CHAPTER II

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

CHAPTER III

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

CHAPTER IV

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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