Edmondo De Amicis, that wonderful word-painter, says in his "Holland and its People:" "However one may be profane in art, and have made a vow never more to offend in too much enthusiasm, when one is in the presence of Rembrandt van Rhijn, one can but raise a little, as the Spaniards say, the key of one's style. Rembrandt exercised a particular prestige. Fra Angelico is a saint, Michael Angelo a giant, Raphael an angel, Titian a prince; Rembrandt is a supernatural being. How otherwise shall we name that son of a miller? Born in a windmill, rising unheralded, without master, without examples, without any derivation from schools, he became a universal painter, embraced all the aspects of life, painted figures, landscapes, marine views, animals, saints in paradise, patriarchs, heroes, monks, wealth and misery, deformity and decrepitude, the ghetto, the tavern, the hospital, death; made, in short, a review of heaven and earth, and rendered all things visible by a light from the arcana of his own imagination.

REMBRANDT.

"It was said that the contrast of light and shadow corresponded in him to diverse movements of thought. Schiller, before beginning a work, heard within himself a harmony of indistinct sounds, which were like a prelude to inspiration; in like manner, Rembrandt, when in the act of conceiving a picture, had a vision of rays and shadows, which spoke to his soul before he animated them with his personages. There is in his pictures a life, and what may almost be called a dramatic action, quite apart from the human figures. Vivid rays of light break into the darkness like cries of joy; the darkness flies in terror, leaving here and there fragments of shadow full of melancholy, tremulous reflections that seem like lamentations; profound obscurity full of dim threatenings; spurts of light, sparkles, ambiguous shadows, doubtful transparencies, questionings, sighs, words of a supernatural language, heard like music, and not understood, and remaining in the memory like the vague relics of a dream.

"And in this atmosphere he plants his figures, of which some are clothed in the dazzling light of a theatrical apotheosis, others veiled like phantoms, others revealed by one stroke of light upon the face; dressed in habits of luxury or misery, but all with something strange and fantastic; without distinctness of outline, but loaded with powerful colors, sculptural reliefs, and bold touches of the brush; and everywhere a warmth of expression, a fury of violent inspiration, the superb, capricious, and profound imprint of a free and fearless genius."

This strange, great painter, Rembrandt, was born, not in a windmill, as Amicis says, but in Leyden, Holland, July 15, 1607. His father, Gerrit Harmen van Rhijn, a miller, was then forty years old, in easy circumstances, married to the daughter of the baker Willems van Snydtbrouck, then thirty-five, a vigorous, strong-charactered woman, whom the boy, in after years, loved to paint, over and over again.

Of their six children, Adriaen, who became a miller, Gerrit, Machteld, Cornelis, Willem, who became a baker, and Rembrandt, the latter was destined for the law. He was early taught Latin, as a preparation for the Leyden Academy, but before he was twelve he showed such decided taste for painting and designing that his parents removed the lad from school, and placed him with a relative, who was an artist, Jacob van Swanenburg. He had returned from study in Italy in 1617, and Rembrandt entered his studio, probably in 1620, the year in which our forefathers left Holland.

For three years the boy bent himself closely to the work he loved. He made such remarkable progress that, at the end of this time, he was sent to the well-known painter, Pieter Lastman of Amsterdam. He remained there but six months, and then returned to his home in Leyden.

From the age of seventeen to twenty, while in his Leyden home, we know little of the youth, save that he studied nature with loving fidelity, wandered over the low, picturesque country with its canal and windmills, and observed people and skies and landscapes.

The first work attributed to Rembrandt was painted in 1627, when he was twenty years old, "St. Paul in Prison," showing care in detail and richness in color. During the next two years, he made etchings of himself and of his mother, who appears to have been his ideal.

His first oil paintings were done in 1630; one, now lost, showing a philosopher in a grotto; and the "Bust of an Old Man," which, says Prof. John W. Mollett of France, in his Life of Rembrandt, "is the most interesting of all the Rembrandts in the Cassel Gallery, from the fact that it first displayed his knowledge of the great secret, which he subsequently so wonderfully developed, of concentrating light upon the heads of his portraits. He painted other old men's heads at the same date, and all are remarkable for indefatigable elaboration and care. In this same year, Rembrandt produced more than thirty etchings."

After several years passed at Leyden, Rembrandt removed his studio to Amsterdam, a rich and flourishing city of one hundred thousand people at that time, whither his fame had preceded him. He hired apartments over a shop on the Bloemgracht, a quay in the western part of the city, where numerous pupils soon came to him, and commissions from the wealthy. One of his first principal works was "The Presentation in the Temple," now in the museum at the Hague. "The picture," says Mr. Sweetser, "presents a great temple interior, with groups of citizens and prelates, and, in the centre, massed under a bright light, the Holy Family, with the richly robed Simeon adoring the child Jesus. It is full of the strong shades and contrasting brightness of the new school of art, replete with poetic power and fresh personality, warm in golden lights, and in certain parts showing a rare minuteness of finish in detail. This subject was always a favorite with Rembrandt, and several other paintings thereof are preserved, together with numerous sketches and engravings, showing the venerable Simeon in the Temple at Jerusalem.

"The 'Susannah' was executed during the same year, and is now at the Hague. The shrinking, naked figure of the fair bather, though lacking in statuesque beauty and symmetry, is thoroughly natural and tender, palpitating with life, and lighted with a warm and harmonious glow. This, also, was a favorite theme with Rembrandt, and conveniently replaced the Diana and ActÆon of the classical painters with a subject not less alluring, and perhaps more permissible."

Rembrandt also painted "St. Jerome," now at Aix-la-Chapelle, the lost pictures of "Lot and his Daughters," and the "Baptism of the Eunuch;" "The Young Man," now at Windsor; the "Prophetess Anna," in the Oldenbourg Gallery; the "Portrait of a Man," in the Brunswick Museum; and about forty etchings, among them two portraits of his mother, several of himself; the "Bath of Diana," and the Meeting of "DanaË and Jupiter."

In 1632, Rembrandt painted his famous "School of Anatomy," now at the Hague, for which the Dutch government, two centuries later, gave thirty-two thousand florins.

"This picture represents the celebrated anatomist, Nicolaus Tulp, a friend and patron of Rembrandt, in a vaulted saloon, engaged in explaining the anatomy of the arm of a corpse. He wears a black cloak with a lace collar, and a broad-brimmed soft hat. With his half-raised left hand, he makes a gesture of explanation, while with his right he is dissecting a sinew of the arm of his subject. The corpse lies on a table before him. To the right of Tulp is a group of five figures; and two other men are sitting at the table in front. These listeners are not students, but members of the guild of surgeons of Amsterdam, as shown by a paper held by one of them. They are attending to the lecture with very various expressions.

"They are all bare-headed, dressed in black, and with turned-over collars except one, who still wears the old-fashioned upright ruff. There are, perhaps, other persons present in the hall, as Tulp appears to be looking beyond the picture, as if about to address an audience not visible to the spectator; and it is here worthy of remark that Rembrandt's compositions are never imprisoned in their frames, but convey an idea of a wide space beyond them. It is somewhat singular that the spectator seems hardly to notice the corpse lying before him at full length, the feet of which he can almost touch, although it is strongly lighted in contrast to the surrounding black garments, and most faithfully presents the peculiar hue of a dead body, leaving no doubt that it was painted from nature, as well as the living heads. The admirable art of the composition consists in its power of riveting the attention to the living in the presence of death."

Amicis says: "It is difficult to express the effect produced by this picture. The first feeling is that of horror and repulsion from the corpse. The forehead is in shadow, the eyes open with the pupils turned upwards, the mouth half open as if in astonishment, the chest sunken, the legs and feet stiff, the flesh livid, and looking as if, should you touch it with your hand, it would feel cold. With this rigid body a powerful contrast is produced by the vivacious attitudes, the youthful faces, the bright, attentive eyes, full of thought, of the disciples, revealing in different degrees the avidity for knowledge, the joy of learning, curiosity, wonder, the strength of intelligence, the suspense of the mind. The master has the tranquil face, the serene eye, and the almost smiling lip of one who feels the complacency of knowledge. There is in the complexion of the group an air of mystery, gravity, and scientific solemnity, which inspires reverence and silence.

"The contrast between the light and shadow is as marvellous as that between life and death. It is all done with extraordinary finish; one can count the folds of the ruffs, the lines of the face, the hairs of the beards. It is said that the foreshortening of the corpse is wrong, and that in some points the finish runs into dryness, but universal judgment places the 'Lesson in Anatomy' among the greatest triumphs of human genius.

"Rembrandt was only twenty-six years old when he painted this picture, which, therefore, belongs to his first manner, in which there are not yet apparent that fire and audacity, that sovereign security in his own genius, which shine in the works of his maturer years: but there is already that luminous potency, that marvellous chiaroscuro, that magic of contrasts, which form the most original trait of his genius."

I remember, in standing before this picture, to have had the same "repulsion" of which Amicis speaks. How differently one feels before that other marvel of the Hague, Paul Potter's "Bull," so at one with nature, so tender, so restful! What wonder that it once hung in the Louvre, beside the "Transfiguration" of Raphael, the "St. Peter Martyr," of Titian, and the "Communion of St. Jerome" by Domenichino?

During this year, 1632, Rembrandt executed several portraits of men; the "Rape of Proserpine," in the Berlin Gallery; "Moses saved from the Nile;" "Christ and Nicodemus;" the "Oriental Standing," in the gallery of the King of Holland; the "Betrothed Jewess;" the "Rape of Europa;" and portraits of six women. His etchings this year were, "Man on Horseback," "Cottage with White Palings" his first landscape, "Seller of Rat's Poison," "Jesus being carried to the Tomb," and the "Resurrection of Lazarus."

In the following year he painted "Susannah Surprised by the Elders," which is now in Russia; "The Boat of St. Peter," a powerful conception, showing dark storm-shadows surrounding the sea-tossed bark, with a high light thrown on the nearer mountain-like waves and on the men at the sails; "The Elevation of the Cross," and "The Descent from the Cross," bought by Prince Frederick Henry of Holland, and now in Munich; "The Good Samaritan," now in Sir Richard Wallace's collection; "The Philosophers in Meditation," two delicate pictures, now in the Louvre; "The Master Shipbuilder and his Pipe," now at Buckingham Palace, sold for sixteen thousand five hundred francs, in 1810; portraits of Madame Grotius, a youth at Dresden, another in the Pourtales Collection, sold for seven thousand dollars in 1865; and no less than sixteen others, besides many etchings. One of these portraits, that of a young boy, was bought by J. de Rothschild, in 1865, for five thousand dollars; and a portrait of Saskia, now at Cassel, for ten thousand dollars.

Of the picture of Saskia in the Dresden Museum, painted this year, Professor Mollett says: "The head in this portrait is slightly inclined, the long chestnut curls are covered by a cherry-colored bonnet ornamented with white feathers. The light falling on the figure from above illuminates the rim of the bonnet and the lower part of the face, while the forehead is covered by the shadow thrown by the hat."

Of the large portrait in the Cassel Gallery, painted the same year, he says: "In this picture Saskia is very richly dressed, and covered with a profusion of pearls and precious stones. The face, a delicate profile of a bright, fresh color, drawn against a dark brown background, is entirely in the light, almost without shadows."

The portrait of her in the late Fesch Gallery, says Sweetser, "displays the maiden's snowy complexion, great deep eyes, rosy lips, and rich auburn hair, adorned with white and green plumes, and wearing pearls on her neck, and a chain of gold on her green silk mantilla."

Who was Saskia? The lovely and beautiful woman whose life was to Rembrandt like the transcendent light he threw into his pictures; whose death left him forever in the shadow of shadows, which he, of all painters, knew best how to paint.

Saskia van Ulenburgh was the orphan daughter of Rombertus Ulenburgh, a Frisian lawyer of high standing, envoy from Friesland to the court of William of Orange. She was wealthy, of lovely character, and attractive in face and in manner. Her brother-in-law, the painter Nijbrand de Geest, was a man of influence, and her cousin, Hendrik Ulenburgh, was the publisher of Rembrandt's engravings. They therefore naturally met each other. She was young and of distinguished family; the young artist, who fell in love with her, had his genius alone to offer her.

The devoted love of Rembrandt won the happy-hearted, refined Saskia. They were married June 5, 1634, when she was twenty-one and Rembrandt twenty-seven, and went to live in his pleasant home in Amsterdam.

The next eight years were given to arduous work, blessed by the well-nigh omnipotent influence of a seemingly perfect love. In his marriage year he painted "Queen Artemisia," now in Madrid; "The Incredulity of St. Thomas," now at the Hermitage; "Repentance of Peter," "Judas and the Blood Money;" a larger "Descent from the Cross," now at St. Petersburg; "Rev. Mr. Ellison and Wife of the English Church at Amsterdam," sold in London, in 1860, for about nine thousand dollars; several portraits of himself and several of Saskia. In the large "Jewish Wife," in "Bathsheba receiving David's Message," in the long lost "Vertumnus and Pomona," Saskia, the beloved Saskia, is always the model.

At the same time were made five sketches and sixteen engravings, the most notable being "The Annunciation to the Shepherds." "This," says Professor Mollett, "is a night effect, with a mass of trees on the right hand, and a distance in which a city is seen, with its factories and bridges in a nest of foliage, and fires reflected in water. In the foreground the shepherds and their flocks are alarmed by the sudden appearance of the celestial glory, in the luminous circles of which thousands of cherubim are flying; an angel is advancing, and, with the right hand raised, is announcing the news to the shepherds. The whole composition is wonderful for the energy it displays, and appears as if it had been thrown on the copper with swift, nervous, inspired touches, but always accurate and infallible."

In 1635 a son was born to Rembrandt and Saskia, named Rombertus, after her father, but the child soon died, the first shadow in the famous artist's home. This year he painted "Samson menacing his Father-in-law," now in the Berlin Museum; the "Rape of Ganymede," now at Dresden; "Christ driving out the Money-changers;" "The Martyrdom of St. Stephen;" in all, eight portraits, seven other paintings, nine designs, and twenty-three etchings. One of the most attractive of the pictures about this time is Rembrandt at home, with Saskia, life-size, and full of happiness, seated upon his knee.

Three scenes from the history of Tobias follow. The first, the blind father awaiting his son's return, is in the Berlin Museum; the second contains Tobias and his wife seated in a chamber; the third illustrates Tobias restoring sight to his father.

In 1636 he painted "The Entombment," "The Resurrection," and "The Ascension," companion pictures to the "Crucifixion" painted for Prince Frederick Henry four years previously; "The Repose in Egypt," now at Aix-la-Chapelle; "The Ascension," in the Munich Pinakothek; "Samson blinded by the Philistines, with Delilah in Flight;" and "St. Paul," in the Vienna Belvidere, besides three portraits and ten etchings.

The finest etching of this period was "Ecce Homo," a marvellous composition, consisting of an immense number of figures admirably disposed. Our Lord is seen in front standing, surrounded by guards. His eyes are raised to heaven, his hands are manacled and clasped together, and on his head is the crown of thorns. "It is," says Mollett, "one of the painter's grandest works."

"The 'Ecce Homo,'" says Wilmot Buxton, "to say nothing of the splendor, the light and shade and richness of execution, has never been surpassed for dramatic expression; and we forgive the commonness of form and type, in the expression of touching pathos in the figure of the Saviour; nor would it be possible to express with greater intensity the terrible raging of the crowd, the ignobly servile and cruel supplications of the priests, or the anxious desire to please on the part of Pilate."

The following year, "The Lord of the Vineyard," now in the Hermitage, was painted, representing the master in a chamber flooded with light, listening to the complaints of the laborers; "Abraham sending away Hagar and Ishmael;" and several portraits of himself and Saskia. Now she is seated at a table face to face with her husband, her blue eyes looking pleased and happy into his; now they walk hand in hand in a beautiful landscape.

In July, 1638, a second child gladdened the Rembrandt household, this time a daughter, named Cornelia after the artist's mother. In less than four weeks she passed out of Saskia's arms, leaving them again childless. Rembrandt's father had died six years before, and of his brothers and sisters, Gerrit, Machteld, and Cornelis were dead also. Still the painter worked on bravely, for did he not have the one inspiration that gave almost superhuman power to overcome obstacles, and made work a pleasure,—the love of his blue-eyed Saskia?

During this year some lawsuits occurred in the family over her property, and Rembrandt sued some of her relatives for slander, because they had insinuated that Saskia "has squandered her heritage in ornaments and ostentation." How little the Friesland people knew of the poetry of the painter's heart, which, for the love he bore Saskia, decked, with his rich imagination, every picture of her with more than royal necklaces, and covered her robes with priceless gems, because she was his idol!

This year, 1638, he painted the great picture "The Feast of Ahasuerus," or "The Wedding of Samson," now at Dresden, where at the middle of the table sits the joyous queen, Esther or Delilah, robed in white silk, and richly jewelled, of course with Saskia's face; "Christ as a Gardener," long owned by the Prince of Hesse-Cassel, presented to Josephine at Malmaison, and bought by George IV. for Buckingham Palace, where it still remains; "Joseph telling his Dream;" "The Little Jewish Bride," representing St. Catherine and her wheel of martyrdom (the hair, the pearls, the face are all Saskia's), and other works.

The next year among his many superb portraits are three of his mother: one in Vienna, painted a year before her death, in a furred cloak, resting her folded hands on a staff; another with a red shawl on her head; and still another seated, with her hands joined;—both the latter in the Hermitage. He also finished "The Entombment" and "The Resurrection," begun three years before. He said, "These two pieces are now finished with much of study and of zeal, ... because it is in these that I have taken care to express the utmost of naturalness and action; and this is the principal reason why I have been occupied so long on them." He urged that they be hung in a strong light, for he said, "A picture is not made to be smelt of. The odor of the colors is unhealthy."

He etched "The Death of the Virgin," "The Presentation," "Youth surprised by Death," and others.

The next year, 1640, a baby's voice was again heard in the handsome Rembrandt home, a little daughter named, for the second time, Cornelia, but in a few short months the household was again stricken by death.

Rembrandt's activity was now marvellous. In the next two years he painted "Le Doreur," a portrait of his artist friend Domer, which was sold in 1865 for over thirty thousand dollars; it is also called "The Gilder," and is now in the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York; the portrait of an aged woman, purchased in 1868 for the Narishkine Collection, for eleven thousand dollars; "Woman with the Fan," of Buckingham Palace; the mysterious "Witch of Endor," SchÖnborn Gallery in 1867, for five thousand dollars; "The Carpenter's Household," now in the Louvre, representing Joseph at work, with the tender mother nursing her child; "The Salutation," in the Grosvenor Gallery; "Susannah at the Bath;" "The Offering of Manoah," at the Dresden Museum, showing Manoah and his wife prostrate before the altar, from which an angel crowned with flowers is ascending; a magnificent portrait of himself at thirty, in the National Gallery, in a black cap and fur robe, his arms crossed on a window-sill; sixteen fine etchings, among them three lion-hunts, the preacher Anslo and his wife seated at a book-laden table; several exquisite portraits of ladies, and two of the beloved Saskia: one is full of life and health, with the sweetest expression, and carefully finished; the other, in 1642, is richly dressed, but the face is delicate and dreamy, like that of one who may have received a message from the unseen world.

Professor Mollett says of these, "The first represents Saskia in all the freshness of her beauty, seen through the prism of love and art; in her rich dress, fresh color, and bright smile, bearing a strong resemblance to the Saskia on her husband's knee. It is difficult to imagine a more charming and amiable face, or a portrait more happy in color and expression. The work is very carefully finished without being minute, the tone profound, the touch broad and melting. No greater contrast can be conceived to this picture bathed in light, radiant with happiness and health, than the 'Saskia' of Antwerp. This portrait has an indefinable charm. The very soul of the painter seems to have entered into the picture, to which a melancholy interest is attached. It bears the same date as the year of Saskia's death, 1642. The face no longer shows the serene beauty of youth and strength, but its etherealized and delicate features have a thoughtful and dreamy expression. It was probably painted from memory, after Saskia's death."

In September, 1641, a son was born to Saskia, Titus, named for her sister Titia van Ulenburgh. The latter died the same year. On the 19th of the next June, Saskia was buried from the Oude Kerk in Amsterdam, leaving her son, not a year old, and her husband, to whom her loss was irreparable.

This year he had completed his greatest work, "The Night Watch," now in the Amsterdam Museum, and stood at the very zenith of his fame. From this time, while he did much remarkable work, he seems like a man on a mountain top, looking on one side to sweet meadows filled with flowers and sunlight, and on the other to a desolate landscape over which a clouded sun is setting. With Saskia died the best of Rembrandt. Before her death he had painted various pictures of himself, all joyous, even fantastic, sometimes as a warrior, sometimes with jewelled robes and courtly attire. Now for five years he made no portrait of himself, and then one simple and stern, like a man who lives and does his work because he must.

"The Night Watch," or the "Sortie of the Banning Cock Company," represents Captain Frans Banning Cock's company of arquebusiers emerging from their guild-house on the Singel. Amicis says of it, "It is more than a picture; it is a spectacle, and an amazing one. All the French critics, to express the effect which it produces, make use of the phrase, 'C'est Écrasant!' ('It is overpowering!') A great crowd of human figures, a great light, a great darkness—at the first glance this is what strikes you, and for a moment you know not where to fix your eyes in order to comprehend that grand and splendid confusion.

"There are officers, halberdiers, boys running, arquebusiers loading and firing, youths beating drums, people bowing, talking, calling out, gesticulating—all dressed in different costumes, with round hats, pointed hats, plumes, casques, morions, iron gorgets, linen collars, doublets embroidered with gold, great boots, stockings of all colors, arms of every form; and all this tumultuous and glittering throng start out from the dark background of the picture and advance towards the spectator.

"The two first personages are Frans Banning Cock, Lord of Furmerland and Ilpendam, captain of the company, and his lieutenant, Willem van Ruijtenberg, Lord of Vlaardingen, the two marching side by side. The only figures that are in full light are this lieutenant, dressed in a doublet of buffalo-hide, with gold ornaments, scarf, gorget, and white plume, with high boots; and a girl who comes behind, with blond hair ornamented with pearls, and a yellow satin dress; all the other figures are in deep shadow, excepting the heads, which are illuminated. By what light? Here is the enigma. Is it the light of the sun? or of the moon? or of the torches?

"There are gleams of gold and silver, moonlight, colored reflections, fiery lights; personages which, like the girl with blond tresses, seem to shine by a light of their own; faces that seem lighted by the fire of a conflagration; dazzling scintillations, shadows, twilight, and deep darkness, all are there, harmonized and contrasted with marvellous boldness and insuperable art.... In spite of censure, defects, conflicting judgments, it has been there for two centuries triumphant and glorious; and the more you look at it, the more it is alive and glowing; and, even seen only at a glance, it remains forever in the memory, with all its mystery and splendor, like a stupendous vision."

Charles Blanc says of the picture: "To tell the truth, this is only a dream of night, and no one can decide what the light is that falls on the groups of figures. It is neither the light of the sun nor of the moon, nor does it come from torches; it is rather the light from the genius of Rembrandt."

The home of the artist at that time, of brick and cut stone, four stories high, on one of the quays of the river Amstel, must have been most attractive and happy until the death of Saskia.

Says Mr. Sweetser: "The house still stands, and, by the aid of an existing legal inventory (dated 1656), we can even refurnish it as it was in the days of Rembrandt. Entering the vestibule, we find the flagstone paving covered with fir-wood, with black-cushioned Spanish chairs for those who wait, and to amuse their leisure several busts and twenty-four paintings—four each by Brouwer and Lievens, the rest mostly by Rembrandt.

"The ante-chamber, or saloon, was a large room furnished with seven Spanish chairs upholstered in green velvet, a great walnut table covered with Tournay cloth, an ebony-framed mirror, and a marble wine-cooler. The walls were covered with thirty-nine pictures, many of which were in massive and elegant frames. There were religious scenes, landscapes, architectural sketches, works of Pinas, Brouwer, Lucas van Leyden, and other Dutch masters; sixteen pictures by Rembrandt; and costly paintings by Palma Vecchio, Bassano, and Raphael.

"The next room was a perfect little museum of art, containing a profusion of the master's pictures, with rare works of Van Leyden, Van Dyck, Aartgen, Parsellis, Seghers, and copies from Annibale Caracci. The oaken press and other furnishings indicated that the marvellous etchings of our artist were engraved and printed here.

"The next saloon was the gem of the establishment, and was equipped with a great mirror, an oaken table with an embroidered cloth, six chairs with blue coverings, a bed with blue hangings, a cedar-wood wardrobe, and a chest of the same wood. The walls even here showed the profound artistic taste of the occupant, for they were overlaid with twenty-three pictures by Aartgen, Lievens, Seghers, and other northern painters; The 'Concordi,' 'Resurrection,' and 'Ecce Homo' of Rembrandt; a Madonna by Raphael; and Giorgione's great picture of 'The Samaritan.'

"On the next floor the master had his studio and museum. The great art-chamber contained materials for weeks of study; the walls were covered with rich and costly bric-À-brac—statuettes in marble, porcelain, and plaster; the Roman emperors; busts of Homer, Aristotle, and Socrates: Chinese and Japanese porcelains and drawings; Venetian glass; casts from nature; curious weapons and armor, with a shield attributed to Quentin Matsys; minerals, plants, stuffed birds, and shells; rare fans, globes, and books. Another feature was a noble collection of designs, studies, and engravings, filling sixty leather portfolios, and including specimens of the best works of the chief Italian, German, and Dutch artists and engravers."

To gain this beautiful collection of works of art, Rembrandt spared no money, paying eighty-six dollars for a single engraving of Lucas van Leyden's, and fourteen hundred florins for fourteen proofs from the same painter.

After Saskia died, the tide of fortune seemed to turn. Several artists who had studied in Italy returned to Holland, and popularized the Italian style, so that the works of Rembrandt seemed to fade somewhat from the public gaze. With pride and sorrow he went on painting, but he must have been deeply wounded.

In 1643 and '44, he painted "Bathsheba at the Bath." "The nude figure of Bathsheba," says Professor Mollett, "stands out in a dazzling effect of light from a background of warm, confused shadows. The figure is not beautiful to a sculptor's eye, nor in the Italian style; but in animation, in the flesh color, and in the modelling it is superb. The harmony of the tints and of the general tone is very beautiful; tints of bronze and gold combine with shades of violet, brown, green, and yellow ochre into a warm, poetic, and mysterious gamut. 'This picture should be hung in a strong light, that the eye may penetrate into the shadows,' said Rembrandt."

The other works of this time were the "Diana and Endymion" of the Liechtenstein Gallery at Vienna; "Philemon and Baucis;" the "Old Woman Weighing Gold," now in the Dresden Museum; "The Woman taken in Adultery," which brought thirty thousand dollars at public sale, and is now in the English National Gallery; a portrait of Jan Cornelis Sylvius, which was sold in 1872 for nearly eight thousand dollars, and the "Burgomaster Six" for six thousand dollars. The latter was the portrait of Jan Six, a young patrician, an enthusiastic student and poet, married to Margaret the daughter of the famous surgeon Dr. Tulp.

Other pictures in the next few years were "The Tribute Money;" the "Burgomaster Pancras giving a Collar of Pearls to his Wife," now owned by Queen Victoria; "Abraham receiving the Three Angels;" two paintings of the "Adoration of the Shepherds," one now in Munich and one in the National Gallery; "The Good Samaritan," and "The Pilgrims of Emmaus," now in the Louvre; and "The Peace of the Land," celebrating the peace of Westphalia, now in the Boymans Museum at Rotterdam. "It represents the enclosure of a fortress, the walls of which are visible in the right-hand background, where cannons are blazing and a group of soldiers fighting; the right-hand foreground is entirely occupied by a group of horsemen, of remarkable vigor and truth; on the left are two thrones, on one of which leans a figure of Justice, clasping her hands as if in supplication. The centre, which is in the light, is occupied by a couchant lion growling, his one paw on a bundle of arrows, the symbol of the United Provinces. The lion is bound by two chains, the one attached to the thrones, the other fastened to an elevation, bearing on a shield the arms of Amsterdam, surrounded by the words, 'Soli Deo Gloria.'"

"Samuel taught by his Mother," "Christ appearing to Mary," "The Prophetess Anna," "Jesus blessing Little Children," purchased for the National Gallery for thirty-five thousand dollars;—"The Bather," in the National Gallery, of which Landseer says: "It is the most artful thing ever done in painting, and the most unsophisticated;" a likeness of Rembrandt's son Titus, now twelve years old, were his next works. Fifty-seven etchings were made between 1649 and 1655, the most celebrated being the "Hundred-Guilder Print," or "Jesus healing the Sick."

"The subject of this etching is taken from the words, 'And Jesus went about all Galilee, preaching the gospel of the kingdom, and healing all manner of sickness and all manner of disease among the people.' The serene and calm figure of Jesus stands out from the shadow of the background, preaching to the people around him. By a superb antithesis, the Pharisees and Sadducees, the priests and the curious and unbelieving, are standing on Christ's right hand, bathed in light, while from the shadows that envelop the left side of the picture are coming the sick, the possessed, and unfortunates of all kinds. The composition is full of feeling, drawn and executed with a rare genius, the details revealing a world of expression and character: the lights and shadows, disposed in large masses, are of wonderful softness. The etching, commenced with aqua-fortis, is finished with the dry point, the silvery neutral tints of Christ's robe and the soft shadows being produced in this manner."

Frederick Wedmore says in his "Masters of Genre-Painting," "I should be thankful for the 'Hundred-Guilder Print,' were it only because of the half-dozen lines in which Rembrandt has etched one figure, to me the central one, a tall man, old and spare, and a little bent, with drooped arms, and hands clasped together in gesture of mild awe and gently felt surprise, as of one from whose slackened vitality the power of great surprise or of very keen interest has forever gone. On his face there is the record of much pain, of sufferings not only his own, not only of the body, but of saddening experiences which have left him quelled and forever grave."

The name arose from the fact that a Roman merchant gave Rembrandt for one engraving seven Marc Antonio engravings, which were valued at a hundred guilders, and the artist would never sell any of these pictures below this price. Only eight impressions of the first plate are in existence; two are in the British Museum, one is in Paris, one in Amsterdam, one in Vienna, one in the collection of the Duke of Buccleuch, one in Mr. Holford's, and one owned by M. Eugene Dutuit of Rouen, sold in 1867 for about six thousand dollars.

When Saskia died, she left her property—she had brought Rembrandt forty thousand florins—to her infant son Titus, with the condition that her husband should have the use of the money until his death or his second marriage. If the boy died, Rembrandt was to receive the whole estate, save in case of a second marriage, when half should go to her sister.

Already Saskia's friends saw the money passing away from the artist, and they brought suits for Titus's sake, to recover it. Finally, in 1656, he transferred his house and land to Titus, with the privilege of remaining there during the pleasure of Saskia's relatives.

Matters did not improve, and the following year all the rich collection of art works and household goods were sold by auction to meet the demands of creditors. The next year his engravings and designs were sold in the same way, and the year following the house was disposed of, Rembrandt being allowed to remove two stoves only and some screens. These must have been bitter days for the once happy artist. It was fortunate that Saskia did not live to see such a direful change.

During all the struggle and disgrace Rembrandt kept on working. In 1656 and '57 he painted for the Surgeons' Guild, a large picture, "Lesson on Anatomy of Joan Deyman," containing the portraits of nine celebrated doctors; "St. John the Baptist Preaching," a canvas with over one hundred small figures; "The Adoration of the Magi," now in Buckingham Palace and greatly admired; "Joseph accused by Potiphar's Wife," and "Jacob blessing Ephraim and Manasseh."

Professor Mollett says that the "Jacob" "belongs as much to all times and all nations as the masterpieces of Greek sculpture. This touching scene, which is simply rendered with all the power of Rembrandt's art, represents the aged patriarch extending his hands, which Joseph is guiding, towards the boys, who are kneeling before him. Behind the bed stands their mother, Asenath, with clasped hands. The light falling from behind Jacob, on the left, leaves his face in the shade. His head is covered by a yellowish cap, bordered with clear-colored fur; the sleeve of the right arm is of a beautiful gray; the hand painted with large, broad touches. The bed is covered with a sheet and a counterpane of pale red and fawn color.

"Joseph wears a turban, and his wife a high cap, long veil, and robe of gray and fawn-colored brown. The fair child has a yellow vest; and his head, bright with reflected lights, is very fine in tone, and of extreme delicacy. We see the colors here employed are gray and fawn-colored brown, which, in the highest notes, only reach subdued red or yellow. The whole bears a mysterious air; in a fine and luminous light, filled with tones and half-tones that are indefinable. The touch is of such surpassing boldness and ease, that, when viewed in detail, the picture might be called a sketch, if the harmony and completeness of the whole did not indicate the maturity and profundity of the work."

After Rembrandt's home was sold, he hired a house on the Rosengracht, a retired but respectable part of the city, two blocks away from the Bloemgracht, where he began life with his beloved Saskia. Here, as elsewhere, he gathered admiring pupils about him, and kept diligently at his work. It is probable that he was married at this time, or later, for in 1663 he painted a picture known as "Rembrandt and his Family," now in the Brunswick Museum, where a rosy and smiling lady is seated with a child on her lap, while two little girls of perhaps five and seven stand by her. The man with brown hair stands on the left, giving a flower to one of the girls.

Rembrandt's chief works now were "Moses descending from Sinai, and breaking the Tables of the Law," "Jacob wrestling with the Angels," a striking picture of "Ziska and his Adherents swearing to avenge the Death of Huss," and "The Syndics of the Guild of Clothmakers," now in the Amsterdam Museum.

Professor Springer writes concerning the latter picture, the "School of Anatomy," and "The Night Watch:" "Art has never again created a greater wealth of stirring imagery or poetry of color so entrancing as these three pictures reveal to us. Unconsciously our thoughts return to Shakspeare's familiar creations, and we recognize in these two mighty art champions of the north kindred natures and a corresponding bent of fancy."

In 1668, Titus, now twenty-seven years old,—he studied painting, but became a merchant,—was married to his cousin Magdalena van Loo, one of the Frisian families, and died in September of the same year. The next March, his widow bore a daughter who received the name of Titia, for her dead father. Magdalena died in the same year in which her child was born. Thus frequently did sorrow shadow the path of the great master of shadows.

This year, Rembrandt painted several portraits of himself. "In that of the Pitti Palace, we see him wrapped in fur, a medal is hung about his neck, and he is wearing a close-fitting cap, from which his ample white hair escapes. His face is furrowed with age, but the brightness of the eye is not diminished....

"In the splendid portrait in the Double Collection at Rouen, he again stands before us, with bending attitude and slightly inclined head, in theatrical costume, with his maulstick in his hand, laughing heartily. And this is Rembrandt's farewell! His face is wrinkled across and across by time and care, but it is no gloomy misanthrope crushed by evil fortune whom we see, but the man who opposed to all fortunes the talisman of Labor, and thus paints the secret of his life in his final portrait of himself, in the midst of his work, scorning destiny."

A year after Titus died, death came to Rembrandt, at sixty-two. He was buried simply in the West Church, so simply that the registered expense of his burial is fifteen florins!

His power of work was marvellous. He painted over six hundred and twenty pictures, executed three hundred and sixty-five etchings, besides two hundred and thirty-seven variations of these, with hundreds of drawings and sketches scattered over Europe. Among the best known etchings are "Rembrandt's Portrait with the Sword," "Lazarus rising from the Dead," the "Hundred-Florin Plate," "Annunciation," "Ecce Homo," "The Good Samaritan," "The Great Descent from the Cross," the landscape with the mill, and that with the three trees.

That he was a man of great depth of feeling is shown by his love of his mother, his worship of Saskia, and his tenderness to his brothers and sisters after they had lost their fortunes. He was also passionately fond of nature and of animals. Sweetser tells this incident: "One day he was making a portrait group of a notable family, when he was informed that his favorite monkey had died. The grieving artist caused the body to be brought to the studio, and made its portrait on the same canvas on which he was engaged. The family, aforesaid, was naturally incensed at such an interpolation, and demanded that it should be effaced; but Rembrandt preferred to keep the whole work himself, and let his patrons seek a more accommodating artist."

Taine pays Rembrandt this glowing tribute in his "Art in the Netherlands:" "Rembrandt, constantly collecting his materials, living in solitude and borne along by the growth of an extraordinary faculty, lived, like our Balzac, a magician and a visionary in a world fashioned by his own hand, and of which he alone possessed the key. Superior to all painters in the native delicacy and keenness of his optical perceptions, he comprehended this truth and adhered to it in all its consequence,—that, to the eye, the essence of a visible object consists of the spot (tache), that the simplest color is infinitely complex, that every visual sensation is the product of its elements coupled with its surroundings, that each object on the field of sight is but a single spot modified by others, and that in this wise the principal feature of a picture is the ever-present, tremulous, colored atmosphere into which figures are plunged like fishes in the sea....

"Free of all trammels and guided by the keen sensibility of his organs, he has succeeded in portraying in man not merely the general structure and the abstract type which answers for classic art, but again that which is peculiar and profound in the individual, the infinite and indefinable complications of the moral being, the whole of that changeable imprint which concentrates instantaneously on a face the entire history of a soul, and which Shakespeare alone saw with an equally prodigious lucidity.

"In this respect he is the most original of modern artists, and forges one end of the chain of which the Greeks forged the other; the rest of the masters, Florentine, Venetian, and Flemish, stand between them; and when, nowadays, our over-excited sensibility, our extravagant curiosity in the pursuit of subtleties, our unsparing search of the true, our divination of the remote and the obscure in human nature, seeks for predecessors and masters, it is in him and in Shakespeare that Balzac and Delacroix are able to find them."