his unwavering devotion to his 
housemate, whether his mother, his wife, or 
Hendrijcke Stoffels. 

The fine emotional and spiritual quality of his 
work, his penetrating broad intuition, his sym- 
pathy with the human heart, and poetical rendering 
of subjects by means of chiaroscuro — understood 
by him as no other painter has understood it — could 
only have been attained after the most persistent 
and unwearied study. These masterly gifts and 
acquirements are not the possession of the coarse 
in mind, of the gross in habit ; but of one healthy 
in body and mind, whose eager curiosity would 
lead him to test all sides of life, and who in the 
vigour of early manhood would doubtlessly now 
and again be led into excesses of a regrettable 
kind. No less than 550 paintings are attributed 
to him, 329 etchings (according to Middleton- 
Wake), and many drawings. 

Dr. Bode has concluded from the number of 
paintings of Lysbeth van Rijn that his sister 



MARRIAGE— AMSTERDAM 73 

probably accompanied him to Amsterdam and kept 
house for him, and that she sat to him as his 
model for various pictures. Sir Frederick Cook 
owns a portrait of her ; and another belonging 
to Dr. Hofstede de Groot in the Rijksmuseum, 
was painted about 1629 ; and she is considered 
to have been the model for ** The Rape of Proser- 
pine." About this time, 1632-4, a number of 
portraits of two young fair-haired women were 
painted, and opinion is divided as to whether they 
represent Rembrandt's sister or his wife Saskia. 
The two girls were of similar types, and the 
painter's method of varying the expression in each 
picture, of emphasising a special characteristic, or 
of adapting the sitter's face to the subject chosen, 
renders identification difficult. The first definitely 
known portrait of Saskia was painted in 1633, 
but there are four portraits painted in 1632-3, 
about which opinions differ. One is a ** Portrait of 
an Unknown " in the Brera, similar in face and 
dress to the painting of Lysbeth in 1629 ; the 
other two, while similar in dress, differ slightly in 
face ; though they have the same thin fair curly 
hair, high forehead, small dark eyes, and small 
mouth. A portrait of Saskia, 1632, belonging 
to M. Haro, is quite different in dress and type 
from the above ; the mouth is larger, the hair fair 
and curly, but tends to curl a little over the fore- 
head and not off it. This picture resembles the 



74 REMBRANDT 

beautiful portrait of Saskia in Cassel, painted in 
1634, also the later portrait of her in Mr. Samuel 
Joseph's collection, painted 1636-7. The point of 
interest in the matter lies in deciding thereby 
which girl was the model for the beautiful painting 
of the ** Jewish Bride," dated about 1632. This 
model resembles the Stockholm and Liechtenstein 
portraits, and in my opinion was painted from 
Lysbeth. In accordance with this decision de- 
pends the probable degree of acquaintance that 
existed between Rembrandt and Saskia in 1632. 
For her to have posed as a model before her be- 
trothal, which I consider is proved to have 
happened in 1633, argues considerable intimacy, 
such as the manners of the young women of that 
day and Saskia's parentless condition could 
hardly have permitted. This painting is one of 
the most important of the period. It represents 
the young bride seated, while an old woman 
stands behind combing her long shining hair. 
She is dressed in white satin, open at the neck, 
with full lawn sleeves, and over it a rich mantle 
of red velvet embroidered with gold — one of his 
studio properties. The spacious room back- 
ground is in warm greys, with delicate trans- 
parent shadows, against which the cool carna- 
tions of the radiant girl tone well ; the hands and 
face are finely modelled. 

With prosperity and secured reputation, it was 



MARRIAGE— AMSTERDAM 7 5 

natural that the young painter should desire the 
companionship of a wife ; the whole tenor of his 
life testifies to his dependence on the housemate 
for his happiness and comfort. An indefatigable 
worker, frugal in his habits — for Houbraken 
relates that ** when he was at work he contented 
himself with a piece of cheese or a herring with 
bread " — genial, and sympathetic, it is not strange 
that the popular painter, despite his bourgeois 
birth, attracted the affections of the bright, pretty 
Frieslander. Saskia van Uylenborch was the 
daughter of a jurisconsult of Leeuwarden, the 
capital of Friesland, Rombertus Uylenborch, coun- 
cillor and burghermaster in 1596, and member 
of the court of Friesland. Saskia was born in 
1612, and lost both parents early. Her girlhood 
was spent with one or other of her five married 
sisters, or with her cousin Aaltje, the wife of 
Jan Cornelius Sylvius, a renowned preacher in 
Amsterdam. Rembrandt doubtless made Saskia's 
acquaintance through another cousin, Hendrick 
van Uylenborch, the art-dealer in Amsterdam, 
with whom he had friendly dealings during his 
first stay in the capital. One of Rembrandt's 
etchings, the large ** Descent from the Cross," 
had attracted Hendrick's attention, and he pub- 
lished it with his address on it. Their relationship 
had another aspect, for Messrs. Bredius and de 
Roever have discovered a legal document executed 



76 REMBRANDT 

at Amsterdam on the 20th June, 163 1, according 
to which Rembrandt lent the dealer 1,000 florins.^ 
Whether through the instrumentality of Hendrick, 
or of his cousin the Amsterdam painter, Rombertus 
Uylenborch, or of Saskia's brother-in-law, the 
painter Wybrand de Geest, it is certain that 
Rembrandt was soon on terms of intimacy with 
the pastor Sylvius, and in 1634 executed the fine 
etching of him, of which he gave the pastor four 
proofs, with written on one of them **To Jan 
Cornelius Sylvius, these four prints." A strong 
attachment sprang up between Saskia and the 
painter, which lasted till her death, as her will 
amply testifies. The betrothal probably was in 
June of 1633, as notified on the silver -point 
drawing in Berlin (Vosmaer and Michel give 1632 
as the probable year), but the marriage was 
delayed till after Saskia should come of age. 
Rembrandt painted several portraits of himself 
and of his bride in the interval. The portraits of 
himself at Dulwich and at Pet worth, and the two 
in the Louvre, one with a velvet cap, the other 
with full carefully dressed hair, giving him in 
massiveness of effect a kindred expression to that 
of Beethoven ; the portraits at Cassel and Berlin 
of 1634 ; and that of himself as an officer in the 
Mauritshuis at the Hague show him to have been 
a man of taste, well appointed, well conditioned, 

^ O lid-Holland, 



MARRIAGE— AMSTERDAM 77 

who from the miller's son had developed into a 
competent member of society, at ease with others 
and confident of himself. To this date also belong 
two etched self-portraits — ** Rembrandt in Velvet 
Cap and Scarf," and ** Rembrandt with the 
Falcon." 

The demure demeanour of Saskia in M. Haro's 
charming" portrait suggests due reserve of ac- 
quaintanceship. But the first signed and dated 
portrait of Saskia is the smiling portrait at Dres- 
den painted in 1633, and shows the girl in the 
new joy and excitement of betrothal ; and on her 
the lover has lavished the utmost brilliancy of his 
palette, to do justice to her and to his happiness. 
She is gaily dressed in a blue and white brocade, 
with gold shoulder-knots, and folds of soft white 
around the neck ; jewels sparkle on the white 
skin, the whiter for the warm transparent shadow 
thrown on the upper part of her face from her 
broad-brimmed soft hat of red velvet, with a grey 
plume. Radiant as the aspect of the picture is, 
the arrested smile disclosing her glittering teeth 
is not wholly pleasant — indeed, Rembrandt was 
rarely happy in depicting laughter. He was not 
swift enough to catch it in its flight, or to suggest 
the haunting expressive quality of the smile of 
a Mona Liza. Rembrandt's study of laughter 
was as serious as his study of sorrow ; he had 
not the subtlety, the rapid adaptability, the vivid 



78 REMBRANDT 

flare of Leonardo da Vinci. Humorous, but not 
witty ; intuitively sympathetic, but not intellectu- 
ally intuitive, Rembrandt understood frank laugh- 
ter, boisterous fun, the happy smile of gaiety, or 
the quieter smile of protective love. But he cared 
nothing for the subtle play of mouth and eyes, 
that silent language of the lips whose art is to 
conceal while it reveals, typified so inimitably by 
the great Italian. And in Rembrandt*s serious 
study of laughing, as shown in the etching of 
himself laughing, there is no real humour depicted, 
but the grimace made by the muscular contortion 
of laughter after the joke has passed. There is 
another, pleasanter, picture of Saskia smiling 
belonging to Lord Elgin's collection at Broom 
Hall. An infinitely more charming portrait of 
Saskia the betrothed is the half-length at Cassel, 
which bears neither signature nor date, but 
probably belongs to 1633-4, as she holds in her 
hand against her breast the sprig of rosemary, 
the emblem of betrothal in Holland. This por- 
trait touches a deeper note ; and the artist has 
devoted to it all the fulness of his knowledge and 
finish in the fine modelling of the flesh, in the 
richness of adornment and depth of harmonies, 
in the masterly handling of chiaroscuro. Here, 
again, Saskia wears the red velvet hat, decked 
this time with a long white feather ; her face, 
as in the Haro portrait, is in profile — she was 



MARRIAGE— AMSTERDAM 79 

the only sitter whom he ever painted in this 
pose. The exceeding richness of her dress, the 
profusion of jewels on hair, neck, and dress 
testify to the pleasure he took in this work. 
In the Berlin Museum there is a delicate silver- 
point sketch of a young woman leaning on a sill, 
with a broad-brimmed hat, and the betrothal flower 
in her hand, undated and unsigned. Critics agree 
in Vosmaer's attribution of this drawing to Rem- 
brandt. Below it is written in the artist's hand- 
writing, but evidently added at a later date : 
* * This is a portrait of my wife at the age of 
twenty-one, drawn the third day after we were 
betrothed, June 8, 1633." 

Early in the year of 1634 he painted her once 
more, again in a fancy guise in vogue at the 
time. One version of this composition, mis- 
named the "Jewish Bride," is in the Hermitage. 
Arrayed as a shepherdess, with oriental scarf and 
pale green mantle, she stands at the mouth of a 
cavern, and, crowned with flowers, she holds a 
flower-bound crook in her hand — a radiant Flora, 
or vision of Spring. In later versions belonging 
to the Duke of Buccleuch and to Mr. Schloss, of 
Paris, she also holds in her left arm a nosegay ; 
in each canvas the flowers and accessories are 
painted with great minuteness and skill, and shine 
like jewels in the full falling light. 

In the marriage register for June loth, 1634, 



is the following entry: "Rembrandt Harmensz 
van Rijn, of Leiden, aged 26 years, living' in the 
Breedstraat, whose mother will give her consent^ 
appeared before the commissioners, together with 
Saskia van Vuijlenburgh, of Leeuwarden, living 
in the St. Annenkerch parish of Bildt, for whom 
appeared Jan Cornelis (Sylvius), preacher, being 
cousin of the said Saskia, engaging to furnish the 
legal inscription for the said Saskia before the 
third publication." This document is signed by 
Rembrandt, and on the margin is a note that the 
consent of the mother has been brought by act of 
notary. 

In June Rembrandt repaired to Friesland, and 
the marriage was legalised in the town hall of 
Bildt, and solemnised in the parish church, in the 
presence of the Van Loos, by the minister Rodolf 
Hermansz Luinga, on June 22nd, 1634. The 
young couple travelled to Amsterdam and settled 
in the house in the Breedstraat, then a new part 
of the town, where also Lastman had bought a 
house in 1631. 

In the full tide of happiness, reputation, and 
prosperity, the young couple began their married 
life with the best of auguries. Saskia, moreover, 
had a goodly dower of her own, and Rembrandt 
could command the best prices for his pictures. 
Well born, she must also have brought him good 
and influential friends. Gentle, gay, devoted, she 



MARRIAGE— AMSTERDAM 8i 

made an atmosphere of sunshine for him, made his 
will her law, and joyed also in having at length a 
home of her own after nine years of dependence 
on the hospitality of relations. She moulded her 
tastes to his. He cared little for society ; he loved 
his intimate friends, chosen for what they were 
to him and not for what they could do for him. 
His one hobby, in the end his ruin, was the 
mania of collecting, the love of acquiring rich 
and costly stuffs, jewels, furs, armour, bric-^- 
brac, paintings, native and foreign, drawings, and 
fine prints. On these things and on the adorn- 
ment of his wife he lavished money freely, and 
many are the pictures he painted of her decked in 
rare stuffs and jewels. Drawings and etchings, 
too, he made indicative of the quiet content of 
their daily life and of her domestic avocations. 
The most jubilant of these is the Dresden por- 
trait of himself with Saskia on his knee before a 
daintily covered table, and holding a glass of wine 
in his hand as though toasting their happiness ; 
the most domestic, the etching of 1636 of himself 
drawing at a table, his eyes shaded by a mezzetin 
cap, and Saskia sitting quietly beside him ; there 
is also the beautiful portrait, about 1636, of her in 
profile, richly dressed, in Mr. Samuel Joseph's 
collection. Her loving acquiescence to sit as 
model is evident in the picture (1634) of 
"Artemisia receiving the Ashes of Mausolus," 



82 REMBRANDT 

painted in a scheme of pale greens and silvery 
greys; and, again, as the small '' Jewish Bride," 
the large ** Jewish Bride," as **Danae," ** Susan- 
nah at the Bath," and in numerous drawings and 
etchings. Equally evident is it that the so-called 
** Burghermaster Pancras and his Wife " in Buck- 
ingham Palace was painted from Saskia and him- 
self; and, indeed, represents what was obviously a 
favourite pastime, the decking of his wife with 
costly stuffs and jewels ; both are arrayed in vel- 
vets, furs, satins, and jewels, and while she puts 
finishing touches to her toilette before a mirror, he 
holds ready in his hands a string of large pearls. 
Well-being and contentment are expressed in his 
self-portraits of this period, whether in those of 

1634 in the Louvre, Cassel, or Berlin ; in those of 

1635 in the National Gallery ; in the Pitti ; or in 
those belonging to the Duke of Bedford and Mr. 
Hey wood Lonsdale. The most fanciful is that 
of himself as an officer, 1634, in the Hague ; the 
most self-complacent is the charming etching of 
himself of the same year as a Polish cavalier with 
sword, aigretted cap, rich cloak, and favourite 
gorget. 



84 REMBRANDT 

subjects. Rembrandt's most recently finished bib- 
lical subjects had been the **Good Samaritan," 
now in the Wallace Collection, a subject which 
he treated repeatedly in his various mediums, 
and the exquisite little * * Christ Appearing to 
Mary Magdalene as a Gardener." About 1632 
he received commissions from the Prince for 
several scriptural paintings, and by the year 1639 
he had executed six, now to be seen in the Munich 
Pinacothek. Concerning some of these pictures, 
Rembrandt wrote several letters to Huijgens ; 
they are of special interest, as they are the only 
documentary remains from Rembrandt's hand. 
Though an educated man, of wide receptive mind, 
impressionable and thoughtful, he was no scholar, 
and lacked culture. What we know of his teach- 
ing, and we know little, is reported by his pupils. 
These letters, therefore, are of extreme value 
and interest. The following, now in the British 
Museum, refers probably to one of two panels 
finished in 1633, representing **The Erection of 
the Cross," and **The Descent from the Cross." 

**SiR, — After my friendly greetings, I would 
take it as kind if you will come soon to see if the 
piece accords well with the other ; and as concerns 
the price of the piece, I have well earned 200 
pounds (pondt), but I will content myself with 
what your Excellence sends me. You will. Sir, 



86 REMBRANDT 

** And as you, Sir, have twice occupied yourself 
in this matter, I add as an acknowledgment a 
piece of ten feet long and eight feet high to do 
honour. Sir, in your house, whereupon I wish you 
all happiness and welfare to all eternity. Amen. 
** Sir, your devoted and affectionate servant, 

** Rembrandt.'* 

At one side is written: **Sir, I live on the 
inner Binnen Amstel, the house is named the 
Suijkerbackerij. " 

Upon the 14th January, 1639, ^^ wrote acknow- 
ledging a friendly and favourable letter, wherein 
evidently Huijgens had hesitated to accept the 
gift of the picture. The painter now presses 
acceptance, and states that the Receiver Uijten- 
boogaerd asked to see the pictures before they 
were packed, and offered, with the Prince's con- 
sent, to pay Rembrandt from his office in Amster- 
dam. The painter begs that he may be paid as 
soon as possible, "which will be extremely useful 
to me in this moment." He adds, as postscript, 
concerning his gift to Constantine Huijgens : 
**Hang the piece. Sir, in a bright light, so that 
it can be looked at from a distance, thus will it 
show best." It was possibly in return for the 
good offices of Uijtenboogaerd that Rembrandt 
executed the etching of **The Gold weigher," 
signed and dated 1639. In despatching the 
pictures, Rembrandt wrote that he hoped the 



SACRED SUBJECTS 87 

Prince would not give him less than 1,000 florins 
each, but that if his Highness thinks they deserve 
less, to give less as it seems good to him ; and 
adds as postscript that he had paid upon the 
frames and the case forty-four florins. 

The Prince found the price too high, and offered 
the lesser price paid for the first pictures ; and 
the painter had to consent to a similar remunera- 
tion of 600 florins for each picture, though in 
answering he points out that the later pictures 
obviously are worth more. A fact of interest as 
to Rembrandt's acquaintances at the Hague is 
revealed in the final sentence, **my hearty greet- 
ings to you, Sir, and to your nearest (most 
intimate) friends." The last letter is a respectful 
but urgent request for no further delay in the 
payment of the 1,244 florins, which were finally 
paid to him on February 17th, 1639. The chief 
interest of the letters, beyond their testimony to 
the friendly relationship with Huijgens, is the 
information as to the monetary value Rembrandt 
put upon his work, and as to his aim to represent 
the scenes realistically, with the utmost truth to 
natural movement. For this he needed time, 
study, observation ; and it was his practice to 
make many sketches of his subject before begin- 
ning a picture ; several of these preparatory 
essays in pencil -work or with the needle still 
exist in private and public collections. More- 



88 REMBRANDT 

over, his instructions concerning the hanging of 
the pictures confirms what is obvious from a 
careful study of his work — that he gave his small 
pictures an elaborate finish, though the labour is 
concealed by the fine handling ; that he wished 
them placed in the strong daylight, so that the 
delicate transparencies of his shadow and har- 
monious play of tones should not be lost. It was 
then customary to hang pictures very high on the 
walls, hence the necessity for the advice. His 
larger canvases were treated with greater breadth, 
with fuller brush ; these he wished well lighted, so 
as to be looked at from a distance. Houbraken 
relates that Rembrandt made people draw back 
who wanted to stand close to the pictures, telling 
them that they would find the smell of the paint 
unpleasant. 

During the years 1632-42 Rembrandt devoted 
much time and loving thought to the depicting 
of biblical themes. In addition to the six com- 
missioned compositions on **The Passion of Our 
Lord," he executed nineteen pictures, about thirty- 
five etchings, and sundry drawings. He did not 
always seek new subjects, but returned with fresh 
zest to experimentation with such stories as those 
of Tobias, Samson, Abraham, and others from the 
life and parables of Christ, especially of Christ as 
Healer and Consoler. 

With the advantage of a willing and excellent 



SACRED SUBJECTS 89 

model in his wife, he painted several studies of 
Susannah in order to work from the nude. He 
delighted in the play of light on the satin sur- 
faces of the skin, in the contrasts of soft flesh 
tones with the warm purples and gold of rich 
robes, and the cool of white draperies with the 
strong deep tones of background foliage and 
sky. The finest of these studies is in the Hague 
Museum ; another belongs to Prince YoussoupofF; 
and a third, of later date, to Baron Steengracht, 
showing stronger treatment of chiaroscuro. The 
painter made use, in his composition, of marble 
steps, colonnaded temples, gorgeous draperies, and 
vegetation of rich greens and yellows, in order to 
suggest the natural opulence of the East ; and 
this intention is still more obvious in the beautiful 
** Susannah and the Elders" of 1647, in the Berlin 
Gallery, with its gorgeous colour, harmonious 
finished detail, and masterly chiaroscuro ; for 
which, however, Hendrijcke StofFels is the obvious 
model. Another nude study of Saskia called 
** Danae," in the Hermitage, or, according to 
Dr. Bode, "The Wife of Tobias," was evidently 
painted for the artist's own gratification, for it 
was hanging in his own room when the inventory 
of his possessions was made in 1656. 

About 1634-5 he painted ** Belshazzar*s Feast," 
with its glittering array of plates — suggested, 
perhaps, by his own marriage festivities — and the 



90 REMBRANDT 

deftly handled luminous writing on the wall. In 
this painting, as also in the coarsely handled 
** Samson Overcome by the Philistines," in the 
Schonborn Collection at Vienna, Rembrandt's 
limitation in his power to express horror^ terror, 
and fury is shown in the exaggerated grotesque 
contortions of the faces. " Samson's Marriage 
Feast," 1638, at Dresden, is important because 
of the technical development it displays. It is 
broader, freer in handling ; the play of light is 
more defined and focussed sharply on the central 
figure ; passages of dark shadow are richer. 
His palette has become more varied, more 
rhythmic in gradations, warmer and bolder in 
harmonies. His russets and cool grey-greens 
are more positive ; blues and silver, reds and 
gold, and various greens are happily balanced ; 
there is a finer play of broken tones. Thence- 
forth Rembrandt devoted himself untiringly to 
experimentation with chiaroscuro to discover to 
what degree and in what manner he might there- 
with symbolise subtle phases of human emotion ; 
might produce a fascinating yet baffling penumbra 
that should transmute crude colour to chromatic 
harmonies, wherewith to suggest the underlying 
mysteries of human life. He strove to create for 
himself a potent language wherewith to describe 
pictorially the stress of life, with its conflicting 
currents of joy and sorrow. His acceptance of 



SACRED SUBJECTS 91 

life's lessons, his steadfast adherence to a high 
ideal of work, were to be the keys that should 
unlock to him the secrets of many hearts, learned 
and simple alike. 

To the stories of Abraham and of Tobias he 
returned again and again, as well as to those of 
the Prodigal Son and the Good Samaritan. To 
1635 belongs the very fine painting, "The 
Sacrifice of Abraham," in the Hermitage. The 
moment chosen is that in which the angel stays 
the patriarch's upraised hand ; the other hand 
pathetically covers the boy's beseeching eyes. 
Very beautiful are the delicate half-tones of the 
painting of the flesh, on whose surfaces the play 
of light follows the movement of the muscles. 
In colour - scheme this picture belongs to the 
mature second period with its greys and cool 
greens, its pearly tones, soft blues and quiet 
yellows, which graduate to the deeper harmonies 
of the low-toned horizon and the dark brown of 
the rocks. The details are attentively studied, 
especially the peacock feathers of the angel's 
wings. In the following year a replica, touched 
by the master, was made by a pupil — it is now at 
Munich ; and in the British Museum is a draw- 
ing for this picture showing slight difference of 
arrangement. 

For rapid personal expression Rembrandt pre- 
ferred the etching-needle to the brush. Etching 



92 REMBRANDT 

was to him a rest and change from the painting 
of his numerous portrait commissions, and an 
occupation for the evening hours beside his wife. 
He etched direct from life whatever came under 
his notice expressive of natural movement or 
emotion. With a few powerful suggestive strokes 
on the copperplate — his shorthand notes — he jotted 
down for future use impressions of travelling 
peasants, skaters, itinerant musicians, a mounte- 
bank, a rat-killer, the Pancake woman familiar to 
frequenters of every kermesse, and beggars in 
many guises, limping and tattered. He copied 
oriental heads from miniatures, studied wild 
animals in menageries and in the zoological gar- 
dens ; and sketched his wife again and again at 
her domestic duties, asleep, suckling her child, and 
ill in bed with the doctor feeling her pulse. These 
rapid incisive sketches gave him extraordinary 
facility when composing and executing his larger 
plates. A close observer, he knew by heart the 
movements and poses of the human figure, especi- 
ally of the poor and untutored, and he could rely 
on his strong unerring hand to reproduce his 
mental picture. 

Rembrandt, the supreme master etcher, had 
few illustrious precursors. Etching proper was 
practised in northern and southern Europe dur- 
ing two-thirds of the sixteenth century. Dry- 
point, however, had been practised by two artists 



ETCHINGS 93 

only — the so-called master of the Amsterdam 
Cabinet about 1470-80 and Albrecht Diirer. The 
possibilities of dry-point were unrealised by inter- 
vening artists such as De Goudt, Jan van de 
Velde, etc., and was ignored till Rembrandt, to- 
wards the middle of his career, revived the method 
in order to emphasise and make richer the lines 
of his bitten plate. Finally, he used dry-point 
alone for several plates, in preference to the acid 
bath. From the beginning of the seventeenth 
century etching became one of the most popular 
methods of artistic expression throughout Europe. 
In Holland during Rembrandt's youth a large 
amount of etching had been produced by his 
elder contemporaries, such as Elsheimer and 
Uijtenbrouck, who had introduced Biblical sub- 
jects into landscapes, Esaias van de Velde, 
Adrian van der Venne, and Roghman, who de- 
voted himself to landscape. These painter-etchers 
advanced their art to a considerable degree. They 
were personal and inventive in their effort to trans- 
late colour, in their handling of chiaroscuro, and 
in general richness of tone. Rembrandt, even in 
his own day, was readily acknowledged as the 
master etcher for originality, inventiveness, for 
his marvellous technical perfection ; and to-day 
his position remains the same, his influence on 
the modern school of etchers is potent and con- 
tinuous. Much has been written upon Rembrandt's 



94 REMBRANDT 

special methods of etching, but Hamerton*s com- 
ment is probably nearest the mark, that Rem- 
brandt's success was "due to no peculiarity of 
method, but to a surpassing excellence of skill.*' 
Elsewhere the same writer says that the artist's 
"supremacy in etching is not founded on unap- 
proachable supremacy. It is mental, and manual 
so far as it proves the possession of great tech- 
nical power — but for many technical qualities cer- 
tain of to-day's professors are superior. His 
greatness is incomparable, his originality markedly 
sterling, and his modernity conspicuous." The 
development of Rembrandt the etcher is as well 
defined as that of Rembrandt the painter. The 
earliest plates are either elaborately finished, deli- 
cately and carefully handled, or else are hasty 
sketches slightly worked. Then the technique 
broadens, grows bolder, more decided, contem- 
poraneously with the use of the fuller brush in 
painting. Later, dry-point is introduced into the 
work to enrich and finish. Finally, in the third 
period, there is the fulness of invention, personal 
freedom of expression, dependent on astonishing 
mastery of materials : the more frequent employ- 
ment of dry-point, with full knowledge of the 
effect of burr. These periods are marked by the 
three great etchings, "The Angel Appearing to 
the Shepherds," the "Hundred Guilder" plate, 
and the fine " St. Francis." 



ETCHINGS 95 

Much has been written and discussed concern- 
ing" the authenticity of certain of the etchings 
attributed to Rembrandt, even of a few of those 

. which bear his signature. This question has 
been seriously studied by Seymour Haden and 

' by Middleton - Wake in England, by Charles 
Blanc and M. Dutuit in France, by Dr. Bode and 
W. Seidlitz in Germany. In the present pages 
reference will be made only to those of unques- 
tioned authority, which may or may not have 
been worked in parts by his pupils. For it is 
known that not only did his pupils re-work, with 
his knowledge, some of the earlier plates, but it 
is generally held that he entrusted portions of 
certain plates to his pupils or assistants. For 
instance, the famous **Ecce Homo" of 1636, so 
admirable in composition and yet so unequal in 
execution, affords opportunities for an examina- 
tion of his methods. The master was so fully 
occupied, so overpowered with commissions, that 
he, after the manner of all contemporary great 
painters, made use of assistant pupils in prepar- 
ing and even executing work ; and the various 
states in the British Museum of this particular 
etching give insight into his methods, especially 
when compared with a beautiful design for the 
subject in grisaille in the National Gallery. The 
composition in the grisaille is in reverse, and 
differs in minor details from the etching ; but 



96 REMBRANDT 

the building of the design, the grouping, the 
distribution and focussing of lights, the suggested 
movement of the surging crowd, are similar in 
both. Great interest attaches to these prints in 
the British Museum because they show various 
corrections and alterations, probably by Rem- 
brandt, for the assistants* guidance. In an 
impression of the first state part of the canopy 
over Pilate's head is blotted out, shadows are 
defined and lights lowered, corrections made in 
bistre with a brush, which are washed out in the 
second state. Again, by a comparison of the 
second and third states another marked error 
is corrected. But it is generally assumed that 
the central pyramidal group formed by Christ, 
Pilate, and his nearest surroundings, are from 
Rembrandt's hand, that the coarse handling oi 
the outer figures is by another hand. Seymoui 
Haden has suggested Lievens, Middleton sug- 
gests Bol or van Vliet. With regard to the 
question of pupils there is the testimony of his 
contemporary, Joachim Sandrart, who thus wrote 
of Rembrandt's entourage : ** His house a1 
Amsterdam was frequented by numerous pupils 
of good family, each of whom paid him as much 
as a hundred fiorins yearly, exclusive of his profits 
from their pictures and engravings, which, in 
addition to his personal gains, brought him in 
some 2,000 to 2,500 florins." Unfortunately, 



ETCHINGS 97 

Sandrart supplies neither names nor dates, though 
we know his own residence in Amsterdam was 
from 1 63 1 -4 1. One of Rembrandt's earliest 
pupils in Amsterdam was Govert Flinck, but he 
was not an engraver. Ferdinand Bol was pupil 
and assistant, entered the studio about 1632, 
but was then too young "to do much good work. 
Lievens, who had been Rembrandt's fellow- 
student and, possibly, at times his collaborator, 
but never his pupil, left for England in 163 1 ; so 
there remains for this period only J oris van Vliet, 
and we know from the inventory of 1656 that 
Rembrandt possessed a portfolio of engravings 
from his own pictures, drawings and etchings, 
by this artist. Previous to the " Ecce Homo" 
Rembrandt had produced several fine etchings 
from religious subjects, and two of outstanding 
excellence. Among the former were the little 
** Flight into Egypt"; the first version of «*The 
Good Samaritan " ; the simply composed, sym- 
pathetically handled " Jacob Lamenting the Death 
of Joseph" (1633) ; the little ** Disciples at Em- 
maus " ; **The Woman of Samaria"; and 
** Christ Driving Out the Money-Changers " ; a 
subject much affected in Holland for the oppor- 
tunity it gave of representing the various vege- 
tables, fruit, and fowls for sale in the Temple, 
but in this instance remarkable for the energy 
of the reforming Christ and the tumult and 

H 



98 REMBRANDT 

scattering of the offenders. The large ** Resur- 
rection of Lazarus " is assumed to have been 
completed in 1632, owing to the affix of van Rijn 
to the monogram. Vosmaer and Michel believe 
the print to be wholly from the hand of Rem- 
brandt ; Middleton-Wake attributes to him the 
design and the execution only of the central figure 
and that of Lazarus. Whether or not minor 
details were worked by a lesser hand, the whole 
composition is informed by the master's spirit 
in his use of the highly-focussed light bathing 
the dead man and drawing him back to life 
through the power of the guiding hand. The 
figure of Christ is dignified and imposing. The 
dominance of His powerfully magnetic personality 
is keenly felt, as also the psychic force flowing 
from Him to Lazarus. At this stage of Rem- 
brandt's career he was profoundly attracted by 
the aspect of Christ's divinity as displayed by 
his supernatural and miraAilous power ; he 
sought to indicate the quality of seer and wonder- 
worker by the suggestion of an impelling, out- 
going magnetism which impressed itself strongly 
on those around. Later, Rembrandt, through 
study and experience, grew into sympathy with 
another side of Christ's nature, less immediately 
obvious, more subtle ; as shown in the small plate 
of the " Raising of Lazarus," where the miracle is 



ETCHINGS 99 

wrought by the deeper, penetrating, all-environing 
power of divine love. 

In 1634 Rembrandt produced an etching, care- 
fully elaborated, which shows new aims destined 
later to bear rich fruit. **The Angel Appearing 
to the Shepherds " is one of his night pieces. 
In it the Dove, surrounded by rejoicing cherubs, 
broods in a glory of light in whose rays appears 
the announcing angel, a brilliance that makes the 
dark night darker. The rich velvety darkness 
contrasts vividly with the high white light ; in 
the half-light are seen water and trees and a 
distant city. The awakened shepherds are camp- 
ing in a rocky landscape. The suddenness of the 
apparition is admirably suggested by the hurried, 
pell-mell rush of startled animals that scurry 
away towards protecting shadow. In spite of 
certain ungainliness in the proportion of the 
figures the effect is very fine ; the great interest 
lies in the care bestowed on the landscape, no 
longer conventional and Italianised, but treated 
with considerable realism. 

The third important etching of this period 
dates to 1639, ^^^ large, very fine ** Death of the 
Virgin," one of Rembrandt's most masterly 
etchings both in technique and in originality of 
treatment, in the remarkable pictorial quality 
of the light, in the beauty of arrangement. 
Hamerton wrote concerning it, ** Every lover of 



o ^ • - * • 



loo REMBRANDT 

Art comes in time to have private predilections 
which he cannot always readily account for and 
explain. Thus, of all the plates of Rembrandt, 
the * Death of the Virgin * is the one that fasci- 
nates and moves me most." Despite the great 
richness of detail, of vivid contrasts, the plate is 
enthralling from the unity of informing idea, from 
the downpouring of heavenly light that encom- 
passes the death-bed, from the interest of the 
various degrees of emotion felt by the sur- 
rounding mourners, who are rapidly drawn with 
powerful characterisation. In its grandeur, in 
its suggestion of the power of an unseen presence, 
it is unrivalled. 

Between 1634 and 1642 Rembrandt's career as 
fashionable portrait-painter was at its acme, his 
output great. Houbraken testifies to his popu- 
larity, relates how his work was sought aftfer, so 
that sitters were compelled to await their turn, 
that indeed ** he had not only to be paid but to be 
prayed." His preoccupation with his work was 
such that, as another pupil writes, "When he 
was painting he would have refused to receive 
the greatest sovereign on earth, and would have 
compelled him to wait or call again when he was 
willing to see him." Such conduct did not tend to 
increase Rembrandt's popularity socially; there- 
fore, he was not courted for himself. When the 
popularity of his work waned he — the man — was 



PORTRAITS loi 

soon overlooked. His work engrossed him rather 
than his sitter ; he is known to have made experi- 
mental sketches of his subject in his effort to 
find the one suitable expression in pose and in 
technique. Hence the seemingly puzzling differ- 
ences in handling of pictures belonging to the 
same period. In one canvas the brushwork is 
full and free, the impasto thick, each stroke 
spontaneous, though definite ; there is no elabora- 
tion, and the details are occasionally worked with 
the butt-end of the brush. In another the hand- 
ling is more sought, more elaborated, perhaps 
more nervous, and shows greater finish. In no 
case is the end confused with the means ; the idea 
dominates. Occasionally there is evidence of 
patient reworking. Millais wrote of Rembrandt 
{Magazine of Arty 1888): **It will be remem- 
bered that Rembrandt, in his first period, was 
very careful and minute in detail, and there is 
evidence of stippling in his flesh painting ; but 
when he grew older, and in the fulness of his 
power, all appearance of such manipulation 
and minuteness vanished in the breadth and 
facility of his brush, though the advantage 
of his early manner remained. The latter 
manner is, of course, much the finer and 
really more finished of the two. I have closely 
examined his pictures at the National Gallery, 
and have actually seeriy beneath that grand veil of 



I02 REMBRANDT 

breadth, the early work that his art conceals from 
untrained eyes — the whole science of painting. 
And herein lies his superiority to Velasquez, who 
with all his mighty power and magnificent execu- 
tion, never rose to the perfection which above all 
with painters consists in ars celare artem, " 

That the great strength of Rembrandt the 
painter lay in his single-hearted devotion to his 
art is proved by the fact that popularity could 
not divert him from his passionate quest after 
perfection, after a keener insight into, and deeper 
knowledge of, human nature. Although his con- 
stant effort was to suggest personality, he suc- 
ceeded in his earlier portraits, of young women 
especially, in producing a fair semblance only of 
his sitter, always in an admirable setting painted 
with the realistic explicitness of the day. He 
does not exaggerate nor permit emphasis of 
eccentricity. Indeed, these portraits of young 
women of fashion, such as that belonging to the 
van Weede family at Utrecht, suffice to show 
that the painter was not what is termed a man 
of the world who could ingratiate himself with 
his lady sitters and compel them to reveal their 
personalities to him. Comparison of such por- 
traits with those of Saskia shows that the former 
are approached timidly. Beautiful as the picture 
may be the subject has remained remote from his 
ken ; the face remains a gentle decorous mask. 



PORTRAITS 103 

Later, as his powers matured, his knowledge of 
human nature deepened, his own experiences of 
life multiplied, his power to suggest the inner life 
of man or woman developed proportionately, to 
depict the psychological moment of an incident, 
to indicate the story of this or that character 
(especially of old men and women), written from 
within upon the fair parchment of flesh, hiero- 
glyphs of time unmistakable to the seer's eye. 

There is extraordinary power in the etched 
portrait of Jacob Cats, with his wrinkled face 
and large expressive eyes — the poet and states- 
man known in Holland as Father Cats ; of Jan 
Uijtenboogaerd, the Remonstrant preacher ; of 
Johan Antonides van der Linden, renowned doctor 
and professor at Leyden. To the same period 
belong the etching and the painting of Manasseh 
Ben-Israel, the many-sided Portuguese Rabbi of 
Amsterdam, physician, teacher of languages, 
author of certain theological works, and of a 
drama for which Rembrandt etched four illustra- 
tions. 

Fine, too, are the painted portraits of the 
** Young Man" in the National Gallery, and of 
himself with velvet cap and earring in the 
Louvre ; and the fine picture of the " Standard- 
bearer" (belonging to Baron Rothschild, at Paris), 
dressed in brown, with mezzetin cap and plumes, 
a proud figure outlined against the brilliant light 



104 REMBRANDT 

tones of the standard pointed above his head and 
draped over his left arm — probably a portrait of 
himself in the guise of a standard-bearer to one 
of the gaily dressed companies of archers. Critics 
are equally sceptical concerning the nationality 
of the so-called portrait of Sobiesky in the Hermi- 
tage, in which is represented a solid-looking man 
with the coarse fleshy features, clear, piercing 
eyes of the painter, with fierce moustache, and 
wearing a high fur jewelled hat, a velvet cloak 
trimmed with fur, and a jewelled chain round 
his neck. Very different to either, both so rich 
in harmonious colour and glow of light, is the 
masterly portrait of Rembrandt's frame-maker, 
belonging to Mr. Schaus, of New York, formerly 
in the Due de Morny's collection. It is painted 
with extraordinary reserve and dignity, in tones 
of grey, black, and white, against a black back- 
ground, relieved only by the warm flesh tones of 
health. To this period also belong a series of 
beautiful portraits of old women, such as those 
belonging to Baron A. Rothschild, and one of 
the painter's mother in the Hermitage ; appeal- 
ing figures, old heads shaded in soft velvet hoods, 
wrinkled faces and pathetic eyes painted lovingly 
and reverently by this singular man, of coarse 
exterior, with the vision of the seer, and the 
heart of a child. 



CHAPTER VI 

**THE MARCH OUT " — DEATH OF SASKIA 

1642 

Rembrandt's children — His wife's delicacy — Her portraits — 
Action for defamation — Their monetary condition — Pur- 
chase of a house — Second civic commission — The civic 
guards and their Doelens — '* The Night Watch " — Its import- 
ance in Dutch art — Its history and title — Its colour scheme 
— Method of the painter's middle period — A luminarist 
rather than a colourist — Problems of light — Opinions of 
contemporaries — Acme of prosperity — His pupils — His house 
and its contents — Mania as collector — Nude studies — His 
rivals — Saskia*s death — Effect on his work — Etchings. 

OUTWARDLY Rembrandt prospered. Into 
his home, despite his great happiness, 
sorrow had entered. The first-born child, Rum- 
bartus, died in infancy ; the second, Cornelya, 
died twenty-two days after her baptism ; and 
the same name was given two years later to 
another little daughter, but she also died very 
young. Finally, in 164 1, Saskia gave birth to 
their son Titus, so often painted by his father ; 
the boy seems in a measure to have inherited his 
father's talent, but at the age of twenty-eight pre- 
deceased his parent. On this child much love 

105 



io6 REMBRANDT 

was lavished. Rembrandt has left many sketches 
and drawings of the mother cradling and nursing 
her baby. But Saskia's health was now failing, 
and she had not long to live. There is a 
beautiful portrait of her in Antwerp, painted 
shortly before her death, that contrasts markedly 
with the radiant portrait of her, flower in hand, 
in Dresden, dating probably prior to the birth of 
Titus. In pose and costume they are similar, 
except that the red velvet hat of the later portrait 
has orange feathers, and the finely pleated 
chemisette above the dark-red, gold-embroidered 
robe is slightly open, showing the neck against a 
background of brown-grey. As usual, she wears 
earrings, necklace, and bracelets of pearls, whose 
beautiful colour harmonises with and balances the 
flesh tones. The face, however, is no longer in 
first youth ; the features are more delicate, the 
expression more thoughtful, the eyes a little 
wistful. There is an extraordinary charm in this 
portrait, painted in all likelihood when the second 
important civic commission was in progress ; the 
painter-husband has put into it the finest expres- 
sion of his ideal. A French writer, M. Breal, has 
recently suggested that the gentle resigned look 
that lurks beneath Saskia's smile may be because 
with the great painter Art ranked first in his life, 
that she may have sorrowed to hold a second 
place only in her husband's heart, that those eight 



"THE MARCH OUT" 107 

years of her life **were spent silently and dis- 
creetly in the luminous shadow which the master 
peopled with his visions.*' But I think another 
and more probable reason may be found for this 
sadness in the young face — the death of her three 
children ; the consequent disappointment, regret, 
and heartache that had so short appeasement. 
What she may have lost on the one side through 
her husband's dislike to society, she gained on 
the other through his stay-at-home propensities, 
his disinclination for the taverns and boisterous 
dissipations of the day. 

If his painting and his pupils absorbed much 
of his time, Saskia was his most frequent and 
ever willing model. When not in his studio 
he etched and drew beside her in the evenings. 
No one knew better than she how loving and 
compassionate was the heart of that coarsely- 
fashioned. God-fearing man. She devoted her 
life to him. He made it his pride to deck his 
darling in costly stuffs, furs, and jewels ; so much 
so that at last her relations complained she had 
** squandered her patrimony in ornaments and 
ostentation," whereupon the irate husband brought 
an action — in which he was, however, non-suited — 
for defamation, in protestation against the ** slan- 
der entirely contrary to truth." He sued for 
damages, and stated that his wife and he were 
** richly and even abundantly provided with 



io8 REMBRANDT 

wealth." Rembrandt was undoubtedly extra- 
vagant, for he had the collector's mania. He 
haunted the sale-rooms and filled his home 
with strange and rare objects, stuffed animals, 
arms and armour, with "paintings, prints, shells, 
horns of animals," according to the Register of 
Sales of 1637. Among these possessions was 
Rubens' ** Hero and Leander," for which Rem- 
brandt paid 424 florins. His pupil Baldinucci 
states that ** when Rembrandt was present at a 
sale, especially one of paintings or drawings by 
masters, he would start with so high a bid that no 
other purchasers would offer, and to persons who 
expressed surprise at this conduct he would 
answer that in this way he intended to exalt his 
profession." Baldinucci's statements as to the 
painter's ** kindness pushed to the verge of folly," 
to his readiness to lend or give ** everything he 
had to fellow-artists who borrowed from him," 
are emphatic denials of the charges of avarice 
made against him by other writers. He had 
wealth, his own earnings, a legacy from an aunt 
of Saskia's in addition to her patrimony, and his 
own share in his father's inheritance after his 
mother's death in 1640. However, he seems 
frequently to have been in immediate need of 
money, as for instance in 1639, when he purchased 
the house in the Joden-Breedstraat, in the Jewish 
quarter, and was able to pay down the half only 



"THE MARCH OUT" 109 

of the necessary 13,000 florins, leaving himself 
burdened with a debt which he was never able to 
discharge, and became the main cause of his ulti- 
mate undoing. It was of this house, doubtless, 
that Houbraken gave a graphic description as to 
the way the master isolated his pupils so that their 
individual qualities should be the better developed, 
** each isolated in his cell, divided off by partitions 
of mere canvas, or even paper, so that he could 
work from nature in his own way, without troub- 
ling himself about the others." In the Louvre 
there is a drawing which shows one of the cells 
with a student working from a seated female 
model, and in the background a series of similar 
stall-like cells stand open. From various sketches 
and etchings one knows that Rembrandt worked 
in the evening in the ordinary living-room beside 
his wife, but there is scant record how his own 
studio was appointed. In the M'Lellan Collection 
in the Glasgow Corporation Gallery there is a paint- 
ing attributed to Rembrandt called ** The Painter's 
Study," showing a painter before an easel work- 
ing from a nude figure with a gold necklace in full 
light seated on green drapery against a mauve- 
brown curtain, and a soft grey background. To 
a later date, 1647, belongs the etching " Artist and 
Model," a nude figure of a woman standing on a 
low pediment, a long palm in her right hand, and 
drapery over her left, while an artist is crouched 



no REMBRANDT 

in front of her, pencil and paper in hand. These 
may or may not have represented his own studio, 
but he seems rarely to have cared to depict the 
surroundings of himself or of his sitters, so intent 
was he upon the problem presented by the living 
face and personality. 

Through whom, or by what means, Rembrandt 
received his second great civic commission is un- 
known, but it seems natural enough that the rich 
captain of the Civil Guards of the First Ward of 
the city, — a ward, moreover, in which Rembrandt 
had resided — should commission the most popular 
artist of the moment to celebrate his captaincy, 
an artist who had proved his powers on a large 
important municipal canvas ten years previously. 
During the War of Independence these bodies of 
arquebusiers, or citizen volunteers, did much to 
ensure the final results, especially at the sieges 
of Leyden and Haarlem. Thereafter they became 
a popular institution ; the posts of captain, lieu- 
tenant, and standard-bearer were eagerly sought 
for — the picturesquely costumed post of standard- 
bearer being necessarily held by a man of wealth. 
These corps became the recognised guardians of 
peace and order in the city ; they had their re- 
spective drill-halls or Doelens, where they housed 
the various prizes won through competition with 
other companies of their own city or of neigh- 
bouring towns. These Doelens were decorated 



"THE MARCH OUT^^ in 

with paintings of the corps ; at first of the 
officers only and later of many of the members. 
Each sitter paid a share of the painting accord- 
ing to his rank ; each was desirous of a re- 
cognisable portrait. Consequently the earlier 
of these Doelen pictures were careful chronicles 
of fact ; * accurate, arranged in rigid, obvious 
line. Later, Ravesteijn had endeavoured to 
introduce a little interest and unity in the pic- 
ture, but Frans Hals only had succeeded in 
giving at once a living and an artistic present- 
ment in his magnificent Doelens and Regent-pic- 
tures at Haarlem. He adopted the favourite 
device — grouping his subjects, glass in hand, 
toasting one another round the banquet-table ; 
and gave to his compositions a sense of exuberant 
life, jollity, and well-being. The dominant feel- 
ing is one of vitality and of breezy good-fellow- 
ship between men as strong in their cups as 
with their arms ; there is always a vivid play 
of colour, a fine arrangement of line that harmon- 
ise in a brilliant whole, painted with unrivalled 
bravura. He, too, strictly observed his compact 
to give due prominence to all his sitters, and 
to make excellent likenesses of them. 

Rembrandt knew the traditional requirements 
of such compositions, but he had reached a point 
in his career when he no longer brooked dictation, 
but strove to work out his own ideas. It is not 



112 REMBRANDT 

known how long the so-called "Night Watch" 
was in hand ; but whether or not sketches had been 
submitted to the captain, he and his lieutenant, 
at least, had no cause for complaint. The artist 
does not seem to have made numerous preparatory 
sketches ; two are known to exist — a hasty sketch 
in pen and ink, and another in black chalk belong- 
ing to M. L6on Bonnat. It is certain, however, 
from documents in the Archives, that the picture 
was placed in the hall of the Doelen in Amster- 
dam in 1642, and that Rembrandt received 1,600 
gulders for it, a sum in excess of the then usual 
rate of payment. While he was painting it his 
wife was failing slowly in health after the birth 
of Titus ; the year of his triumph was darkened by 
her death. It is not known to what extent his 
anxiety and apprehension affected his mind and 
vision ; whether or not to these causes may be 
attributed inequalities, certain hasty passages, 
and barely concealed corrections visible in this 
extraordinary masterpiece, or how much the tur- 
moil of this clouded period of his own life may 
have affected his conception of a work that has 
been well named the turning-point in the history 
of Dutch painting ; and may, moreover, be con- 
sidered as the inauguration of the modern 
impressionism in painting. In the matter of tech- 
nique Hals, and especially Velasquez, are, equally 
with Rembrandt, forerunners of modernity in Art. 



"THE MARCH OUT'' 113 

In the so-called ** Night Watch" the artist has 
lost sight of portraiture as aim in his enthusiastic 
effort to suggest the movement and stir of depar- 
ture of a body of men called suddenly to arms ; 
the orderly confusion of the different preparations 
of officers and men united by one idea. It is 
obvious that to many of his clients dissatisfaction 
must have been given, but one recognises various 
of the artist's studio properties among the ac- 
coutrements and familiar types of faces among 
the men instead of a smart and more or less uni- 
formly dressed set of civic guards. The emphasised 
position of the chief officers and the studied 
elaboration of their dress show that Rembrandt 
adhered to some form of contract, and, indeed, 
has thereby somewhat strained the composition 
of his subject. In the eighteenth century the 
original title of the painting was forgotten, and 
owing to its dirt-begrimed and smoky condition, 
it was supposed to be a ** night piece," and was 
therefore called the ** Night Watch." In 1758 
the painter Jan van Dyck drew up an inventory of 
the pictures in the Rathhaus, and mentions the 
accumulation of oil and varnish he had removed 
from this painting. Tobacco and fire smoke and 
re varnishing had so affected it that in 1781 
Reynolds had difficulty in recognising Rembrandt's 
handiwork, and concurred in supposing it to be a 
night piece ; it was not till 1889, after a thorough 



1 14 REMBRANDT 

and judicious cleaning, that various delicate pas- 
sages of colour and effects of light reappeared. 
Even Fromentin, in his otherwise masterly appre- 
ciation of the picture, was misled in his estimate 
of the values ; for many transparent shadows 
were then obscured, the rich velvety shadows 
dulled, and colours falsified. 

The picture — according to a contemporary 
water-colour sketch reproduction in an album 
belonging to Herr de Graff van Polsbroeck — re- 
presents Francis Banning Cocq, * * the young 
Lord of Purmerland, giving his lieutenant, Herr 
van Vlaerdingen, the order to march out." The 
time of day can be judged by the shadow of the 
captain's hand that falls athwart his lieutenant's 
embroidered coat. Possibly the young Lord of 
Purmerland, to whom James H. had granted a 
patent of nobility in 1620, gave the artist a free 
hand on condition that he and his lieutenant held 
conspicuous positions, and may have been mainly 
responsible for the payment of the whole com- 
position, and have thereby given the artist scope 
for a personal rendering of the scenic and fan- 
tastic arrangement of detail. In De Gids for 
1870 Dr. J. Dyserinck describes certain docu- 
ments in the Archives of Amsterdam relating to 
**The March Out." In 1715 it was transferred 
from the Doelen to the town hall. In order to 
fit it into its new position, strips were cut off 



"THE MARCH OUT'' nS 

the canvas on either side and off the top, whereby 
the balance of the picture was destroyed. It 
might be well if, when a final resting-place for 
the picture is arranged — for its present position 
is unfortunate as to light and space — canvas 
were added to the picture to restore it to its 
original proportions, so as to give an approximate 
idea of Rembrandt's original design. At present 
it is mutilated, and therefore false in quantity. 
An idea of the original balance of composition 
can be gained by a comparison of the original 
with the small copy in the National Gallery by 
G. Lundens, a young contemporary of Rem- 
brandt. It will be seen that a portion of the 
drummer to the right and two figures to the left 
have disappeared, also the important left railing 
at the edge of a parapet which gave depth to the 
composition. As the canvas now is, the two 
foremost figures loom too large, and stand out 
of the canvas in a way that would be unfor- 
givable in the artist's own eyes. The colour- 
scheme of the picture, though rich, is subordinate 
to the chiaroscuro. It is colour sharply con- 
trasted, echoing the sharp contrasts of light and 
shadow. The captain is prominent in a black 
coat embroidered with gold and red sash. His 
lieutenant at his side is in pale buff, embroidered 
with gold or pale blue, a white sash, and white 
feathers in his light felt hat. The familiar steel 



1 16 REMBRANDT 

gorget round his neck reflects both light and 
shadow. These two figures start the scale of 
contrasts in the picture, light and shade inter- 
weaving throughout like the interplay of con- 
flicting motives — dark reds, dark greens, white 
ruffs, and flesh tones, transparent darkness be- 
tween the lieutenant and drummer contrasted 
with the dazzling light on the enigmatic little 
maiden in pale blue and white, with pale hair and 
gleaming pearls. The quiet, dignified figure of 
the standard-bearer holding aloft his orange and 
blue flag — from whose point light ripples to his 
face and breast — contrasts with the stir of move- 
ment of the gathering guards, heightened by the 
transverse lines of unquiet spears. Light falls on 
the foremost movers of the little drama, the troop 
is lost in vaporous darkness of the enveloping 
background. Much has been written and sur- 
mised about the little girl with her badly pro- 
portioned figure and face of Lysbeth. It is 
difficult to suggest the import of this symbol of 
the ** eternal feminine." Probably in the purse 
with gold tassels and the cock tied by the feet 
to her girdle she carries the prizes for the day's 
shooting. Whether or not she be a symbolic 
figure, she is certainly an important feature in 
the marvellous play of light and shade which 
contribute mainly to the great beauty of the 
whole work. 



"THE MARCH OUT^ 117 

In one or two pictures prior to **The March 
Out " Rembrandt had anticipated his chosen 
colour-scheme and method of treatment ; such 
as in the ** Samson " of 1635, "The Angel Leaving 
Tobias," **The Man with the Bittern," and **The 
Lady with the Turban." Cool backgrounds 
and soft grey-greens were succeeded by warmer 
harmonies, richer colours in finer chromatic 
arrangement, greater luminosity, and deeper 
penumbra. He no longer expressed design by 
means of ** arrested contours " ; he painted in the 
round, modelled his contours, softened or lost 
them in their environment of light or shadow ; 
he worked with broad touches, circling, sweeping 
strokes, and full impasto. In ** The March Out " 
the artist is as little emphatic with the persistent 
quality of his colour as he is with the outline of 
contours. He uses colour, not primarily to insist 
on the quality and texture of surfaces, but for its 
beauty under the play of light and shadow. For, as 
Fromentin was the first to point out, Rembrandt's 
great primary characteristic is not as a colour- 
ist, but as a luminarist, A colourist sees colour 
more delicately than form, and usually paints by 
contours rather than by line ; a colourist in the 
full sense of the term **is a painter who knows 
how to preserve the colours of his scale — be they 
rich or not, be they broken or not, complicated or 
simple — their principle, their special property. 



ii8 REMBRANDT 

their timbre, their accuracy, everywhere and 
always, in shadow, half-lights, and right into the 
highest lights." In this sense Velasquez stands 
pre-eminent ; also Giorgione, Titian, Rubens, and 
Frans Hals. With these artists colour is one of 
the means of safely expressing the temperament 
of their subject. The great Dutch painter recog- 
nised this value of colour, and at times so used 
it, especially in his earlier work ; but another and 
more absorbing problem took precedence of colour 
— the question of light as expressed by colour, 
rather than the effect of light upon colour. For 
his chief strength lay in his creative and poetic 
quality, which seized its subject and transmuted 
it through the crucible of his imagination, and 
dowered it with a new and forceful life. The 
seer's vision penetrated through the semblance 
of life to its inner realities^ And for expression 
he needed something more than colour only, 
for colour distinguishes the tangible and har- 
monises the obvious, but does not suggest the 
underlying mystery of things. Colour, as the 
expression of light and of light's negation ; and 
light and darkness as symbols of the great inter- 
play of human emotions, of vibrant life and its 
larger mysteries ; these were the problems that 
increasingly engrossed the painter. The realisa- 
tion of this fact helps to a truer understanding 
of this celebrated picture. 



"THE MARCH OUT" 119 

In any such standpoint there is sacrifice ; in the 
synthetic treatment of his subject Rembrandt sacri- 
fices much actual fact to his individual conception, 
many lesser details to his major impression. 

Rembrandt's effort in the representation of his 
highly subjective conception was to combine 
vigorous tonality with powerful chiaroscuro. He 
painted with light — ** shadow became his poetic 
vehicle " ; local colour was lost in one dominant 
scale ; methods and means are forgotten in the 
imposing impression produced on the spectator 
by the whole. 

M. Charles Blanc wrote of the picture before 
its recent restoration: **To tell the truth, it is 
only a dream, and no one can decide what is the 
light that falls on the group of figures. It is 
neither the light of the sun or the moon, nor 
does it come from torches ; it is rather the light 
of the genius of Rembrandt." And M. de Mont6- 
gut considers that it ^ ^ expresses effervescence of 
patriotism, happiness of independence that had 
long been fought for. It is Liberty in her golden 
age. It will preserve the remembrance of Dutch 
liberty perhaps even beyond the existence of 
Holland." 

This picture, so full and deep in tone, so totally 
unlike any traditional Regent-picture, so lacking 
in clear statement of fact, provoked much criticism 
and censure. The poet Vondel, who unfavour- 



I20 REMBRANDT 

ably contrasts it with the ** brightness" of Flinck's 
composition, alludes to Rembrandt as * * The Prince 
of Darkness," and expresses dislike of the "arti- 
ficial gloom, the shadows and half-lights." Hoogs- 
traten, writing in 1678, praises the ** symmetry, 
analogy, and harmony of the composition," and 
finds fault with the prosaic arrangement of figures 
in the traditional Doelen pictures. "True artists," 
he continues, "are able to give unity to their 
works. Rembrandt has been careful of this, too 
careful in the opinion of many persons, for he 
was far more concerned with the general effect 
of his picture than with the fidelity of the in- 
dividual portraits he was commissioned to paint 
therein. And yet, whatever may be urged against 
it, this work in my opinion is likely to outlive all 
its rivals by virtue of its highly pictorial con- 
ception, its admirable composition, and the vigour 
which, in the opinion of many, makes all other 
pictures look like coloured cards beside it." To 
this testimony to the vitality of this picture he 
adds : " Yet I wish he had put more light into 
it." For a time the painting found appreciators 
— it was a nine days' wonder ; but in reality the 
master stood alone, misunderstood, and, accord- 
ing to Houbraken, " when the passing infatuation 
of the public had subsided, true connoisseurs 
turned away from him, and light painting came 
into favour once more. " 



"THE MARCH OUT" 121 

Rembrandt had sinned against his generation 
— in their opinion — by contempt for traditional 
limitation, by his sacrifice of a lesser realistic 
study of nature for the realisation of essential 
characteristics. 

When this masterpiece was in process Rem- 
brandt touched the acme of prosperity and of 
happiness. He had received the most important 
civic commissions ; his little son was born, and 
lived ; and his Saskia, though still delicate, per- 
haps a little unaccountably so, still looked forward 
to a return of health. His pupils were numerous. 
Flinck and Backer had left the atelier, when from 
about 1635 to 1640 it was frequented by Jan 
Victors, Eeckhout, and Philip Koninck ; and these 
in turn were succeeded in 1640-2 by La Vecq, 
Ovens, Paudiss, Verdoel, Heerschop, Drost, 
Fabritius, and Hoogstraten. Moreover, the master 
had realised his desire to own a house in his 
favourite part of the town, where he could meet 
and study the largest number of most varied 
types, where he could house his extensive col- 
lection of paintings, armour, and curios. From 
the inventory of the sale of 1656 it is possible 
to form a vivid idea of the interior of his home. 
This house, now divided into two residences, 
stands the second from the corner, built in 1606 
of brick and stone, with a few steps leading to 
the entrance. The vestibule, furnished with six 



122 REMBRANDT 

Spanish chairs, was hung with twenty-four pic- 
tures, by Brower, Lievens, Seghers, and fourteen 
of his own canvases. The ante-chamber with its 
green velvet-covered Spanish chairs, its cabinet 
and mirror of ebony, its walnut table covered 
with a handsome Tournay cloth, was also hung 
with pictures. Of these six were by himself; 
others were by Pinas, Lastman, Lievens, Bramer, 
Seghers, de Vlieger, and still more precious, a 
Lucas van Leyden, a Palma Vecchio, a portrait 
by Bassano Vecchio, and a head by Raphael. The 
adjoining room was a veritable museum filled 
with pictures, several by himself, including a 
** Virgin and Child," and the nude study of 
a woman, examples of the rare Aartgen van 
Leiden, a van Eyck, and copies after Annibale 
Carracci. This was his etching and printing room ; 
for his use were a few household utensils, blinds 
or window-screens made of cardboard, to effect 
changes of light in the room, and his oaken 
printing-press. The large central room was the 
living-room of the family. It contained a large 
mirror, in which he may frequently have studied 
his own features, a table with an embroidered 
cover, chairs covered with blue, and a bed with 
blue hangings, a linen -press, and a linen-cup- 
board. The walls were adorned with pictures ; 
among them a Madonna by Raphael, a large 
canvas by Giorgione, and many by himself. 



HIS HOME 123 

On the first floor were the students' cells and 
the museum proper filled with all manner of 
things — plaster casts, statuettes in marble, porce- 
lain, etc. ; busts of Homer, Aristotle, Socrates ; 
globes, minerals, shells, plants, stuffed birds; fine 
china from China and Japan, a Chinese parasol ; 
arms and armour, and a shield attributed to 
Quentin Matsys ; casts taken from the life ; 
Venetian glass ; a few books, and sixty port- 
folios filled with drawings, studies, engravings, 
and etchings after, and by, the chief Italian, 
German, and Dutch masters, including himself. 
An adjoining cabinet was filled with more paint- 
ings and casts, and then came the atelier, divided 
into five compartments, and filled with Indian and 
Turkish armour, Oriental musical instruments, 
stuffs of all kinds, and among the plaster casts 
one of the Laocoon, then little known. The 
painter's own studio was also full of curios, 
among them the statue of a child copied from 
Michelangelo ; lions' skins decorated the vesti- 
bule ; and a small room, or office, was hung with 
ten pictures by himself. 

Such was the home of this strange man, who 
studied all the art movements of Europe, never 
travelled, but, as described by Pels, ** ransacked 
the town, seeking on bridges, at street corners, 
in the markets for cuirasses, Japanese poignards, 
furs he thought picturesque. ..." He had the 



124 REMBRANDT 

veritable collector's mania. Hoogstraten relates 
that he had seen Rembrandt bid. up to eighty 
rijksdaalers for a print by Lucas van Leyden 
(Uilenspiegel). And Sandrart, in his life of that 
master, repeats the statement of Johan Ulrich 
Mayn, who had seen Rembrandt at a public sale 
give 1,400 florins for fourteen fine proofs by 
Lucas, among them the ** Ecce Homo," the 
** Voyage of St. Paul to Damascus," the great 
** Entombment," and the ** Dance of the Magda- 
len." The inventory of the bankruptcy sale is 
an invaluable document in the study of Rem- 
brandt, both as a man and as a painter. From 
it we see what were the chief sources of his 
extraordinary development ; who were his real 
masters, in what way his dominating genius 
selected and absorbed what it required for its 
nurture and growth ; and how throughout his 
career he followed two self-appointed rules — to 
know all that was possible of the material side 
of his art, to try and probe the secret of the 
greatness of others, to learn from their experi- 
ences as well as his own ; and, secondly, to base 
his own work, informed by his own powerful 
imagination, on a close and rigorous study of 
nature. And we know that he studied the 
technical manipulation of his work as a positive 
exercise apart from the fulfilment of his concep- 
tions ; certain **Vanitas" from his hand prove 



HIS WIDE INTERESTS 125 

liis belief in the value of still-life study ; and in 
the fine ** Peacock and Pea-hen," belonging to 
Mr. Cartwright, he has made an admirable study 
of the feathers, of their exquisite gradations 
and harmonies of colour ; in his etching of the 
shell he follows scrupulously the lovely convolu- 
tions and traceries of nature. Then, again, we 
know how faithfully he studied from the living 
model, as shown in the series of wash drawings 
(in the forties and fifties) of women in various 
postures — rarely beautiful or admirable figures, 
a secondary consideration with the master, but 
revealing a close observation of the movement of 
muscles and of the play and intricacies of light 
and shadow on the delicate texture of the skin. 
The same careful research shows the series of 
studies of nude young men, made about 1646, 
and the admirable etching of **The Negress," 
lying on a couch, of 1658. He seems, also, to 
have frequented the newly-formed Zoological 
Gardens. In the British Museum, for example, 
there are valuable sketches in chalk, in pen and 
ink, and in bistre, of lions and lionesses, drawn 
with a knowledge and suggestion of power in 
the supine hinder-quarters that would do credit 
to a Barye. Elephants, a bull, hogs, and studies 
of horses are there also, which, together with 
the admirable landscapes of his later life, show 
how wide were his interests, and how unresting 



126 REMBRANDT 

and comprehensive were his studies and observa- 
tion of Life in every form. 

It is not difficult to understand why Rembrandt 
was held in disfavour by his fellow- artists and 
their admirers. They, too, studied the Italian 
schools, not intelligently but as imitators ; they 
created a fashion and kept within the safe limits 
of its prescription. Rembrandt took from any 
school what his genius needed, left and ignored 
all else, threw aside the timidities and limitations 
of convention, that haven of lesser minds. He 
absorbed himself more and more in the investiga- 
tion and working-out of his own ideas and im- 
pulses, and became the great exponent of Dutch 
types and character, but the interpreter, not 
merely of Dutch nationality, but of humanity. In 
overstepping recognised boundaries, he lost touch 
with the preservers of conventional taste, and 
lost his vogue and popularity in his moment of 
great sorrow. For in 1642 Saskia's delicacy cul- 
minated in her death, and on June 19th she was 
buried in the Old Church, leaving Rembrandt with 
a little son of nine months old. In the Heseltine 
Collection there is a pathetic pen-drawing of an 
anxious-looking widower feeding a child on his 
knee with a spoon from a bowl. A few days 
before her death Saskia signed her will, and made 
Titus her heir with the provision that Rembrandt 
should have full control of the money till his death. 



DEATH OF SASKIA 127 

or until he should marry a second time, on condi- 
tion that he should educate the child and give him 
a reasonable dowry at marriage. Should Titus 
die then Rembrandt should be sole heir. She 
excluded the ** Orphan Board " from intervention, 
and gave full authority and freedom to her hus- 
band, ** because she was confident he would act 
in the matter in perfect accord with his con- 



science." 



Saskia's death had an immediate effect on the 
output of work, which was relatively small during 
the next two years. The painter's popularity, 
moreover, was waning. Flinck, van der Heist, 
and other adherents of the clear, traditional 
methods of painting, and those who followed the 
** Italian" style, were preferred before the mysteri- 
ous, dark, disquieting manner of Rembrandt. 
The master withdrew more into himself. In his 
grief and disappointment, he accepted solitude and 
misunderstanding, and grew more and more a 
power unto himself, regardless of the adverse 
thoughts of non-sympathisers and rivals. He 
turned for comfort to the Bible, as had been his 
wont in all the main events of his life. **The 
Marriage Feast of Samson" and ** Belshazzar's 
Feast " memorialised his own nuptial festivities. 
Various Holy Families, *^The Carpenter's House- 
hold," **The Meeting of Elizabeth and Mary," 
" Manoah's Prayer," expressed his own hope of 



128 REMBRANDT 

offspring. Two Holy Families belong to about 
this time, one engraved as "The Cradle" was 
famous in his own day and copied by his 
pupils ; another, in the Hermitage, reminiscent 
of happier days, was painted in 1645, ^^^ ^^ ^ 
realistic presentment of a Dutch home. Of it 
M. P. Mantz writes : ** Here Rembrandt cast off 
the trammels of the text, enlarging and modernis- 
ing the theme. Even in painting a humble scene 
of everyday life like this he keeps the eternal 
truths of the spiritual life in view. In this master- 
piece of tender expression every detail charms 
and touches — the sleeping child, the attitude of 
the mother, the sweet emotion of her gaze, the 
peaceful atmosphere of the scene in which the 
little drama — Dutch, yet universal — is enacted." 
To .the year 1642 belongs the pathetic etching of 
his dying wife ; and later he produced the second 
plate of the "Resurrection of Lazarus," of Lazarus 
raised this time, not by the power of a magician, 
but by the power of divine love and compassion ; 
the etched sketch of "The Descent from the 
Cross " and the fine grisaille of the same subject, 
expressive of bitter grief, in the National Gallery, 
Until 1654, subjects such as "The Crucifixion,*' 
"Entombment," and other etchings representing 
Christ as the teacher and healer attracted him. 
The most celebrated among these are the power- 
ful dry-point of the Crucifixion, known as "The 



ETCHINGS 129 

Three Crosses," and the two beautiful plates, so 
full of human sympathy and divine love — "Christ 
Preaching," known as **La Tombe," and the 
famous ** Christ Healing the Sick," commonly 
called **The Hundred Guilder Plate." According 
to Bartsch the reason of this title was an ex- 
change of one of these proofs with a dealer for 
some engravings by Marc Antonio valued at 
100 guilders. On a fourth state impression at 
Amsterdam is an inscription in old ink, "Gift of 
my respected friend Rembrandt for * The Pest * 
of Marc Antonio," and a still later note affirms 
the inscription to be in the hand of the well-known 
collector, Pietersen Somer, or Zoomer. If Zoomer 
be the Italian dealer, this inscription suggests 
that Zoomer did not consider Rembrandt's plate 
the full value of more than one of the Italian 
proofs. Bartsch further points out that this 
etching was in that day not reckoned as one of 
Rembrandt's finest. 

In the Tonneman sale of 1754 at Amsterdam 
"The Portrait of Burgomeister Six" realised 316 
florins, "The Portrait of Tholinx" 251, "The 
Goldweigher " 137 ; the " Christ Healing the 
Sick" brought only 151 florins ; whereas at the 
Holford sale a fine proof of this etching realised 



K 



CHAPTER VII 

LANDSCAPES — HENDRICKJE STOFFELS 

Landscapes — Etched and painted — Method of expression — 
Hercules Seghers — Landscapes at Budapest and Crakow — 
Glasgow — Problems of artistic expression — Important por- 
traits — Religious compositions — Mature work — ** The 
Supper at Emmaus " — Head of Christ — Peace rejoicings in 
1648 — ** The Pacification of Holland " — Prices of pictures — 
Titus — His nurse — Her portrait — Transactions between 
master and servant — Hendrickje — Her portraits — Rem- 
brandt's friends — His home — Portraits — ** Burgomeister 
Six." 

TANDSCAPE was regarded by Rembrandt at 
I ^ the beginning of his career as valuable 
material for backgrounds in his pictures ; for 
style in its use he modelled himself on the Itailian 
conventions in accordance with the taste of the day; 
though the details in several of his compositions 
show careful observation of the growth of plants. 
He used pencil or wash to note down impressions 
and details, and after 1633 in etchings such as 
** The Angels Appearing to the Shepherds " land- 
scape becomes of more importance in the com- 
position. His first-known etched landscape is 
**A Large Tree and House," a ** View of Amster- 
dam," both made in 1640, and in 164 1 he produced 

130 



LANDSCAPES 131 

etchings of a ** A Dutch Barn " and ** A Mill with 
Sails." During- the ensuing sixteen years he 
etched several superb landscapes, broadly and 
boldly handled, yet full of fine perception and deli- 
cate observation, with effects heightened or wholly 
produced by dry-point with extraordinary mastery 
of material. The most widely popular are the 
sombre storm-study, **The Three Trees," **The 
Canal," and **The Vista," a beautiful dry-point 
of fine woodland. 

After Saskia's death the widower seems to have 
made more frequent excursions into the country. 
He etched views of Amsterdam, Omval, of ** Six's 
Bridge" near Hillegom, of Randorp, ** The Village 
with the Square Tower," and **The Goldweigher's 
Field " between Muiden and Amsterdam. Many 
drawings made about this time prove that he 
visited friends in their country houses, and also 
sketched views of Dordrecht and the Rotterdam 
Market. He sketched in chalk, pen and ink, 
with pen, bistre, and wash, and selected such 
subjects as a ** Clump of Swaying Trees," or the 
fine " Farm Buildings near a Brook" that antici- 
pates Constable in breadth of handling. 

The earliest known of Rembrandt's painted 
landscapes bears the date 1646, "The Frozen 
Canal," now at Cassel, painted in grey-greens 
and browns. Richer harmonies and broader 
handling are seen in the landscapes in the Wallace 



132 REMBRANDT 

Collection and the National Gallery, in that 
entitled **The Holy Family Resting in Egypt" 
and the magnificent * * Landscape with Ruins on a 
Hill " at Cassel. The artist's development in land- 
scape painting was as sequent as in his portraits 
and subject compositions. Fine exquisite state- 
ment of facts gives place to generalisation, crude 
realism to intelligent synthesis ; colour changes 
from clarity and a monotony of greys and greens 
to richer tones and deeper harmonies ; leafage 
and contours are expressed in masses in place of 
elaborate detail. Prosaic faithfulness develops 
into a courageous symbolic treatment of collective 
facts, and expresses a higher form of truth. In 
proportion as his feeling became more impassioned 
and his mastery of materials perfect, so did his 
touch broaden, the impasto became thicker, the 
handling more impetuous and generous. By a 
hitherto unattempted use of chiaroscuro, of trans- 
figuring veils of light and mysterious shadow, he 
attempted to interpret Nature's deepest moods. 

Thus it is his landscapes differ wholly in method 
and approach from those of his predecessors — 
van Goyen, Cuyp, Salomon van Ruysdael, and 
Roghman. Roghman certainly is his most direct 
precursor, as Philip Koninck is his immediate 
follower. The man whose influence was greatest 
on Rembrandt was the little -known Hercules 
Seghers, of whose work he possessed eight 



LANDSCAPES 133 

examples. Seghers lived misunderstood, and 
died in poverty. His engravings are remarkable, 
printed in monochrome on coloured paper ; and 
he is said even to have printed with oil colours 
in two or three tints. ^ Not only was Rembrandt 
attracted by his work, but he adapted a plate of 
Seghers for his ** Flight into Egypt" in the man- 
ner of Elsheimer, by substituting the Holy Family 
for **Tobit and the Angel," by retouching the 
trees, etc. ; and this plate obviously inspired the 
composition of the National Gallery Landscape. 

There is a lovely landscape at Budapest of a 
stretch of a river and field seen behind a group of 
trees beneath slowly clearing storm-clouds. The 
trees are rather hard in treatment ; the beauty 
lies in the fine play of sunlight which irradi- 
ates the intervening plains and atmosphere and 
lights up the flowing river with luminous touches. 
Even in Rembrandt's most sombre backgrounds 
there is a sense of atmosphere, in the deepest 
shadow a sense of motion and air. Still more 
beautiful is the landscape with **The Good Samari- 
tan," in Crakow. The figures are a mere detail, 
such detail as Giorgione used to mark successive 
planes of atmosphere and indicate receding dis- 
tances. The design is of twisted tree trunks 
upon a tapestry of rich foliage and intervening 
shadows. In the background lowers a dark 

^ Vosmaer. 



1 34 REMBRANDT 

storm-cloud ; in the middle (Ustance there is a 
stretch of landscape, with river, cascades^ bridges, 
windmills, and a country wain drawn by white 
horses — all radiant in the brilliant white gleams 
of sunlight that turn the verdure to requisite 
emerald, and glitter on the water and fans of 
the mills, on the harness and polish of the cart. 
The landscape with ** Tobias and the Angel," in 
Glasgow, painted in his later penod, seems in- 
spired by a loftier mood ; serene if less joyous, 
it is more synthetic in treatment. 

The magnificent portrait of **The Polish Rider," 
in the collection of Count Tarnowski at Dzikow, 
has a fine open landscape background. It is not 
known how or where this picturesque rider of 
the white horse, armed with bow and quiver full 
of arrows, was painted. Dr. Hofstede de Groot 
thinks it is done * * too much in the stroke *' to be 
other than a bona fide portrait. "The animal is 
alive and in vigorous action while carrying its 
heavily armed rider through the evening land- 
scape, the greater part of which is wrapped in 
twilight while the setting sun casts its last rays 
on the youthful figure. Students of Polish his- 
tory will recognise in his peculiar costume the 
accoutrements of the Lysowski Regiment. It 
is half European, as it were, and half Oriental : 
the skin under the saddle, the horse tail at the 
charger's neck, the two swords, one on either side 



PORTRAITS 135 

of the body (that on the right passing under the 
saddle), and, lastly, the battle-axe, they are all ele- 
ments which at this time had already disappeared 
from the equipment of European armies." Rem- 
brandt's one other equestrian portrait is the * * Por- 
trait of Turenne," in the Panshanger Collection. 

After Saskia's death the solving of various 
problems of artistic expression absorbed Rem- 
brandt wholly. He lived for his work, and it in 
return deepened and broadened ; every painting, 
indeed every stroke, bore the direct impress of 
this vibrant intense soul, who had passed beyond 
the stage of painting as the craftsman primarily, 
to that of the accomplished master who used his 
mastery of means (which to the last he continued 
to develop) to express his impressions of life, to 
depict the visions of the seer in touch with the 
straining heart-throbs of humanity. An endless 
curiosity into the mysterious workings of Life 
spurred him to ceaseless quest and experiment ; 
and to this we owe that marvellous sequence 
of self-portraits which forms an invaluable auto- 
biography of the great painter, both as man and 
seer. Among the most important portraits of 
this period are the beautifully luminous and 
refined "Gentleman with a Hawk" in the 
Grosvenor House Collection, and its pendant, 
the equally reserved and delicate ** Lady with a 
Fan"; the fine double portrait of Nicholas 



136 REMBRANDT 

Berchem and his wife, and the superb, dignified 
presentment of Elizabeth Bas. 

The year 1648 is important on account of 
two fine religious compositions — "The Good 
Samaritan " and the ** Supper at Emmaus " of the 
Louvre. Both subjects had often fascinated 
Rembrandt and occupied his thoughts from the 
beginning of his career. The Good Samaritan 
he repeated many times, with brush and needle. 
The painting of 1648 is his mature expression of 
sympathy with this most beautiful of the Parables. 
The scene is laid at the wayside inn, to which the 
wounded victim of life's mischance is carried at 
wane of day. Fromentin points out the evidence 
of ** the great importance attached by the thinker 
to the direct expression of life ; a building up of 
things that seem to exist in his inner vision, and 
to suggest by indefinable methods alike the 
precision and the hesitation of nature. . . . No- 
where a contortion, an exaggerated feature, nor a 
touch in the expression of the unutterable which 
is not at once pathetic and subdued ; the whole 
instinct with deep feeling, rendered with a tech- 
nical skill little short of miraculous. " 

** The Supper at Emmaus " of the same year is 
perhaps the deepest spiritual insight of any of 
Rembrandt's conceptions. All needless acces- 
sories are avoided ; it is treated with the utmost 
simplicity, yet breathes a profound sense of the 



STUDIES OF CHRIST 137 

reality of the Divine presence, of the marvellous 
spiritual Selflessness of the Risen Saviour. As 
Michel says of the scene : ** It was reserved for 
Rembrandt to comprehend and translate its 
intimate poetry. Henceforth it seems hardly 
possible to conceive the scene but as he painted 
it." The recognition and adoration of the one 
disciple, the dawning wonder of the other, the 
curiosity of the servant, the extraordinary sugges- 
tion of the mental absorption of Christ, the sense 
of divinity and non-earthliness that emanates from 
him, are marvellously rendered; and suggest, 
moreover, how fine, how reverent must have 
been the spirit of the painter, how profound the 
vision of the seer. Several of Rembrandt's 
studies of the head of Christ exist. One, the 
most beautiful, is a masterly painting possibly for 
this picture, probably the idealised version of a 
young Amsterdam Jew : it belongs to M. Kann. 
Another, less beautiful, but more finely idealised, 
was lent to the Amsterdam Exhibition of 1898 by 
Count Raczynski of Posen. Rembrandt was a 
supreme master of psychological portrait-painting. 
He even sought to suggest the character and 
tendencies of his sitter as intimately expressed 
behind, as well as through, the shape of the eyes, 
the lines of the mouth and forehead, the attitude 
of the lips, the position and type of the hands, 
the strength and quality of the hair. In no work 



138 REMBRANDT 

that I have seen is that knowledge better demon- 
strated than in this ** Study for a Christ,** painted 
in the artist's fifty-second year. No young man 
could have done this ; one who had himself lived 
and suffered could alone thus interpret a life such 
as this, suffering such as this. At first sight the 
features, expression, the head itself, are a little 
effeminate, but the face grows on one on closer 
study, and there awakes suddenly the realisation 
of all that it is meant to convey — through eyes, 
forehead, and mouth. Divide the face, and the 
right side is that of the dreamer, the spiritual 
poet, with large clear eye and serene forehead ; 
and on this side of the face Rembrandt, has 
focussed the light. The only hint of disquietude 
is the touch of red under the right eyebrow. 
Cover the right side of the face, and what a 
change. Here, on the left side, in slight shadow, 
all the vital stress, the suffering, the physical, 
and, what is more terrible, the nervous exhaustion 
of the man is shown by those three slightly- 
arched lines on that side of the brow, by the 
slightly contracted, restless eye, by the tell-tale 
redness of eyelid, of eyebrow, by the furrows of 
the forehead, absent on the right side, even to the 
edge of the hair. The mouth, too, confirms the 
eyes with its compression of lips on the right 
side, and the slight lift to the left upper lip, 
making the lips on that side almost parted. 



THE PEACE OF 1648 139 

What a story of dual nature in one individual 
this face tells — of the active, directing, high- 
wrought emotionalist, subject to terrible exhaus- 
tion ; and of the calm, well-controlled, impersonal 
dreamer and poet, whose thought outruns the 
possibilities of time. Many artists, either by 
instinct or by reflection, have depicted the strange 
problem of double nature as expressed by most 
eyes, but I know of none who have so deliberately 
endeavoured to depict the life history of a strongly 
defined dual nature as Rembrandt has in this 
study for a Christ, painted in his days of deepest 
adversity. 

1648 was a year of great rejoicing in Holland. 
The long war with Spain was over ; the Dutch 
Beggars had swept the Spanish galleons out of 
supremacy ; the peace was signed. Poets and 
painters alike vied with one another to com- 
memorate the event ; van der Heist and Flinck 
were called upon to execute important civic 
pieces. Rembrandt, once so popular, seems to 
have been forgotten. Yet he, too, evidently 
hoped for a commission, or it may be he com- 
peted for some stipulated design. At any rate, 
there is one interesting composition in grisaille 
intended to be worked on a large scale, now at 
Rotterdam, called ** The Pacification of Holland," 
** a confused, overloaded composition, full of 
subtle allusions, suggested, perhaps, by some 



I40 REMBRANDT 

pedant of the master's acquaintance. . . . With 
its two compact masses of combatants separated 
by a lioness chained beneath a shield emblazoned 
with the arms of Amsterdam and the legend Soli 
Deo Gloria ; its figure of Justice clumsily grasp- 
ing a scale loaded with papers ; its infinite variety 
of grotesque detail, is a mere jumble of enigmati- 
cal episodes. The general effect is remarkable. 
The neutral blue tint of the sky is happily con- 
trasted with the predominant brown and russet 
tones which are heightened here and there by 
fat touches of pale yellow applied with superb 
brio for the high lights."^ The picture was never 
accomplished, and the grisaille remained in Rem- 
brandt's house until the auction sale. Perhaps 
he was prompted to this essay by the commission 
he had received a year or two previously from 
Prince Frederick Henry ; for we know that on 
November 29th, 1646, he received from him 2,400 
florins for a ** Circumcision" and a ** Nativity." 
This was a high price in those days, for the year 
before the Prince had paid only 2,100 to Rubens 
for two large pictures. Another proof of the 
lost popularity of Rembrandt is to be found in 
the accounts by the poet Asselijn of the two great 
feasts of the Guild of St. Luke, in 1653 and 
1654, wherein no mention is made of his friend's 
name. Rembrandt's rival, van der Heist, figures 

^ Michel. 



GEERTJE DIRCX 141 

prominently in the courtesies exchanged between 
poets and painters on the drastic reorganisation 
of the Guild ; and though the full list of members 
is not given, one is surprised that Rembrandt'^ 
name should not be at least side by side with that 
of the younger rival. Michel concludes that 
Rembrandt was absent from the festival. Vos- 
maer, however, thinks he may have been present, 
for, in a poem written shortly after the f^tes by 
Jan Vos, "Combat between Death and Nature, 
or the Triumph of Painting," a prophetic vision 
of the glories of Amsterdam, he enumerates some 
of the ** painters and poets who swarm " in that 
city, among others, Rembrandt, Flinck, van der 
Heist, Philip Koninck, Bol; so that here, in any 
case, he is quoted at the head of the list. 

Meanwhile, Rembrandt's little son Titus was 
growing to boyhood under the care of a faithful, 
devoted nurse, who apparently ruled the house- 
hold. The widow of a trumpeter, Abraham 
Claesz, she had been carefully selected by Saskia, 
and proved herself worthy of the trust, for the 
child was delicate, and difficult to rear. His 
father drew and etched him, as he was wont to 
draw those near him ; there is a charming and 
light etching of him dated about 1652, and two 
very fine portraits. The one, in the possession of 
M. Kann, dated 1655, is dressed in fancy cos- 
tume. His doublet is of Rembrandt's favourite 



142 REMBRANDT 

reddish brown, with a gathered white chemisette 
showing at the neck, a green fur-trimmed cloak, a 
black velvet mezzetin cap and white feather ; he 
has pearls round his neck and in the large pen- 
dent earrings. The face, with its dark eyes and 
curling hair, is lovingly handled, and shows a 
delicate, sensitive face, a dreamy temperament, 
and the gravity of a child brought up among 
older people. Another portrait of Titus at about 
the same age, less fanciful, less beautiful, is in 
the Wallace Collection, dressed in brown, and a 
red cap on his soft curls. Half the face is in 
light and half in shadow, and the fine brown eyes 
are beautifully expressed. To this boy his nurse, 
Geertje Dircx, was so devoted, that in her will, 
dated 1648, she bequeathed to him all her pro- 
perty, excepting a small portion which should 
revert to her mother, and one hundred florins to 
be given to the daughter of a certain Pieter Beetz 
de Hoorn, together with her portrait. From the 
wording of the will, Titus obviously knew of the 
portrait among her possessions, and therefore it 
was probably in Rembrandt's house. The question 
arises — Was the portrait painted by Rembrandt, 
who, whether from gratitude or other reasons, 
would probably have painted the portrait of an 
inmate so long in his house? In the Teyler 
Museum there is a charming little pen and wash 
drawing, with an inscription identifying the model 



GEERTJE DIRCX 143 

with Titus's nurse ; but hitherto the portrait has 
not been identified. There is one portrait, how- 
ever, attributed to Rembrandt, about 1648, which 
in my opinion is in all likelihood the one in ques- 
tion. It is now in M. J. Porg^s' collection in 
Paris, and was bought in Scotland not long ago 
by M. Sedelmeyer. It represents an old woman 
seated with a Bible in her lap, and her left hand 
resting upon it, holding her spectacles. The old 
face is careworn and wrinkled, the eyes red with 
weeping. The colour-scheme is a harmony of 
brilliant reds and yellows cooling into greys. 
The expression is admirably rendered — a pathetic, 
sorrow-worn, harassed old face. My belief that 
this portrait represents Geertje Dircx rests on a 
comparison of the figure and costume with that of 
the inscribed drawing in the Teyler Museum, in 
which, unfortunately, only the back of the model is 
seen. But there is the same high-waisted skirt 
and voluminous band under the arms, the same 
fur trimming at neck and over shoulders pointing 
to a V-shape, the same kind of sleeves, and the 
same kind of close cap lying in folds or plaits 
round the head, concealing almost all the hair. 
The figure of the drawn model, moreover, is that 
of an old woman. When the picture was ex- 
hibited at the commemorative Rembrandt Exhibi- 
tion in Amsterdam in 1898 there was a divergence 
of opinion regarding its attribution, and it was 



144 REMBRANDT 

suggested that the style of handling was hardly 
"that of Rembrandt*s work at that period, neither 
large nor free enough, and that the colour-scheme 
suggested rather the work of his pupil Maes. 
This may be so, only it should be remembered 
that Maes learnt these particular tones and har- 
mony from his master ; also, the expression is so 
admirable, so indicative of the perturbed mental 
condition of the sitter, and treated with such 
sympathy, that I am inclined to consider it from 
the hand of the master. If so, it is painted some^ 
what after his earlier manner, but that also seems 
to me indicative of Rembrandt's sensitiveness, 
because in painting this patient old woman and 
her Bible his mind must have naturally reverted 
to his mother in her familiaf attitude with her 
Bible, and the work would thus sympathetically 
fall into the earlier manner. If this surmise be 
correct, the strained, wearied face and tear- 
dimmed eyes lead one to learn without surprise 
that in 1650 Geertje's health and reason gave way, 
and she was put into an asylum at Gouda. In 
Oud'Holland an account is given of transactions 
between master and servant in 1649, ^^ ^^ effect 
that Geertje made a claim against him, stating 
that the annuity settled upon her was insufficient, 
and took out a summons against him ; whereupon 
Rembrandt, supported by two witnesses, certified 
before a notary to the terms of his agreement 



HENDRICKJE STOFFELS 145 

with her. A few days later, when the nurse 
should have signed a deed in connection with her 
will, she ** passionately refused, and poured out a 
torrent of abuse.** Nevertheless, when her mind 
gave way, Rembrandt, at the request of her 
family, advanced money for her journey to, and 
the necessary fees for, the asylum. In 1656, 
when Rembrandt's bankruptcy was declared, he 
brought an action for the recovery of this money 
against Geertje's relatives, and had one, Pieter 
Dircx, arrested. 

One of the witnesses called by Rembrandt was 
a young servant girl who worked in the house 
under Geertje's teaching, and was destined to play 
an important part in the master's life. Recently 
found documents show that Hendrickje Stoffels, 
who was the peasant girl quoted as Rembrandt's 
**wife" or ** housemate" by Houbraken, was born 
at Ransdorf on the borders of Westphalia. She 
was uneducated, and used the sign of a cross as 
her signature. It is evident from the beautiful 
portrait in the Louvre of her that by 1652 she was 
no longer in the position of house-servant, but in 
that of housekeeper, or, in fact, of " housemate," 
for in that year she bore him a child, born dead. 
Whether or not a legal marriage ever took place is 
unknown ; but in 1654 the elders of her church 
interfered and censured her method of life and 
refused her the Sacrament. In October of the 



146 REMBRANDT 

same year she gave birth to a daughter, acknow- 
ledged by Rembrandt and christened by him 
Cornelia) a name already given to two of Saskia's 
children. She, like Saskia, sat as model to the 
painter, and is the subject of the finest of his 
nude paintings ; for, owing to the severity of the 
religious training of the day, it was impossible to 
procure refined models, and Rembrandt too often 
contented himself with coarse, vulgar, and even 
hideous figures. Hendrickje's figure is not beau- 
tiful in proportion, but it has a sense of youthful 
strength and vigour th^t is beautiful in degree. 
The finest of these studies are the **Bathsheba" 
in the Louvre, 1654^ the admirable ** Woman 
Bathing '* in the National Gallery, 1654, and the 
fine, boldly handled study of her in bed, in the 
Scottish National Gallery. Hendrickje, unlike 
Saskia, was a gentle brunette with large, faithful- 
looking brown eyes. In the **Bathsheba" the 
face is finely imagined, and if true to her suggests 
a certain degree of native refinement. The paint- 
ing of the luminous delicate flesh-tints are, as 
Dr. Bode justly writes, worthy of comparison with 
the best work of Giorgione, Titian, and Correggio. 
Hendrickje employed a young girl to help her in 
the house, and two portraits exist also of this 
sturdy little peasant, **A Girl with a Broom" in 
the Hermitage, and another version of her in the 
Stockholm Museum. In spite of her lack of 



HENDRICKJE STOFFELS 147 

education Hendrickje proved herself a true help- 
mate to the master ; she learned to help him in 
his direst straits, was a kind and thoughtful step- 
mother to Titus, and a more healthful companion 
for him than the nerve-distraught older nurse. 
The society of the rich and powerful did not 
attract Rembrandt ; he attached himself in prefer- 
ence to a few men of artistic taste, theologians, 
and thinkers. The manners and conventions of 
polite society in themselves were neither natural 
nor congenial to him. External restraints and 
conventions were irksome to him. A man of the 
people himself, he came into intimate touch with 
the underlying springs of human life more easily 
among the uncultured. Thus it was that the 
loving gentle nature of the devoted Hendrickje, 
with her obvious refinement of heart, appealed to 
the lonely painter, helpless in his home without a 
woman*s aid, and made him content with her as 
Saskia's substitute. Once more Rembrandt grew 
happy ; once more his home is kept in order ; and 
again he is able to devote himself untiringly to 
the production of his maturest and some of his 
finest work. The series of portraits of himself, 
etched and painted at this date, show him to be 
an older and graver man. The painting of 1646 
in Buckingham Palace, or that of 1655 in the 
Wallace Collection, and the etching of himself, a 
drawing of 1648, show him aged and dignified. 



148 REMBRANDT 

with deeply lined face, and dressed in simple, 
severe garb. All the fantasy and display of the 
earlier portraits are gone ; and the sorely tried 
man, the worker, the thinker, only, is revealed. 
In these years of comparative peace — for diffi- 
culties were gathering around him in hopeless 
tangle — he produced magnificent work, such as 
the dignified " Portrait of an Old Man," in a 
crimson dress and heavy mantle, at Dresden ; 
a broad, powerful study, the ** Man in Armour," 
at Cassel, and another in Glasgow ; ** Joseph and 
Potiphar*s Wife," in Berlin (another version is 
at the Hermitage), a superb harmony of rich 
colour. * * To avoid the gaudiness and incoherence 
of multiple tints he has with exquisite art confined 
the general tonality to the play of two comple- 
mentary colours, opposing the various reds of 
the picture to skilfully distributed greens. " ^ To 
the same year, according to a journal in the 
Six family, belongs the admirable portrait of 
** Burgomeister Six," Rembrandt's constant friend, 
from whom the year before the painter had 
borrowed money. Rapidly executed in a few 
hours with bold vigorous touch, every stroke 
tells, and the study is characterised by freshness 
and spontaneity, by broad simplicity and careful 
emphasis. The dominant colours are greys, soft 
reds and gold, in marvellous harmony. The treat- 

^ Michel. 



^' BURGOMEISTER SIX'^ 149 

ment of the face is admirable and sympathetic — 
the fine temperament of his friend is lovingly 
suggested ; the character and quality of the work, 
especially of the broadly brushed hands and gloves, 
is masterly in the highest degree. The por- 
trait is still in the family of the Burghermaster, 
and hangs opposite to that of his mother, Anna 
Wymer, the daughter of Dr. Tulp, painted in 
1 64 1, in a smoother and more elaborate manner. 
The friendship between Rembrandt and Six 
arose, doubtless, through the mediumship of Dr. 
Tulp, whose daughter Jan Six married, a friendship 
that stood the master in good stead in the days of 
his adversity. Jan Six was a cultivated man of 
fine tastes ; he became Burghermaster in later life, 
and owned a charming house in the country whose 
doors were ever open to the painter. Moreover, 
Jan Six was an author. In 1648 he published a 
tragedy, entitled MedeUy for which Rembrandt 
etched the illustration of the " Marriage of Jason 
and Creusa." It was for him probably that Rem- 
brandt painted the small head of Dr. Ephraim 
Bonus, a Portuguese Jew, now in the Six Collec- 
tion. In the same year he etched the interesting 
portrait of Jan Six standing at the window of his 
study, book in hand, with a pile of books lying on 
a chair, his sword and cloak thrown on a couch 
beside him. 



CHAPTER VIII 

BANKRUPTCY — LAST DAYS 

Bankruptcy — Causes — Commercial depression — Rembrandt's 
monetary difficulties — Claim on behalf of Titus — Partner- 
ship between Titus and H end rickje— Finest etched portraits 
— Solace in work — Portraiture — Second anatomy«picture — 
Biblical subjects — Prolific years — De Piles* records as to 
the painter's latest method of portraiture — Studies of old 
women and of himself— House in the Rozengracht — Com- 
missioned picture for the town hall — "The Sjmdics of the 
Cloth Hall " — Highest achievement — Death of Hendrickje 
— Latest paintings — Rembrandt's last pupil — The " Family 
(jroup " at Brunswick — Last portraits of himself — Death. 

AND Rembrandt fell upon evil days. Popu- 
jl\. larity, ease and comfort, finally his home 
went from him, and he was declared bankrupt in 
1656. Latter-day biographers and specialists — 
Scheltema and Vosmaer, Messrs. Bredius, Bode, 
de Roever, and Hofstede de Groot— have made 
patient inquiry into available documents and have 
made plain the reason of his failure. It was 
brought about, in minor part, by his decreased 
popularity owing to his independence of thought 
and method, by his refusal to paint in the popular, 
** clear " method exemplified pre-eminently by Van 



BANKRUPTCY 1 5 1 

Dyck ; and by the general commercial depression 
of Holland at that time, owing to the renewal 
of hostilities with Spain and war with England. 
Moreover, the Hollanders had been speculating 
heavily in bulbs, etc., and had suffered heavy 
losses, so that many of the important houses in 
Amsterdam stood empty. The major cause of 
the painter's misfortunes lay in his temperamental 
difficulty in handling money, in his lack of fore- 
sight, his generosity and extravagance. Although 
frugal in his habits, he was lavish in expendi- 
ture. The high prices commanded by his pictures 
gave him ample means for a time. The facility 
of making money obliterated any tendency to 
economy he may have had in youth, and en- 
couraged him in his very natural mania for col- 
lecting pictures, engravings, and bric-^-bac. 

The attempted purchase of his house in the 
Breedstraat was his final undoing. In 1639 he 
paid down the half only of the stipulated price of 
13,000 florins. He failed to pay further instal- 
ments, and after 1649 to pay the interest, or even 
the rates which then devolved on the owner of the 
house. He never possessed ready money ; blind to 
his own interests, he gave no thought to the future. 
Liberal to friends and artists in trouble, he gave out 
large sums for which he was rarely repaid. We 
know of his having twice lent money to Uylen- 
borch in 1631 and 1640. He helped his own 



152 REMBRANDT 

family ; lent money to his brother Adrian, the 
miller, ^whose portrait is in the Hague Museum, 
and to Lysbeth, who is inscribed on the Leyden 
register of rates as ** almost bankrupt and in very 
reduced circumstances." When he had no ready 
money he borrowed from the innumerable money- 
lenders at high rates. Finally, after many years 
of futile waiting, the owner of the house claimed 
immediate payment. Rembrandt endeavoured to 
collect moneys due to him from various sources, 
but failed. Among other projects, a collector 
named Dirck von Cattenbruch proposed various 
business arrangements and a loan of i,ooo florins 
in exchange for various pictures and engravings, 
and the transaction was fulfilled in part. Rem- 
brandt also borrowed 8,400 florins, a loan declared 
before the Court of Sheriffs. With this he paid 
part of his debt, and further gave a mortgage on 
his house to the value of 1,170 florins. Fresh 
difficulties arose when Saskia's relatives stepped 
in to claim and protect her son's portion. A state- 
ment was made showing that Rembrandt's pro- 
perty, in accordance with Saskia's will, had been 
estimated at 40,750 florins ; 20,375 florins were 
claimed for Titus. Thereupon Rembrandt ap- 
peared before the Chamber of Orphans and made 
over to Titus his interest in his house. His 
creditors were incensed, and a series of com- 
plicated lawsuits ensued which ended in the 



BANKRUPTCY 153 

declaration of his bankruptcy in 1656, when an 
inventory was made by order of the Court of 
**all the pictures, furniture and household goods 
of the debtor Rembrandt von Rijn inhabiting the 
Breedstraat, near St. Anthony's loch." Towards 
the close of 1657 the Commissioners of the Bank- 
ruptcy Court ordered the sale of Rembrandt's goods 
** collected with great discrimination"; a sale 
that extended over six days, but realised the very- 
inadequate sum of 5,000 florins ; and the painter, 
at the age of fifty-one, was turned out of his 
home, and sought refuge in an inn, the ** Im- 
perial Crown," in the Kalverstraat, and had to 
begin life again. 

However, he was not wholly desolate. Titus 
and the faithful Hendrickje exerted themselves on 
his behalf. In 1657 Titus made his will in such 
a way that he became protector of Hendrickje 
and Cornelia, to whom he bequeathed his property 
on condition that Rembrandt should during his 
lifetime enjoy the income therefrom. No mention 
is made in the inventory of sale of Rembrandt's 
working materials, nor of his copper plates, 
which, doubtless, he took with him. That these 
latter were not all taken from him, or else were 
bought in by Titus for his father, is shown by the 
arrangement Titus and Hendrickje entered into 
on the painter's behalf in 1660, for all his own 
earnings went to his creditors. The two in ques- 



154 REMBRANDT 

tion entered into joint partnership as dealers in 
pictures, engravings, curios, and into this they 
each embarked their whole fortunes, thus showing 
that Hendrickje either held or had earned money 
previously. Rembrandt was to be their adviser, 
and as such was to board and lodge with them. 
Titus allowed him 950 florins, and Hendrickje 
800, to be repaid as soon as Rembrandt could 
earn it. According to Houbraken, Titus tra- 
velled about selling his father's etchings, which 
were much sought for by collectors, and com- 
manded good prices. 

During these years of stress, from 1655-61, 
Rembrandt produced some of his finest etchings, 
several of them worked wholly in dry-point. 
Among these are the portraits of the two Haarings 
— members of the Insolvency Board — of Dr. 
Arnoldus Tholinx, that was followed in 1656 by 
the magnificently painted portrait of this eminent 
man, a masterpiece of broad, synthetic handling, 
vigorous modelling, and brilliant chiaroscuro. 
He also executed the superb etched portraits of 
Johannes Lutma, Abraham Fransz, the large plate 
of Coppenol, the "Goldsmith," five admirable 
nude studies of a woman, and among other 
religious subjects, "Abraham's Sacrifice," "Abra- 
ham Entertaining the Angels," "Jesus and the 
Samaritan Woman," and the unrivalled dry-point, 
"St. Francis Praying." After "The Woman 



BANKRUPTCY 155 

and the Arrow ** he produced no more etchings, 
possibly owing to the weakening of his eyesight. 

Notwithstanding the great stress and tension 
of these harassed years, filled with anxieties and 
endless annoyances, Rembrandt continued his 
painting with unabated powers, with unflagging 
zeal. In work only did he find rest — there only 
could he forget the difficulties that beset him. 
Strength and satisfaction came to him from the 
expression of the vivid, upwelling inner life that 
grew deeper as the good things of this life for- 
sook him. The spiritual quest never slackened : 
the problem of its outward expression continu- 
ously absorbed him. Facility born of his extra- 
ordinary mastery of materials never brought a 
lessening of effort, a slackening of strenuousness. 
To the year of his bankruptcy belong some of his 
finest portraits, wrought with extraordinary bril- 
liancy, power, and simplicity of synthesis. Two 
stand out pre-eminently: '*The Portrait of a 
. Mathematician," at Cassel, a profoundly psycho- 
logical study and fine expression of intellectual life, 
painted in tawny browns and reds, with delicate 
chiaroscuro and golden luminosity, a marvellous 
suggestion of deep thought lit by sudden illuminar 
tion; and the ** Portrait of Dr. Arnoldus Tholinx,'* 
a contrast as to colour-scheme, but equally fine 
in intuitive conception. It is painted with great 
reserve of colour, black costume and hat, but the 



IS6 REMBRANDT 

same healthful life is sugcgested by the vivid 
carnations, the force of character by the broad 
modelling) the powerful brain by the penetrative 
gaze of the keen eyes. 

Possibly it was through Dr. Tholinx that 
the painter received the commission from the 
Surgeons' Hall to paint a second anatomy- 
picture, to commemorate the professorship of 
Dr. Johannes Deyman. The picture unfortu- 
nately was burnt in 1723, the mutilated fragment 
that remains in the Rijksmuseum testifies to the 
breadth and power of the handling. A sketch by 
Dilhoflf, made in 1660, shows that the painter did 
not attempt to swerve from the conventional 
method of composition. The operator stands 
near a corpse with open abdomen, and lectures 
to nine students, while his assistant stands beside 
him holding the brain pan in his hand. Reynolds 
saw it in 1781 and praised the foreshortening of 
the corpse (obviously suggested by a drawing by 
Mantegna) and the sublimity of the head. At 
this time Rembrandt concerned himself more 
seriously than ever with biblical subjects, and 
four magnificent examples date to this time, in 
which the golden light and dramatic chiaroscuro 
of "The March Out" merge into a pervasive 
harmony of gold and tawny brown, quiet russets, 
pure reds, pearl greys, and neutral colours. In 
such wise is painted the fine "Denial of Peter" 



LATER PICTURES 157 

and ** Pilate Washing his Hands." Finer still is 
the superb ** Jacob Blessing the Sons of Joseph," 
a profound expression of human sentiment domi- 
nated by the calm of serene age and the solemnity 
of approaching death. Very subtly are the varia- 
tions of age and gradations of vitality suggested ; 
so fine is the impression that the mastery of means 
is almost unnoticed, the complete subservience of 
the handling to the poetical conception wrought 
with broad, dignified reticence. Very remarkable, 
also, is the grisaille of **St. John the Baptist 
Preaching," a complete study in browns, probably 
for an etching. There is a multiplicity of detail ; 
in an impressive landscape the preacher addresses 
an audience of rich and poor, young and old, near 
whom are sundry camels, dogs, etc. Nevertheless, 
owing to the rhythmical lines of the composition, 
the fine distribution of masses, the balance of the 
grouping, the great simplicity of eflFect is pre- 
served, and a sense of unity produced by the 
magnetic spell of the inspired prophet. Zoomer 
saw this grisaille in 1702 and described it as a 
* * picture as original and the art as extraordinary 
as it is possible to imagine. " Another painting of 
great repute in its day, **The Adoration of the 
Magi," a ** celebrated picture with the roof of 
Woerden tiles, superb and vigorous, in his best 
manner." It is now in the collection at Bucking- 
ham Palace. 



iS8 REMBRANDT 

From 1658-60 were prolific years. In 1658 he 
painted the last portrait of himself in fantastic 
array, probably before the break up of his home. 
He represents himself seated, staflF in hand, and 
wearing a wide cloak, soft mezzetin velvet hat 
low on his head, concealing his hair, a loose robe 
drawn in gathers over the chest. Round and 
below his neck hangs a sword girdle. The face 
is very remarkable, quiet in expression and finely 
modelled ; a man of strength of purpose and 
nobility of outlook, with clear bright eyes, and 
dignified mien as yet unbroken by the loss of all 
his household gods. To the same years belongs 
probably the little portrait of Coppenol in the 
Ashburton Collection, highly elaborate, of which 
the etching is an exact reproduction. De Piles 
wrote of his later portrait: **It was his custom 
to place his models directly beneath a strongly 
concentrated light. By this means the shadows 
were made intense, while the surfaces which 
caught the light were brought more closely to- 
gether, the general effect gaining in solidity and 
tangibility ; the forms modelled with great breadth, 
and a delicate transparency in the half shadows." 
In this method he painted the fascinating person- 
ality of the **Nicolaus Bruyningh " portrait, the 
*' Capuchin*' of the National Gallery, Lord 
Wemyss's ** Monk," with his head in shadow and 
the light on his book. Lord Feversham's ** Portrait 



LATER PICTURES 159 

of a Merchant," Lord Spencer's "Study of a 
Youth," and two studies of old men in the National 
Gallery and the Pitti. To this period also belong 
many of his fine and pathetic studies of old women, 
rendered with an intuitive sympathy that has never 
been surpassed, such as the ** Burghermaster*s 
Wife ** in the National Gallery, with thin sad old 
face lined with illness and suflFering, the "Old 
Woman Reading," with brown hood and white 
fichu, belonging to the Duke of Buccleuch, or 
the powerfully modelled imposing "Old Woman 
Cutting her Nails," belonging to M. Kann. This 
old woman is clad in a yellow gown and brown 
bodice with head draperies of pale yellow and 
grey ; the light falls full on her head, admirable 
in modelling and quality. Titus was frequently 
his father's model in these days. There is a 
portrait of him as a young man in the Louvre, 
and Dr. Bode considers him to have been the 
model for two other portraits in that gallery. 
Of himself, Rembrandt painted the portraits that 
are in the Uffizi and in the Belvedere, clad in his 
working dress ; also one belonging to Lord EUes- 
mere, and the other two in the Wallace Collec- 
tion and the Louvre. In these self-presentments 
there are no longer evidences of prosperity, no 
fantasy of adornment ; they show an aging har- 
assed man with face deeply lined and furrowed, 
with eyes sad and troubled, in plain working 



i6o REMBRANDT 

dress. In one case his hands are in his belt, in 
another he holds his palette and brushes ; his hair 
is thin and grizzled, his head bound in a white 
cap. Nothing is left to him but his painting 
materials and clothes of homely cloth ; and so 
careless has he become of his appearance that we 
are told when at his easel he ** wiped his brushes 
on the hinder portions of his dress." 

In 1 66 1 he settled once more in a home of his 
own on the Rozengracht, where, with the excep- 
tion of one year — 1664-5 — ^® lived till his death. 
Doubtless in this new home was painted the 
portrait of Hendrickje in white dress and red 
mantle, gold striped cap and black ribbon and 
ring round her neck, standing at an open window; 
also the ** Venus and Cupid" of the Louvre, 
probably a portrait of her and Cornelia. 

That Rembrandt was not wholly forgotten by 
his townsmen is proved by the two important 
commissions he received in 1661-2. The first 
was a picture for the Town Hall of Amsterdam, 
the second was his celebrated ** Syndics." Owing 
to the researches of M. de Roever, it is now 
known that in 1659 Flinck was appointed to 
decorate the town hall with a series of twelve 
pictures at 1,000 florins each, and on his death 
the commission for one of these passed on to his 
old master, probably through the intervention of 
Dr. Tulp. A fragment of the original is now in 



HIS MASTERPIECE i6i 

the Stockholm Museum, and in the Munich Print 
Room there is a drawing that gives an idea of the 
whole composition, now known to represent 
**The Midnight Banquet of Claudius Civilis, at 
which he persuaded the Batavians to throw off 
the Roman Yoke," a subject favoured by Vondel 
and other poets of the day on account of the 
similarity between the early struggles of the 
Batavians against the Romans, and of the Dutch 
against the Spaniards. Apparently Rembrandt's 
free and decorative handling of his subject did not 
please the authorities. What actually occurred 
is unknown, except that a mediocre painting was 
put up in its place ; and that eventually the central 
group of his composition, broadly and romantic- 
ally treated, and of an extraordinary brilliance of 
chiaroscuro, was cut out of the larger canvas, and 
is all that now remains of the original. 

The second commission met with better fate, 
and **The Syndics of the Cloth Hall" ranks as 
the culminating masterpiece of the painter's life- 
work. Rembrandt delivered this magnificent 
painting to the Guild of Drapers, or Clothworkera, 
in 1 66 1, to be hung in the Chamber of the Con- 
trollers and Gangers of Cloth in the Staaihof, 
where the following injunction to the Guild is 
painted on a panel in a Guild-picture by Aert 
Pietersen in 1599 : " Conform to your vows 
in all matters clearly within their jurisdiction ; 

M 



1 62 REMBRANDT 

live honestly ; be not influenced in your judgment 
by favour, hatred, or personal interest." In this 
painting Rembrandt has produced his highest 
achievement with the simplest means, and within 
the strict limits of conventional requirements. 
The Ave Syndics, black hats on head, are ranged 
round a sloping table, with their ledger and their 
money-bag beside them. The bareheaded servant 
stands behind ; one member rises to his feet, and 
all the others raise their eyes apparently at the 
approach of an unseen intruder. The accessories 
are of the simplest — a brown-panelled room, a 
table covered with a rich red-patterned Turkey 
cloth, and dull red leather-covered chairs. The 
costumes are black, with white Puritan collars, 
and bring out in strong relief the brilliant carna- 
tions ; a rich golden light floods fully and softly 
into the room. The faces are modelled with 
extraordinary breadth and strength, and painted 
with thick impasto ; the structure is solid, the 
values admirable, the unity and quality of im- 
posing mastery. The greatest reserve of means, 
careful emphasis of essentials, and wonderful 
harmony and luminosity are used to express in 
unmistakable terms the probity and uprightness 
of these burghers of Amsterdam, with their strong, 
quiet faces, and bright, intelligent, purposeful 
eyes. Fromentin justly wrote of this wonderful 
painting, " So perfect is the balance of parts, that 



DEATH OF HENDRICKJE 163 

the general impression would be that of sobriety 
and reticence, were it not for the undercurrent of 
nerves, of flame, of impatience, we divine beneath 
the outwardly calm maturity of the master. " 

About 1662 Rembrandt lost his faithful house- 
mate. By Hendrickje's will, discovered by Dr. 
Bredius, she made Cornelia her heiress ; and gave 
Rembrandt, as guardian, the life interest of her 
money which, failing Cornelia, she willed to 
Titus. To this date belong several fine com- 
positions, notably "The Praying Pilgrim," painted 
in yellow-grey tones, of high quality and unity 
of intention ; two portraits of men in the posses- 
sion of Lord Wimborne and Lord Iveagh, and 
that belonging to Mr. Boughton Knight called 
** Rembrandt's Cook." During the last years of 
his life Rembrandt's health failed, and his 
productions, according to Dr. Bode, are rather 
studies of himself and his intimates than commis- 
sioned portraits. His last paintings are marked 
by inequalities of handling and changes of method. 
Breadth and elaboration, thick impasto and merely 
sketched surfaces are used side by side on the 
same canvas ; delicate handling, and modelling by 
means of the butt end of brush or the palette 
knife used more or less experimentally, according 
to the master's whim, but usually with extra- 
ordinary effect when regarded from a distance. 
Such treatment, for instance, is seen in the power- 



i64 REMBRANDT 

ful portrait of a man and woman misnamed 
'•The Jewish Bride," or **Ruth and Boaz/' in 
the Rijksmuseum, a marvellous study of reds and 
golds, recalling in colour scheme and handling 
the brilliant "David Playing before Saul " of 1660, 
so masterly in its handling of textures and 
surfaces, but in the opinion of some, spoilt by 
the insignificance of the uninspired figure of the 
harper in the right-hand corner of the composi* 
tion. The ** Death of Lucretia " is apparently an 
experiment of the master's after the manner of 
Titian, and of it Burger wrote : ** It is painted 
with gold " ; and to a similar date belongs the fine 
so-called ** Workers in the Vineyard," in the 
Wallace Collection. 

In 1665 the long dispute with the creditors 
ended, and the majority of Titus, upon the appli- 
cation of himself and his father, was oflSdally 
permitted a year before the legal date, and he 
received his portion of his mother's inheritance 
and balance of sale, namely, 6,952 fiorins. At 
this period there came to Rembrandt his last and 
devoted pupil, Aert de Gelder, to work in his 
reconstructed home in the Rozengracht. 

Among the master's last works, always of great 
breadth and simplicity of means, are the portrait 
of a young girl in a white fur-trimmed mantle 
called ** Rembrandt's Daughter"; the portrait of 
a woman, in the National Gallery; the portrait 



LAST WORKS 165 

of an old man, belonging to the Duke of Devonr 
shire ; and the superb ** Family Group," in the 
Brunswick Gallery. This represents a father, 
mother, and three children wrought in a scheme 
of reds, pink and yellow, with brilliant high tones 
and intense blacks, a jewel-like radiance and soft, 
velvety colours, painted with extraordinary varia- 
tions and contrasts of methods, yet withal, from 
a distance, * * logical and vigorous. The values 
balance themselves, colours sing in radiant 
melody ... a stupendous creation which com- 
bines the vague poetry of dreams with the 
manifestation of intense reality."^ 

In 1668 Rembrandt produced the remarkable 
** Flagellation," now at Darmstadt, and the fine 
** Return of the Prodigal," at the Hermitage, 
described by M. Paul Mantz as an heroic painting 
**in which art finds most eloquent and moving 
expression. . . . Never did Rembrandt show 
greater power, never was his speech more per- 
suasive. . . . Here he shows all the formidable 
strength of the unchained lion" in the **fine 
frenzy " of the brushwork. 

To the last he painted portraits of himself. 
Foremost among these is a superb half-length 
figure facing the spectator, and holding a palette, 
maulstick, and brushes ; he wears a brown fur- 
lined mantle against a luminous brown back- 

^ Michel. 



i66 REMBRANDT 

ground, and the aged, nigged face and grizzled 
hair is surmounted by a white cap. To the right 
on the background a semicircle is traced ; for 
what purpose is not obvious unless to balance the 
palette. A noticeable point is that the hands do 
not show, and all the high lights are focussed on 
the cap. This masterpiece belongs to Lord I veagh. 
There is another portrait of himself as an old man 
in the Uffizi, and one in Vienna ; in both he is wear- 
ing his working dress. In another, belonging to 
the Duke of Buccleuch, suffering and adversity 
are revealed in the lined, rugged features, in the 
hair, now white, in the tired mouth and furrowed 
brow, in strong hands patiently folded ; neverthe- 
less the great, clear bright eyes look out before 
him. Stranger still, in the last of this inimit- 
able series of self-portraits, belonging to Herr 
V. Carstanjen, from the Double collection, he 
represents himself not beaten or wholly overcome 
by life's buffets, but laughing with toothless gums 
and kindly smile, indicative of the enduring youth- 
fulness of the great soul pulsating behind the 
trammels of age. 

Misfortune pursued him to the last. In 1668 
his son Titus, who had married a cousin in 1667, 
died, leaving a little daughter, Titia, a grief the 
old father did not long survive. Rembrandt died 
in deep poverty and oblivion, leaving nothing but 
**his clothes of wool and linen and his working 



DEATH 167 

instruments." In the register of the Wester 
Kirk is the following entry : " Tuesday, Oct. 
8th, 1669, Rembrandt van Rijn, painter on the 
Roozegraft, opposite the Doolhof. Leaves two 
children. " 



CHAPTER IX 

SUMMARY 

Neglect and misrepresentation — Solitary genius — His mental 
ancestry — Before his time, he outstripped the comprehension 
of his contemporaries — Authentic records — Huijgens' auto- 
biography — Sandrart's opinion — Rembrandt's self-portraits 
are his autobiography — Not embittered by life — ^The typical 
Hollander — His character and mental equipment — Uncom- 
promising as a painter — Technical perfection — ^Chiaroscurist 
— Colourist — Etcher— Appreciation by John La Farge — 
Rembrandt the supreme painter of woman and of old age 
— The master painter. 

MORE than a century elapsed after the death 
of Rembrandt before posterity awoke to 
the fact that his genius, both as etcher and as 
painter, was a potent factor in the development 
of northern art, and that it would be well to rescue 
his memory from the many legends and hearsay 
tales that had gathered round his name, misrepre- 
sented his personality, and abused his character. 
Recent critics and historians have with patience 
and care succeeded in freeing the memory of this 
great man from the tarnishing effects of ignorance 
and neglect, in presenting a juster estimate of him, 

168 



SUMMARY 169 

based on a reasonable and sympathetic study of 
trustworthy records of his environment, work, and 
influence. For, in order to apprehend his great- 
ness it is necessary to study the man who patiently 
worked out his ideal through shortcoming and 
failure, through high success and potent achieve- 
ment, to study the conditions and environment of 
which he was the outcome. We have to realise 
his rare creative imagination, controlled by innate 
more than by extraneous forces, that so wrought 
upon him that he became an active power in the 
development of art in Europe, an influence upon 
modern painting and etching that is greater to-day 
than it was in his own century. 

Regarded from one aspect of his genius Rem- 
brandt, in common with all great creators, stands 
strangely solitary ; he appears to us without a 
father, or kith, or son. He is Rembrandt simply. 
Nevertheless Rembrandt, as with Shakespeare, 
is not a brilliant accident, but a logical develop- 
ment. If Holland speaks its highest through his 
genius, his was no solitary utterance. He had 
his Marlowe in Frans Hals, his predecessors in 
Lastman, Elsheimer, Honthorst, Ravesteijn, van 
Goyen ; his sources in every well of genius, 
Venetian, Florentine, Milanese, Spanish, Flemish; 
his remoter spiritual ancestry in Lucas van Leyden, 
Jan Gossaert, the van Eycks, Albrecht Diirer. The 
sword of Spain shaped him as well as the Dutch 



' ' , , • 
• 4 • ' > 



I70 REMBRANDT 

Republic ; in his veins ran the blood of the 
ancient indomitable Hollanders, who had wrenched 
their country from the ocean, had conquered the 
hostility of nature and of foreign invaders, and 
had shaken off the tyrannous fetters of Latins 
and Spaniards. He descended from that noble 
congregation of nobles and peasants who had 
gained independence of rule and of religious 
thought after a protracted, bitter struggle. Out of 
this resolute and noble ancestry came Rembrandt, 
most typical and most independent, who in himself 
sums up the potent characteristics of his race. 
So typical was he that he outstripped the under- 
standing and sympathy of his contemporaries, yet 
strong enough to be a universal and supreme 
genius, one of the great sowers of the world, 
whose harvests are reaped by a later generation. 
As a painter he lived before his time ; popularity 
was his for a season, during the period when he 
was in line with his contemporaries, before he 
had developed the idiosyncrasies of his unique 
individuality. He tasted popularity and success, 
and knew their worth ; he put worldly ambition 
into the balance with his ambitions as an artist, 
and found it wanting. When the supreme trial 
of his spirit came ; when, like Job, he suffered the 
loss of wife, children, home, and worldly pos- 
sessions ; when his allegiance to his ideal was put 
to a final test, he was not found wanting. He 



SUMMARY 171 

testified to his belief in it until his last breath, for 
in his spiritual need lay his greatest strength. 

The authentic records of his life are few. Recent 
researches in the Archives of Holland have pro- 
duced a small amount of documentary facts re- 
lating chiefly to his relationship with an old 
servant, and to various transactions connected 
with his bankruptcy. The inventory of the sale 
by auction gives a glimpse into his home and his 
interests. The first written references to Rem- 
brandt are in the autobiography of Constantine 
Huijgens, written about 1630, which contains a 
reference to the master's Leyden period. Certain 
of his pupils and friends also wrote about him : 
Hoogstraten, Sandrart, and Baldinucci, at dates 
varying from ten to twenty years after his death, 
collections of fact liberally interspersed with hear- 
say fables. The following extract from Sandrart 
— whose acquaintance with Rembrandt ceased 
in 1640, when this German painter left Amster- 
dam — gives an idea of the way the great Dutch- 
man was regarded by his contemporaries at the 
moment of his greatest popularity, just prior to 
**The March Out": ** It is astonishing that the 
eminent Rembrandt, though born in the country, 
the son of a miller, was nevertheless raised by 
Nature to such an excellence in art that by zealous 
assiduity and innate inclination he reached so 
great a height ... he had no scruples in com- 



172 REMBRANDT 

bating our rules of art, such as the anatomy^ the 
proportions of human members, perspective and 
utility of antique statues, the design of Raphael 
and his ingenious works, and also of the Acade- 
mies so necessary to our profession. He never 
feared to oppose himself to these, pretending that 
one should submit to nature only and to no other. 
rules ; and thus, according to the exigence of a 
work, he approved the light or the shadow of the 
contour of things, even if that were in contracfic- 
tion with the horizon, as soon as his idea was 
satisfied thereby and it was favourable to his 
subject. Thus, as precise contours should be 
found correctly in their places, in order to avoid 
this difficulty he filled them with black shadows 
and contented himself only with the general 
accord and harmony, in which he excelled. He 
knew not only how to render in a marvellous 
manner the simplicity of nature, but also to 
ornament it with natural effects, by colouration 
and vigorous relief. . . . Let it be said in his 
praise that he knew how to break colours in a 
very ingenious and artistic manner, to repaint his 
panel with these colours, represent the true and 
living simplicity of nature, all the harmony of 
life, opening thus the eyes of those who are more 
users of colour than painters, in that they place 
one colour beside another, crudely in a glaring 
manner, so that they have no likeness to nature, 



SUMMARY 173 

but resemble patches of colours in a shop drawer. 
In his works our painter showed little light, 
except in the principal selected place, where he 
ingeniously focussed the light and the shadows 
with care as to the reflections, so that the shadow 
was penetrated by the light with great judgment ; 
his colouration was truly glowing, and in every- 
thing he showed fine spirit." 

The most valuable index to a right understand- 
ing of Rembrandt the man and Rembrandt the 
painter is a careful study of his work, and in 
particular of his long series of remarkable por- 
traits of himself beginning about his twenty-third 
year and ending shortly before his death, and by 
a supplementary study of the portraits of his 
mother, of Saskia, Hendrickje, and Titus. In 
these, and in the varying points of view and moods 
from which he painted and etched his numerous 
biblical pictures and drawings, may be traced his 
development in his life, in his art, in his home, 
in his methods of approach to and handling of his 
subjects, and his ever-deepening penetration into 
the psychology of human nature. Life was his 
absorbing study, and light, as the symbol of life. 
His approach to life was twofold. Primarily as 
the workman, skilled and untiring — as were all 
the painters of Holland — he studied life from the 
point of view of his profession, as a scientific 
craftsman, absorbed in the problem how best to 



174 REMBRANDT 

produce what his brain impelled. Preoccupied 
with chiaroscuro, he studied his characteristic 
medium of individual expression till he reached a 
degree of perfection and variety in technique, un- 
approached by his contemporaries and beyond 
their comprehension. Primarily as the workman ; 
but behind the craft and dexterity of the painter, 
impelling and inspiring him, was the vision of the 
seer, whose keen intuition was closely attuned to 
the hidden mysteries of the human heart, and 
penetrated the veils of flesh to the spirit within. 
His curious mind watched the complex weaving 
of the web of human emotions ; his sympathies 
were responsive to the suffering and sorrows of 
men and women. Rembrandt's soul was big and 
elemental, in intimate touch with nature, with 
all that was sincere and real in life, with the 
potent inner forces that underlie the outward 
appearances of things. 

In his ceaseless quest to know the mysteries 
of life, to find therefor the most forcible methods 
of expression, one special study was of pre- 
eminent value — the study of himself. ** Know 
thyself" was his guiding rule of life, though not 
in the analytic method of self-introspection. His 
was a sane though complex nature. Rembrandt 
the seer, thinker, philosopher, watched with 
curious interest the growth, the actions, and 
experiences of Rembrandt the worker. He was 



SUMMARY 175 

not embittered by his harassing after-life ; suffer- 
ing and hardship deepened and broadened his 
sympathies so that he, more than any artist, inter- 
preted and gave vibrant expression to the deep 
pathos of the life of Christ, and the all-embracing 
pitying love of the Saviour. This interpretation 
from within of external life was at once his 
strength and his limitation. What was foreign 
to his nature remained closed to him — for in- 
stance, certain phases of life, social and courtly, 
were unattractive and unexpressed by him. The 
habits, tastes, and associations of his youth 
swayed him throughout life. Born of upright, 
hard-working, self-respecting parents, he always 
preferred the companionship of workers to that of 
men of leisure. His early reputation, his marriage 
with Saskia, the influences at his command would 
have opened the doors of society to him had he 
craved it ; and while, owing to lack of culture 
and general knowledge, he could not have com- 
manded such preferments as those held by Rubens 
or Velasquez, he could have had at will the post 
of chief court painter to the Duchy of Holland, 
and with it commensurate wealth and prosperity. 
The necessary qualification of submission to im- 
posed conditions and conventional taste was im- 
possible to him. A typical Hollander, his inde- 
pendence of mind, of outlook, of technique, his 
sturdy, uncompromising personality, made the 



176 REMBRANDT 

ways and atmosphere of court and hig'h sodety 
impossible to him ; the very qualities that made 
him the culmination of Dutch art and a great 
pioneer of modern art tended to bring* about his 
material downfall. 

As a man he was warm-hearted, generous to a 
fault, careless in expenditure, lavish on anything 
connected with his work, simple in tastes and 
habits of life, affectionate and home loving. 
Educated as an ordinary burgher, he was no 
scholar. He studied life at first hand ; the only 
books he is known to have studied were the Bible, 
Josephus, and Albrecht Diirer's book on Propor- 
tions. In 1656 he possessed eight other books of 
subjects unknown. His friends were drawn from 
among professional men, doctors, and theologians 
of different sects and religions. Among painters, 
portrait-painters and landscapists attracted him 
most ; he does not seem personally to have 
known the court painters Rubens or Van Dyck. 
Neither was he attracted by the salons of the fore- 
most men of letters; either of the great poetVondel, 
who equally ignored the painter, or of Hooft or van 
Baerl. Academic subtleties and artificial conven- 
tions were foreign to his direct ingenious nature. 
In his old age a few friends remained to him, but 
he died in neglect and extreme poverty. 

As a painter he was no less uncompromising. 
When a youth, in Leyden, he worked with eager 



SUMMARY 177 

assiduity, and soon outstripped his masters^ At 
the age of twenty-six he was the equal of men of 
longer repute, such as Ravesteijn and Thomas de 
Keyser. Keenly observant, he noted all he saw 
— movement, expression, grouping, and above all, 
the play of light and shade in that northern land 
where days of sunshine and great clarity alternate 
with days of mist, lowering rain-clouds, and grey 
obscurity. Equally did he love the long low lines 
of land and water beneath that great curving ex- 
panse of sky : and the most personal appeal was 
the sudden burst of sunshine through a shroud of 
clouds ; the shaft of piercing light that scattered 
the flying shadows revealed with vivid emphasis 
objects focussed by the light, and intensified the 
concealing obscurity. He was the great poet- 
painter of light and its attendant shadows ; 
through these he ever sought to catch Nature's 
momentary revelations, whether in landscape or 
in human beings, and thereby to penetrate to the 
haunting environing mysteries of which through- 
out life all men are more or less conscious. 

In matters of technique he learnt all that the 
strong Dutch school had to teach. He painted 
in the "brown" manner of his master Lastman ; 
he studied the ** night effects" of Honthorst, he 
tested the approved methods of the ** Italianisers," 
and for a time used conventionally composed land- 
scapes, architecture, and drapery. Through en- 



178 REMBRANDT 

gravings, paintings, and drawings he acquainted 
himself with the methods of the old masters, par- 
ticularly of Mantegna, Michelangelo, and the great 
Venetians ; he copied oriental miniatures, and 
figures by Raphael and Leonardo da Vinci. 
From each and all he took what most he needed 
to build up his powerful idiosyncratic style. Be- 
fore all things he was the painter ; he tnuned 
himself to a free, full use of brush and pigment, 
and revelled in their handling. And in proportion 
as he gained in mastery, and his hand became 
subservient to his brain, he was ceaselessly pre- 
occupied in forcing his materials adequately to 
express the grandeur of his ideas, the penetrating 
quality of his perceptions, so that he ceased to 
express himself in one style only, but elaborated, 
or generalised, as his subject demanded. Never- 
theless, in the logical growth of his genius, in 
the deepening and enriching of his nature, he 
realised more and more the great power gained 
by the application of the law of sacrifice to his 
art. In proportion as his style broadened, and 
became freer, and simpler in composition, the 
more did he eliminate detail, and concentrate 
his emphasis on a few striking points. In por- 
traiture he emphasised the salient characteristics 
of his sitter, and presented the character as he, 
the psychologist, conceived it. He worked by 
contours, not by line ; he bathed his figures in a 



SUMMARY 179 

soft penumbra of light that merged into luminous 
shadow and deep obscurity in which all petty 
detail was lost. 

Second only to his marvellous use of chiaroscuro 
ranks his power as colourist. At first his handling 
of colour was clear and limpid, then richer, more 
bizarre and capricious, yet always dominated by 
certain carefully chosen hues ; he finally adopted a 
deep rich harmony of browns, soft reds, and 
cool neutral greys that play in a marvellous unity 
through light and shadow, in pure colour, in 
broken tones, used broadly, or in jewel-like juxta- 
position, in a manner akin to later modern methods. 

By common consent, Rembrandt, a superb 
master in the art of painting, is supreme as a 
painter-etcher. It is in his etchings, therefore, 
that we must seek the ultimate proof; in that 
marvellous series of plates in the shorthand, 
trenchant notes of this remarkable genius, Hamer- 
ton rightly says, **he owed success to no pecu- 
liarity of method, but to a surpassing excellence 
of skill." He enriched and enlarged the possibili- 
ties of the needle, refound and perfected the use 
of dry-point, and such has been his influence that 
he is virtually the founder of the present vigorous 
English School of Painter-Etching. 

Mr. John La Farge, the well-known American 
painter, has admirably summarised the master's 
power : ** Rembrandt had little of what is called 



i8o REMBRANDT 

exquisite taste, nor did he difFer in that fWun those 
around him. What is bad taste in him belongs 
to others. He seems to have admired it in men 
of the past, but to have had a perfect wifldom 
which prevented his gathering' what he oould not 
fully use, which he could not test by the life of 
every day. What is distinct and beautifid is 
apparently his alone. For the building of flie 
great structure of painting, of the planes ^^ 
direction of planes, the intersection of lines, what 
is called the interior structure, his abundant 
etchings and drawings must have made Mm 
master. Even in the paintings, occasionaOy in 
the obscurity of corners, he resorts to those 
abbreviations which his etchings and drawings 
show, a manner of starting only a few points 
which the mind fills in. 

'* Perhaps, after all, the etchings and drawings 
tell us more about himself, about his completeness 
of study, his intensity of perception, and the 
extraordinary feeling and sympathy which sepa- 
rates him from all other artists. There he could 
— for he was Rembrandt — throw away the greater 
part of his armour of art. Perhaps in the draw- 
ings in which he worked entirely for himself, we 
see still more intimately the mind of the master. 
But they are so subtle, they appeal to such a 
perception of nature, such a sympathy with the 
expression of the soul, that they require in the 



SUMMARY i8i 

mind that looks at them a sympathy that all 
cannot give. At my age and after long experi- 
ence I can say so. As a younger man I only 
guessed it." 

Neither is everyone competent to understand 
fully all his superb portraits ; for they can be 
appreciated only in accordance with the acute- 
ness of our own perceptions. The most modern 
quality in his portraiture is the beauty and reveren- 
tial tenderness with which he paints old age ; and 
his understanding of and sympathy with woman. 
For, woman in herself, the distinct personality, 
considered neither as a type, a symbol, nor in 
relationship to man or child ; woman, whose inner 
life IS a distinct growth with its own experiences — 
in short, woman as an independent factor in life — 
had not been painted till Rembrandt held the brush. 
Rarely, in the present day even, has she been 
painted with equal comprehension and sympathy. 
Girlhood attracted him in his later life for its 
vigour of young life. Early womanhood is typi- 
fied in his many portraits of Saskia. The final 
revelation lies in his portrayal of mature and 
aged women, touched and marked by the tragedy 
or pathos of life : quiet faces, lined and wrinkled 
by Time's fingermarks, with sorrow and suffering 
on brow and eyes revealing strength and weak- 
ness of character — though weakness of character 
had no appeal for this Titan — wise eyes and 



1 82 REMBRANDT 

thoughtful brows of those who had suffered in 
silence when their men folk were active in war- 
fare ; active brains of women who had handled 
the reins of a wise domestic authority and guided 
the lives under their roof to active, important 
issues. 

Rembrandt, in his handling of old age, is as 
truly the spiritual ancestor of his compatriot Josef 
Israels, the modern artist, who of all living* painters 
has conveyed the deepest vibration of the pathos 
of old age, as with his biblical compositions he is 
of Von Uhde, the modern artist, who of all others 
has the most simply and naturally interpreted 
anew, as a peasant interpreting his own folk, 
scriptural events, and biblical allegories. 

From the first Rembrandt was a profound 
student of humanity, and in whatever he did he 
was quick to see and express what of spiritual 
suggestion obtained in the subject. Throug^hout 
his life his most frequent study was himself; 
of his rugged face, with its massive contours, its 
dauntless expression, and keenly observant dark 
eyes. With brush and needle he has kept a 
record of himself from his early portrait at the 
Hague, through triumphant manhood, through 
years of harassed trouble, to his sorrowful, lonely 
old age, portrayed probably because of a natural 
and passionate curiosity that was more of an 
impersonal than a personal kind. This marvellous 



SUMMARY 183 

series of portraits — to be found scattered through 
all the important European galleries and in several 
private collections — is of the utmost importance, 
for not only do they demonstrate the growth and 
development of the artist as observer, craftsman, 
colourist — in a word, of the master painter — but 
they are convincing life-chapters which con- 
temporary and later records can serve only to 
illustrate. 

The man and his work and his genius are 
closely wrought. In Rembrandt there was till 
the day of his death an eager, dauntless, and 
insatiable spirit of life. In the last painting that 
left his easel there is the power and promise of 
assured and inexhaustible mastery. And to-day, to 
this hour, his influence is that of the only ** younger 
generation" which long prevails — the eternal 
** younger generation," the enduring youth of 
genius. 



CATALOGUE OF PICTURES 

The following is an approximate catalog'ue of 
pictures in England, based mainly on the cata- 
logues of Dr. Bode and of Michel. 

II.M. THE King (Buckingham Palace). 

The Shipbuilder and his Wife, Life-size. Signed and 

dated 1633. 
The Adoration of the Magi, Signed and dated 1657. 
Rembrandt and Sasiia, commonly called The Butghemuuter 

Pancras and his Wife, Signed. Painted about 1655- 

1636. 
Christ and Mary Magdalene at the Tomb, Signed and 

dated 163S. 
The Lady Tvith the Fan, Life-size. Signed and dated 1641. 
Portrait of Rembrandt, Bust ; life-size. Signed and dated 

164- (about 1645). 

H.M. THE King (Hampton Court Palacb). 
A Jewish Rabbi. Bust ; life-size. Signed and dated 1635. 

H.M. THE King (Windsor Castle). 

Portrait of a Young Man, Bust. Signed with a monogram, 
and dated 1631. 

Portrait of Rembrandfs Mother, Bust. Painted about 
1 630- 1 632. 

Cambridge: Fitzwilliam Museum. 

Portrait of Rembrandt in Military Costume, Life-size. 

Signed and dated 1650. 
Portrait of Rembrandt. Signed 1650. 



CATALOGUE OF PICTURES 185 

Dublin : National Gallery (Catalogue of 1890). 

The Rest in Egypt. Signed and dated 1647. 

Portrait of a Young Man, (Louis van der Linden.) Painted 

about 1630-31. 
Portrait of an Old Man. Signed. 

DuLWiCH Gallery (Catalogue of 1880). 

Bust Portrait of a Young Man. Less than life-size. Signed 

with the monogram '* R.H.L. van Ryn, f. 1632." 
Girl at a Window. Life-size. Signed and dated 1645. 

Edinburgh : Scottish National Gallery. 

A Youfig Woman in Bed, (Hendrickje StofFels.) Signed 
and dated 1650. 

Glasgow : Corporation Gallery. 

Small Fefnale Portrait. A youthful work. 

A Man in Armour, Life-size. Signed and dated 1655. 

Tobias and the Angel. Landscape with figures. Painted 

about 1654. 
The Slaughter-house. Painted about 1650. 

London : South Kensington Museum. 

The Dismissal of Hagar, Small figures. Signed and dated 
1640. 

London : The National Gallery. 

Portrait of an Old Lady of Eighty-three, (Fran9oise van 
Wasserhoven, according to an Indian ink copy of the 
portrait in the British Museum.) Life-size. Signed and 
dated 1634. 

Portrait of a Man. Dated 1635. Life-size. 

Christ before Pilate. Original sketch for the etching of the 
same subject done in 1636. 



1 86 REMBRANDT 

The Descent from the Cross, A sketch in grisaille for the 
etching of 1642, for which there is also a study in red 
and black chalk, bistre wash and oil colour in the British 
Museum. 

Portrait of Rembrandt, Signed and dated 1640. Life-size. 

The Woman taken in Adultery, Signed and dated 1644. 

The Adoration of the Shepherds, Signed and dated 1646. 

Landscape t with Tobias and the AngeU After 1646. 

A JVoman Bathing. Signed and dated 1654. 

Portrait of a Jew Merchant, Life-size. 

A Jewish Rabbi. Life-size. Signed and dated 1657, 

A Burgher master. Life-size. Signed and dated 1658. 

Portrait of an Old Man, Life-size. Signed and dated 1659. 

Portrait of an Old Lady, known as The Burghermaster^s Wife, 
Life-size. About 1660. 

A Capuchin Friar. Life-size. About 1660. 

A Woman's Portrait. Life-size. Signed and dated 1666. 

Hertford House : Wallace Collection. 

Portrait of Jan Pellicorne and his Son. Life-size. Signed. 

Painted about 1632- 1633. 
Portrait of Susanna van Collen and her Daughter (pendant 

to preceding). Signed and dated 16 — (about 1633). 
The Good Samaritan, Small reversed reproduction of etching 

of 1633. 
Rembrandt in Flat Cap and Double Chain. Life-size. 
Mountainous Landscape with Figures. Painted about 1640. 
Negro Archer, Life-size. Painted about 1640. 
The Unmerciful Servant, Life-size. Painted about 1664. 
Portrait of Titus, Life-size. 

Hunterian Museum. 
Entombments 1634. 



CATALOGUE OF PICTURES 187 



Private Collections. 

duke of abercorn. 
A Deposition, Signed and dated 1650. 

W. C. ALEXANDER, ESQ. 

Portrait of Rembrandt's Sister, 

Portrait of Rembrandt' s Mother. Painted about 1628. 

LORD ASHBURTON. 

Bust Portrait of a Man, Life-size. Painted about 1635, 

Portrait of a Man, Life-size. Painted about 1637, 

Portrait of the Writing Master Coppenol. Small figure. 

Signed. Painted about 1658. 

Bust Portrait of Rembrandt, Painted about 1658. 

So-called Portrait of Jansenius, Life-size. Signed and dated 

1661. 

W. B. BEAUMONT, ESQ. 

The Tribute Money, Small figures. Signed and dated 1655. 

ALFRED BEIT, ESQ. 
Portrait of a Young Man, Painted about i66a 

R. B. BERENS, ESQ. 

Portrait of Rembrandt. With chain and medal. 

THE DUKE OF BEDFORD (WOBURN ABBEY). 

Portrait of an Old Man, Life-size. Painted about 1632. 
Portrait of Rembrandt, Life-size. Painted about 1635. 

THE EARL OF BROWNLOW (ASHRIDGB PARK). 
Isaac and Esau, 
Landscape, 



1 88 REMBRANDT 

Portrait of a Jew, Signed and dated 1632. 

So-called Portrait of Hooft. Life-size. Signed and dated 

1653. 
Portrait of a Man in Fancy Dress. Signed and dated 1653. 

THE DUKE OF BUCCLEUCH, K.G. 

Portrait of an Old Woman, Life-size. Signed and painted 

at)out 1 655- 1 657. 
Portrait of Rembrandt, Life-size. Signed and dated 1659. 
Portrait of Saskia. 1633. 

A. BUCKLEY, ESQ. 

Portrait of a Man, Small size. Painted about 1655-1657. 

THE EARL OF CARLISLE (HOWARD CASTLE). 

Portrait of a Young Artist^ seated ayid drawing. Life-size. 
Signed and painted about 1648. 

W. C. CARTW RIGHT, ESQ. 

Dead Peacock and Peahen. Signed and painted about 1640. 

\V. CHAMBERLAIN, ESQ. (BRIGHTON). 

Remhrandf s Father in a Military Costume (a replica in the 
Hague Museum). Signed. About 1630-163 1. 

SIR FREDERICK COOK (DOUGHTY HOUSE, RICHMOND). 

Portrait of Rembrandt's Sister. Signed R. H. L. van Ryn. 

1632. 
The Prodigal Son. Signed and painted 1634. 
Portrait of Alotte Adriaans, ivife of Elias Trip, Signed 

and dated 1639. 
Tobit and his Wife. Small figures. Signed and dated 1650. 
Study of an Old Man^ seated. Half life-size. Painted about 

1654. 



CATALOGUE OF PICTURES 189 

THE EARL COWPER (PANSHANGER). 

Portrait of a Young Man, Life-size. Sig'ned and dated 

1644. 

Head of a Man, Small size. 

So-called Equestrian Portrait of Turenne, Life-size. Painted 

in 1649. 

THE EARL OF CRAWFORD. 

Portrait of Titus. Sig'ned and dated 1655. 

MR. DAVIS. 

Portrait of an Old Lady^ seated. Life-size. Signed and 
dated 1635. 

THE EARL OF DERBY, K.G. (KNOWSLEY HOUSE). 

Portrait of a Rahbi. Signed and dated 163- (about 1635). 
Belshazzar's Feast. Life-size. Painted about 1636. 
Joseph' s Brethren showifighis Coat to Jacob. Three-quarters 
life-size. Painted about 1657- 1659. 

THE DUKE OF DEVONSHIRE (CHATSWORTH). 

Portrait of a Rabbi. Life-size. Signed and dated 1635. 

LADY EASTLAKE. 

Ecce Homo. Grisaille. Study for the Etching of 1636. 
Small figures. 

THE EARL OF ELGIN (BROOM HALL). 
Portrait of Saskia smiling. 1639. 

LORD ELLESMERE (BRIDGEWATER HOUSE ). 

Portrait of a Young Girl of Eighteen. Life-size. Signed 

and dated 1634 ae. svae. w. 
Portrait of a Young Lady. Life-size. Painted about 1635. 
Portrait of an Old Man. Life-size. Signed and dated 1637. 
Hannah and the Child Samuel, Small figures. Signed and 

dated 1648 w. 



I90 REMBRANDT 

Small Study of an Old Man, Painted about 1655. 
Portrait of Rembrandt, Life-size. Sigfned and dated 165- 
( about 1659). 

THE EARL OF FEVBRSHAM (DUNXOMBE PARK). 
Portrait of a Merchant, Life-size. Signed and dated 1659. 

G. C. W. FITZ WILLI AM, ESQ. 

Rust of an Old Man, (From the same model as Studies in 
Mctz and Cassel Museums.) Signature illegible. 
Painted about 1632. 

F. FLEISCHMANN, ESQ. 

Portrait of the Paifitcrs Father, Signed and dated 1631. 

ALEXANDER HENDERSON, ESQ., M.P. 

Portrait of Wife of Burghermaster Six, Signed 1655. 
Portrait of his Wife Margarctha. Signed 1655. 

CAPTAIN HEYWOOD-LONSDALE. 
Portrait of the Painter, Signed and dated 1637. 

CAPTAIN G. L. HOLFORD, CLE. (DORCHESTER HOUSE). 

Portrait of Marten Looten, Life-size. Signed and dated 

1632. 
Portrait of an Old Lady, Painted about 1644. 
Portrait of Rembrandt, Painted in 1644. 
Portrait of Titus van Rijn, Painted about 1660. 
Portrait of a Man with a Sword, Signed and dated 1644. 

ADRIAN HOPE, ESQ. 

Portrait of a Young Woman, Life-size. Signed and dated 
1635- 

THE EARL OF ILCHESTER. 

Portrait of Rembrandt, Life-size. Signed and dated 1658. 



CATALOGUE OF PICTURES 191 

LORD IVEAGH. 

Portrait of a Young Lady, Life-size. Signed and dated 

1642. 
Portrait of Rembrandt. Life-size. Painted about 1 662- 1 664. 

MRS. JOSEPH. 
Portrait of Saskia, Bust. Signed. Painted about 1636-1637. 

LORD KINNAIRD (ROSSIE PRIORY). 
Portrait of a Young Woman, Signed and dated 1636. 
Portrait of Remhrandt, Signed and dated 1661. 

A. R. BOUGHTON KNIGHT, ESQ. (DOWNTON CASTLE). 

So-called Portrait of Rembrandt* s Cook, Life-size. Signed 

and dated 1661. 
The Cradle. Small figures. Painted about 1643- 1645. 

THE MARQUIS OF LANSDOWNE, K.G. 

The Mill. Painted about 1654. 

SIR E. LECHMERE. 

The Jewish Bride. Portrait of Saskia. Replica with slight 
modification of the Hermitage picture. Life-size. 
Painted about 1634. 

LORD LECONFIELD (PETWORTH). 

Portrait of Rembrandt 's Sister. Signed and dated * * R. H. L. " 
(connected) 16 — (about 1632). 

Portrait of Rembrandt, Signed and dated **R.H.L." (con- 
nected) 1632. 

Portrait of a Lady, Signed and dated 1635. 

A Girl with a Rosebud leaning on a Window-sill. Signed. 

Portrait of a Youth, Signed and dated 1666. 

MRS. ALFRED MORRISON. 

Portrait of Dr, Ephraim Bonus, Signed and dated 164-. 
Painted about 1642. 



192 REMBRANDT 

CHARLES MORRISON, BSQ. 

Portrait of a Young Woman, Signed and dated about 1665. 

SIR A. D. NBBLD, BART. 

Bust of Rembrandt with Turban, Signed and dated 1660 (?). 
Portrait of a Burghermaster, Signed. 

THE DUKE OF NEWCASTLE. 

Portrait of an Orator, Attributed to Rembrandt. 

THE EARL OF NORTHBROOK. 

Portrait of an Old Man, Signed and dated 1667. Life-size. 
Small Landscape with Streams, Painted about 1640-45. 

EARL POULETT (HINTON HOUSE). 

Bust Portrait of a Young Man, Signed with monogram 
**R.H.L." Painted about 1 628- 1 629. 

SIR ROBERT PEEL (DRAYTON MANOR). 

Moses found by Pharaoh* s Daughter, Small figures. Painted 
about 1640. 

THE EARL OF PEMBROKE (WILTON HOUSE). 

Rembrandt's Mother reading the Bible, Signed. Painted 
about 1630. 

LORD PENRHYN. 

Portrait of Catherine Hoogh, Sig-ned and dated 1657. 

THE DUKE OF PORTLAND. 

Head of a Boy, Signed and dated 1634. 

VISCOUNT POWERSCOURT. 

Portrait of a Rabbi, 

JAMES REISS, ESQ. 

Landscape with Canal, Painted after 1640. 

LADY ANTHONY DE ROTHSCHILD. 

Portrait of Rembrandt, Painted about 1656. 



CATALOGUE OF PICTURES 193 

THE DUKE OF RUTLAND, K.G. (BELVOIR CASTLE). 

Portrait of a Young Man, Signed and dated 1660. 

ARTHUR SANDERSON (EDINBURGH). 

Portrait of Rembrandt's Mother in Black Hood. 1630. 
Portrait of Old Woman, Signed 1635. 

THE REV. LORD SCARSDALE (KEDLESTON HALL). 

Portrait of an Old Man. Signed. Painted about 1645. 

THE EARL SPENCER, K.G. (ALTHORP). 

Woman with Flowers. Painted about 1660. 
The Circumcision. Small figures. Painted about 1661. 
Portrait of a Boy. Formerly called William Prince of 
Orange. Painted about 1655-1660. 

LORD WANTAGE. 

Portrait of an Old Lady. Signed and dated 1661. 

THE EARL OF WARWICK (WARWICK CASTLE). 
The Standard Bearer, Painted about 1660- 1662. 

THE DUKE OF WESTMINSTER (GROSVENOR HOUSE). 

The Salutation of Elizabeth and Mary. Signed and dated 

1640. 
Portrait of Nicolaes Berchem, Life-size. Signed and dated 
1647. 

Portrait of Wife of Nicolaes Berchem. Signed and dated 1 647. 

A Monk seated Reading, Signed and dated 1660. 

Portrait of a Gentlem,an with a Hawk. Signed and dated 
1643. 

Portrait of a Lady with a Fan, Signed and dated 1643. 
EARL OF WEMYSS AND MARCH. 

A Monk Reading, Signed 1660. 
o 



194 REMBRANDT 

LORD WIMBORNK (CANFORD MANOR). 
5/. Paul seated. Painted about 165& 
Portrait of a Man, Life-size. Painted about i66a 

EARL OF YARBOROUGH. 

Portrait of an Old Woman, Rather less than life-size. 

Paintud about 1636-1637. 

The following is an approximate enumeration 
of paintings in other countries. 

FRANCE. 

Kpinal Museum, 1 ; Xantes Museum, i. Paris : The 
Louvre, 17 ; Lucaze CoUcctioiii 3 ; Dutuit Collection, i. 

Private Collections : M. ]&douardAndr^,3; M. Leon Bonnat, 
3 ; M. Steph. Bourgeois, i ; Prince de Chalais, i ; M. Leon 
Ganchez, i ; M. Leopold Goldschmidt, 2 ; M. Haro, 2 ; M. 
Harjes, i ; Baron Hirsch de Gereuth, i ; M. Maurice Kann, 
3 ; M. Rodolphe Kann, 5 ; Mme. Lacroix, i ; M. P. Mathey, 
I ; M. Henr>' Pereire, 2 ; M. Jules Porgis, 2 ; Count E. de 
Pourtal6s, i ; Baron Alphonse de Rothschild, i ; Baron 
Gustavo de Rothschild, 3 ; Baroness de Rothschild, i ; M. 
Henry Schneider, 2 ; M. Charles Sedelmeyer, 5 ; M. A. 
Waltner, i ; M. E. Wameck, 4. 

GERMANY. 
Aschaffenburg- Museum, i ; Berlin Museum, 18; Royal 
Palace, i; Brunswick Grand Ducal Museum, 7; Carlsruhe, 
Grand Ducal Museum, i ; Casscl Museum, 20 ; Darmstadt, 
Grand Ducal Gallery, i ; Dresden, Royal Picture Gallery, 
16 ; Frankfort-on-Main, Stadel Institute, 2 ; Gotha, Grand 
Ducal Museum, i ; Hamburg*, Kunsthalle, 3 ; Leipzig, 
Municipal Museum, i ; Metz, Municipal Museum, i ; Munich, 
Royal Pinacothek, 10 ; Nuremberg, Germanic Museum, 2 ; 
Oldenbcrg, Grand Ducal Museum, 3 ; Schwerin, Grand 
Ducal Museum, 2 ; Stuttgart, Royal Museum, i. 



CATALOGUE OF PICTURES 195 

Private Collections : Herr v. Carstanjen, 3 ; Count Ester- 
hazy, I ; Herr K. v. d. Heydt, 2 ; Herr Carl Hollitscher, 2 ; 
Count Luckner, i ; Count Salm-Salm, i ; Herr J. Simon, i ; 

Herr A. Thieme, 2. 

HOLLAND. 

Amsterdam Rijksmuseum, 7; The Hag-ue, Mauritshuis, 9 ; 
Rotterdam, Boymans Museum, 2. 

Private Collections : Baron Harinxma, i ; Prince Henry 
of the Netherlands, i ; Prof. J. P. Six, 4 ; Baron Steen- 
g'racht V. Duivenwoorde, i ; Freiherr Victor de Stuers, 2 ; 
Freiherr v. Weede v. Dyckveld, i. 

ITALY. 
Florence : Uffizi, 4 ; Sig-nor Fabri, i. Milan, Brera, i. 

RUSSIA. 

St. Petersburg, Hermitage, 36. 

Private Collections : Prince Leuchtemberg, i ; Count 

A. W. OrlofF Davidoff, i ; Count S. Stroganoff, 2 ; Prince 

Youssoupoff, 4. 

SPAIN. 

Madrid, Prado Museum, i. Duke of Alva's Collection, r. 

SWEDEN. 

Stockholm Royal Museum, 9. Count Axel von Wacht- 
meister, 2. 

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. 

New York : Metropolitan Museum, 5 ; Museum of Fine 
Arts, I. 

Private Collections : Mr. Armour (Chicago), i ; Mr. W. H. 
Beers, i ; Mr. W. H. Crocker (San Francisco), i ; Mr. P. C. 
Hanford, i ; Mr. H. O. Havemeyer, 4 ; Mr. Robert Hoe, i ; 
Mr. J. Pierpont Morgan, 2 ; Mr. W. Schaus, i ; Mr. Charles 
Stewart Smith, i ; Mr. Sutton, i ; Mr. C. T. Yerkes (New 
York), 4 ; and seven other portraits in the hands of other 
American purchasers. 



ir/) REMBRANDT 

DRAWINGS 

The largest collections of drawings are to be 

found in : 

AMERICA. 
The Mctn)p(>litan Museum, New York, 9^' 

AUSTRIA-HUNGARY. 

Buda-Pest, Esterhazy Gallery, 15 ; Vienna, Alberiina, 33. 
Private Collections: Hen* Artaria, Vienna, 2; Herr J. V. 
Novak, Prague, 2. 

ENGLAND. 

British Museum, 91 ; The University Galleries, Oxford, 17. 

Private Collections : The Duke of Devonshire, Chats- 
worth, 35 ; Mr. J. P. Heseltine, 75 ; Mr. W. Michell, 7 (this 
(collection was sold at Frankfort in 1890) ; Sir Edward 
Poynter, P.R.A., 2; Mr. Georg"e Salting-, 17; Sir Francis 
Scymour-Haden, 21 (this collection was dispersed in Lon- 
don, 189 1 ; M. L^on Bonnat bought seven, the greater 
number of the remaining went to America); Lord War^ 

wick, 13. 

FRANCE. 

The Louvre, 26; Biblioth6que Nationale, 3; Paris, Dutuit 
Collection, i. 

Private Collections : M. L6on Bonnat, loi ; Due d'Aumale, 
4 ; M. Louis Galichon, 8 ; M. Paul Mathey, 5 ; M. Henri 
Pcrcire, 2 ; Baron Edmond de Rothschild, i. 

GERMANY. 

Berlin Royal Museum, 61 ; Bremen Museum, i ; Dresden 
Royal Museum, 67 ; Frankfort-on-the-Main, Stadel Insti- 
tute, 9 ; Hamburg, Kunsthallc, 7 ; Munich, Royal Collection 

1 These numlicrs arc approximate only, owing to the constant changes 
by acquisition and sales in the various collections. 



I 



CATALOGUE OF PICTURES 197 

of Drawing's and Engraving's, 40 ; Weimar, Goethe's 
House, 3 ; Darmstadt, Kupferstich Cabinet, 2. 

Private Collections : Herr A. v. Beckerath, 62 ; Herr E. 
Habich (Cassel), 4 ; Prince George of Saxony, 27 ; Dr. 
Strater (Aix-le-Chapelle), 8. 

HOLLAND. 

Amsterdam Rijksmuseum, 9; Fodor Museum, 14; Haarlem, 

Teyler Museum, 29; Rotterdam, Boymans Museum, 11. 

PrivLite Collections : Madame Kneppelhout, i ; Prof. J. P. 

Six, 2. 

RUSSIA. 

St. Petersburg, The Hermitag'e, 9. 

SWEDEN. 

Stockholm Royal Museum, 90. 
Private Collection : Herr Josephson, 2. 



ETCHINGS 

Opinions differ as to the number of authentic etching's by 
Rembrandt. The finest public collections will be found in 
Amsterdam, Paris, the British Museum, Vienna, Frankfort. 
The most important private collections are those of Captain 
Holford, in London ; Herr Artaria, in Vienna ; of Dr. 
Straeter, at Aix-la-Chapelle ; M. D. Rovinsky, in St Peters- 
burg ; M. Edmond de Rothschild ; and that of M. Dutuit, 
bequeathed in 1902 to France. 



BIBLIOGRAPHY 

J. J. Orlers. Beschryving der Stad Leiden, Leyden, 1641. 
Samuel van Hoog'straten, Inleyding tot de hooge School der 

Schilderkonst, Rotterdam, 1678. 
Joachim de Sandrart. Academia nohilissimce artis pictorug, 

fol. Nuremberg", 1675- 1683. 
Arnold Houbraken. De groote Shoubourgh der nederlandsdie 

Konstschilders. 3 vols. Amsterdam, 1718-1719. 
Adam Bartsch. Catalogue raisonnd de toutes les Estampes 

qui forme nt Voeuvre de Rembrandt et ceux de ses princi- 

paux iniitateurs. 2 vols. 8vo. Vienna, 1797. 
Thomas Wilson. A descriptive Catalogue of the Works of 

Re77ibra?idt. By an amateur. 8vo. London, 1836. 
John Smith. Catalogue raisonnd of the Works of the most 

C7ninent Dutch, Flemish, and French Painters, 9 vols. 

8vo. London, 1829- 1842. Vol. vii. (1836) is specially 

devoted to Rembrandt's Works. 
W. Burger (T. E. J. Thor^). TrSsors d*art exposes h 

Manchester in 18^^. i2mo. Paris, 1857. 
Les Musses de Belgique et de Hollande, 3 vols. i2mo. 

Paris, 1858, i860, 1862. 
Dr. Scheltema. Rembrandt : Discours sur sa Vie et Son 

Gdnie. Published and annotated by W. Biirger, Paris. 

8vo. 1866. 
P. G. Hamerton. Etching and Etchers, 8vo. London, 1868. 
F. Seyniour-Haden. Introductory Remarks to the Catalogue 

of the Etched Work of Rembrandt (Burlington Fine 

Arts Club Exhibition). 4to. London, 1877. 
L oeuvres gravd de Rembrandt, 8vo. Paris, 1 88a 

198 



BIBLIOGRAPHY 199 

C. Vosmaer. Rembrandt, sa Vie et ses CEuvres. i vol. 8vo. 
The Hague and Paris, 1877, 

Eugene Fromentin. Les Mattres d* Autrefois, i2mo. Paris, 
1877. 

C. H. Middleton-Wake. A Descriptive Catalogue of the 
Etched Work of Rembrandt van Rhyn, London, 1878. 

Charies Blanc. L'oeuvre complet de Rembratidt d^crit et 
comments, 2 vols. fol. Paris, 1880. 

A. Bredius and N. de Roever. Oud-Holland, A periodical 
published in Amsterdam in 1882, etc. etc. 4to. 

W. Bode. Studien zur Geschichte der holldndischen Malereu 
8vo. Brunswick, 1883. 

A. Bredius. Les chefs d' CEuvres du Mus4e Royal d' Amster- 
dam, French translation. Fol. Paris, 1890. 

Die Meisterwerke der koniglichen Gem.dlde Galerie im. 

Haag. Fol. Munich, 1890. 

Dr. F. Lippmann. Original Drawings by Rembrandt, repro- 
duced in Phototype. London,* Berlin, and Paris. 200 
drawings in four issues. 1889- 1892. 

Malcolm Bell. Rembrandt, London, 1899. 

Emile Michel. Rembrandt : his Life, Work, and Times, 
English translation. 2 vols. 1894. 

W. Bode and C. Hofstede de Groot. Complete Work of Rem- 
brandt, Translated by Florence Symonds. 2 vols. Paris, 
1899-1902. 

Sidney Colvin. Guide to an Exhibition of Drawings and 
Etchings by Rembrandt in the British Museum,. Printed 
by order of the Trustees. 1899. 

Dmitri Rovinski. L'oeuvre gravd de Rembrandt, Repro- 
duction of original plates in all their successive states. 
1,000 phototypes. Fol. St. Petersburg, 1890. 

W. von Seidlitz. Rembrandt's Radirungen, Published in 
the Zeitschrift fUr bildende Kunst, 1892. 



INDEX 



" Adoration of the Magi, The," 

157 
Alva, Duke of, 5 

Amsterdam, 56, 65 

Anatomy pictures, 48, 61, 62, 

64-5, 156 
** Angel Appearing to the 

Shepherds, The," 94, 99 
Animals, Sketches of, 125 
Antonio, Marc, 129 
Archives of Holland, The, 47, 

114 
Aristotle, 123 
Arminius, 23 
** Artemisia receiving the 

Ashes of Mausolus," 81 
* * Ascension, An , " 85 
Asselijn, 140 

liacker, 121 

l^aldinucci, 108, 171 

l^ankruptcy, 150 

^artsch, 129 

^assano Vecchio, 122 

I'Bathsheba," 146 
* Belshazzar's Feast," 89, 127 
^erlin Gallery, 41 43» 76, 148 
■'biblical paintings, 40-3, 46, 

p., 49,84-8,91,127,136,156 
:g'anc, Charles, 25, 119 
^^;le, Dr., 25, 66, 72, 150, 163 
'^ • Ferdinand, 96, 97 



Bramer, 35, 93 

Bray, van, 61 

Bredius, Dr., 25, 43, 55, 150 

Brera, The, 73 

British Museum, The, 45, 59, 

60, 91, 95, 125 
Brouer, 122 
Buckingham Palace, 69, 147, 

157 



(f 



Calumny of Apelles, The," 

58 
Calvin, 10, 11, 15 

*'Canal, The," 131 

Carracci, Annibale, 14, 122 

Cassel Museum, The, 67, 73, 

76, 132, 155 
*' Christ Healing the Sick," 

94, 129 
Correggio, 146 
"Crucifixion, The," 128 
Cuyp, Old, 16, 132 

"Danae,"82, 89 

** David Playing before Saul," 

164 
** Death of Lucretia, The," 164 
** Death of the Virgin, The," 

99 
De Goudt, 34 

De Moleyns, 34 

I ** Denial of Peter, The," 154 



INDEX 



20 1 



"Descent from the Cross, 

The," 84, 128 
Dircx, Geertje, 142-5 
" Disciples at Emmaus, The," 

42, 97, 136 
Dou, Gerard, 37 
Drawings, 45, 58, 60, 79, 

125-7-8, I39» 147 
Dresden, Gallery, The, 81, 90, 

148, 152 
Drost, 121 
Durer, Albrecht, 34, 93, 169, 

176 
Dutch art, 12, 13, 33 
Dutch East India Company, 8 
Dyck, Van, 176 

"Ecce Homo," 95 
Eclectics, 14 
Eeckhout, 121 
Elias, Nicholas, 65 
Elsheimer, 14, 34, 93, 169 
Engelbrechsz, Cornelius, 31 
'* Entombment, An," 185 
" Erection of the Cross, '^ 85 
Etching. The art of, 34, 45, 175 
Etchings, 43, 51, 66, 72, 75, 
^T, 88, 92, 97, 109, 125, 
128, 131, 147, 154 
Eyck, van, 122, 169 

Fabritus, 121 

Family Group (Brunswick), 

165 
"Flagellation, The," 165 
Flemish art, 12, 13, 14 
"Flight into Egypt, The," 97, 

133 
Flinck, Govert, 97, 121, 127, 

139 
Fromentin, Eugene, 114 



"Frozen Canal, The," 131 

"Gentleman with a Hawk, 

The," 135 
Giorgione, 118, 146 
* * Girl with a Broom, The," 146 
Glasgow Corporation Gallery, 

The, 109, 148 
"Good Samaritan, The," 97, 

133 
" Goldweigher's Field, The," 

131 
Goltzius, 34 

Gossaert, Jan, 169 

Goyen, van, 13, 16, 35, 83, 

132, 169 

Grebber, Pieter de, 17, 83 

Groot, M. Hofstede de, 44, 

73, 150 
Guild of St. Luke, The, 37, 140 

Hague Museum, The, 42, 50, 

76, 82, 152 
Hamerton, P. G., 100 
Hals, Frans, 17, 18, 35, 38, 

61, 65, III, 118, 169 
Head of Christ, The, 137 
Heerschop, 124 
Heist, B. van der, 65, 127, 

139-40 
Hendrickje, 39, 72, 145, 153, 

163, 173 
Hermitage, The, 52, 79, 89, 

124, 148, 165 
Hobbema, 10, 13 
"Holy Family, The," 49, 

127, 132 
Homer, 123 
Honthorst, 14, 16, 35, 41,83, 

169, 175 
Hoogstraten, 21 



202 



REMBRANDT 



<< 



(( 



Houbraken, 21, 24, 37, 75, 
88, 100, 109, 145, 154 

Huijgens, Constantine, 54, 
83-6, 171 
Hundred Guilder Plate, 
The," 94, 129 

Italian school. The, 35 

"Jacob Blessing the Sons of 

Joseph," 157 
Jewish Bride, The," 74, 79, 

82, 164 
" Joseph and Potiphar's Wife," 

148 

Keyser, de T., 16,35,65,177 
Koninck, Philip, 121, 132 

*' Lady with a Fan, The," 135 
La Farge, Mr. John, 179 
Landscapes, 130-3 
Lastman, Pieter, 14, 16, 32-5, 

49, 122, 169, 177 
La Vecq, 121 
Leeuwen, 17, 20, 24 
Letters, 84, 85-7 
Leyden, Aartgen van, 122 
Ley den, Lucas van, 31, 169 
Leyden, The siege of, 5, 9 
Lievans, 22, 96 
Linschoten, 8 
Lipsius, 23 

Lisbeth, 39, 55, 72, 115 
Loo, van, 61 
Louvre, The, 42, 67, 76, 89, 

145. 159 
Lunden, G., 115 
Luther, 10 



Maes, 144 

** Man in Armour, The," 148 



Mander, van, 31 
Mantegna, 58, 156, 178 
Matsys, Quentin, 123 
Michael, M. Emile, 25,76, 137 
Michelangelo, 14, 123, 178 
** Midnight Banquet of Clau- 
dius Curtius, etc., 161 
Miereveld, 16, 65 
Millais, Sir John, 10 1 
Munich Pinacothek, The, 49, 

91 

National Gallery, The, 70, 
103, 115, 123, 132, 146, 
158 
Negress, The," 125 
Night Watch, The," or 
**The March Out," 48, 
1 1 1-20, 156, 171 
Nude studies, 60, 71, 154 



(( 



(C 



tt 



Old Woman Cutting her 

Nails," 159 
Orange, Prince Frederick 

Henry of, 83, 87, 140 
Orlers, J. J., 17, 24 
Ostade, 10, 71 
Otid- Holland^ 144 
Ovens, 121 

"Pacification of Holland, 

The," 139 
Palma Vecchio, 123 
Pandiss, 121 

Passe, Magdalene, van de, 34 
** Pilate Washing his Hands," 

157 
Pinas, Jan, 14, 16, 17, 122 

Pitti Gallery, The, 159 

** Philosophers, The," 67 

** Polish Rider, The," 134 



INDEX 



Political reformation, lo 
Portrait groups, 46, 69, 136, 

161, 165 
Portrait of Elizabeth Bas, 136 

— N. Berchem and wife, 136 

— Bruyningh, 158 

— Burgomeister Six, 143-9 

— Cats, Jacob, 103 

— Coppenol, 66, 154, 158 

— Johannes Lutma, 154 

— Manasseh Ben-Israel, 103 

— Martin Looten, 67 

— a Mathematician, 155 

— a Polish nobleman, 52 

— a Polish rider, 164 

— Rembrandt's Cook, 163 

— Sobiesky, 104 

— Tholinx, 129, 153 

— Anna Wymer, 149 
Portraits of children, 69 

— Hendrickje, 146, 173 

— Lysbeth, 72, 73 

— his mother, 46 

— men, 44, 67, 68, 148, 158, 

163, 177 

— old women, 70, 104, 136, 

159 

— Saskia, 73, 77-9, 81 

— self, 40, 45» 76, 82, 103, 

147, 159, 168, 182 

— Titus, 141, 159 

— young women, 68 
Poussin, 49 

" Praying Pilgrim, The," 163 
" Presentation in the Temple, 

. The," 50 
Prices of pictures and etchings, 
87, 129 

" Rape of Proserpine, The," 
48 



203 

Raphael, 58, 122 
Ravesteijn, 16, 17, 35, 61, 

109, III 
Reformation, The, 10, 12, 15 
Regent-pictures, 17, 38, 62, 

no 
Rembrandt's precursors, 14, 16 

— biographers, 20 

— birthplace, 22 

— parents and birth, 23 

— boyhood, 26 

— education, 30 

— apprenticeship, 31 

— work under Lastman, 32, 

35 

— early etchings, 34, 45 

— early paintings in Leyden, 

36, 39, 41, 43, 47, 55 

— move to Amsterdam, 47, 60 

— collection of paintings, 58 

— contemporaries, 10, 13, 64 

— portraits, 49, 64, 66-9, 73, 

77,81,100,103,129,134, 
142, 148, 154, 158, 164, 

173 

— betrothal, 76 

— marriage, 77 

— home, 80, 122 

— commissions, S}t no, 156, 

160 

— pupils, 96, 121 

— letters, 84-7 

— etchings, 43» S^i 60, 72, 75, 

77,88,92,94,97,99,109, 
125, 131, 147, 154 

— loss of his wife, 105, 126 

— son Titus, 105 

— action for defamation, 107 

— " Night Watch," na-20 

— collector's mania, 1 24 

— landscapes, 130-33 



204 

Rembrandt's lost popularity, 
140 

— housematu IIcn(lrickje,i45- 

7, 160, 163, 167 

— friends, 147 

— bankruptcy, 150 

— partnership with Titus and 

Ilendrickje, 153 

— "Syndicsof theCloth Hall," 

160-62 

— last paintings, 163 

— hist days, 164 

— death, 167 

— personality, 169 
Rembrandt, the Protestant 

painter, 2 
" Resurrection," A, 85 
" Resurrection of Lazarus, 

The," 98, 128 
"Return of the Prodigal," 165 
Reynolds, 113 
Roghman, 14, 35, 93, 132 
Rogers, Mr. Thorold, 11 
Rotterdam Museum, 129 
Rulxins, 14, 18, 19, 57, 83, 

108, 175 
Ruysdael, 10, 13, 132 
Rijksmuseum, The, 73 

'* Sacrifice of Abraham, The," 

Sandrart. 17, 96, 125, 171 
Saskia, 39, 73, 75, 105, 126, 

152, 173. 175' i^i 
*' Samson's Marriage Feast," 

90, 127 

Samson Overcome by the 

Philistines," 90, 117 

^cheltema. Dr., 18, 24, 150 

Schooten, van, 61 

Schorel, Jan, 31 



REMBRANDT 



f( e. 



Scottish National Gallery, 146 

Sea-Beggars, The, 5 
: Seghers, Hercules, 122, 132 
. Shakespeare, 169 
: "Shipbuilder and his Wife, 

The," ea 
: Six, Jan, 148-9 
; "Six's Bridge," 131 

Soutman, 34 
. Socrates, 123 
; Spain, 4, 5 

" Standard-Bearer, The," 103 
i "St. Francis," 94 
I Steen, Jan, 71 
i Stockholm Museum, 146 
I " SupiDcr at Emmaus, The," 

42, 97, 136 
; "Susannah at the Bath," 82, 
89 
" Syndics of the Cloth Hall, 

The," 161-2 
Swanenburgh, Jacob van, 32, 

36,38 

Technique, 90, loi, 112, 124, 
"35, <62-i74, 177 

Teniers, 71 

" The Three Crosses," 129 

The Thirty Years* War, 6 

Tintoretto, 14 

Titian, 14, 146 

Titus, 105, 141, 152, 153, 159, 
164, 166, 173 

Tulp, Dr., 61, 62, 149 

Turin Gallery, The, 44 

Uffizi Gallery, 159, 166 
Uijtenboogaerd, The Receiver, 

86 
Utrecht, The Union of, 5 
Uylenborch, Hendrick van, 
54, 75, 151 



INDEX 



20S 



Valckert, 65 

**Vanitas," 124 

Velde, van de, lO, 13, 16, 93 

Venne, van de, 16, 93 

Velasquez, 69, 112, 118, 175 

** Venus and Cupid," 160 

Verdoel, 112 

Veronese, Paolo, 14 

Vinci, Leonardo da, 178 

Vlieger, de, 122 

Vliet, van, 96-7 

Vondel, 119, 176 

Voort, 65 

Vos, Jan, 141 



Vosmaer, 20, 24, 76, 150 
Vossius, 23 
Vroom, 17 

Wallace Collection, The, 46, 
69, 84. 142, 147, 159 

Wierix, de, 34 

William the Silent, i, 5 

Woerman, 25 

"Woman Bathing," 146 

"Workers in the Vineyard," 
164 

Zoomer, 129 






PRINTERS 



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