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About Google Book Search   Google's mission is to organize the world's information and to make it universally accessible and useful. Google Book Search helps readers  discover the world's books while helping authors and publishers reach new audiences. You can search through the full text of this book on the web   at |http: //books .google .com/I      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     -r-