DAYS OF PROSPERITY
Some time then in 1631 the die was cast, and the removal accomplished.
There is reason to believe that he went at first to stay or lodge with
Hendrick van Uylenborch, a dealer in pictures and other objects of art.
Among his first proceedings on his arrival, was one sufficiently
characteristic of him and destined to be repeated only too often in the
future. He lent Hendrick money, one thousand florins, to be repayable in
a year with three months' notice. Soon after, if not before, this
indiscreet financial operation, as it proved later, he found the
suitable residence he had meanwhile been seeking, on the Bloemgracht, a
canal on the west side of the town, running north-east and south-west
between the Prinsen Gracht and the Lynbaan Gracht, in a district, at
that time on the extreme outskirts of the town, known as the Garden,
from the floral names bestowed upon its streets and canals.
Here he settled to his work, and here in a short time fortune came to
him. The enthusiasm aroused by "The Anatomy Lesson," when it was
finished and hung in its predestined place in the little dissecting-room
or Snijkamer of the Guild of Surgeons in the Nes, near the Dam, was
immediate and immense. The artist leapt at once into the front rank, and
became the fashionable portrait painter of the day. From three
portraits, other than those of his own circle, painted in 1631, and ten
in 1632, the number rose to forty between that year and 1634; or, taking
all the surviving portraits between 1627 and 1631, we have forty-one,
while from the five following years, from 1632 to 1636, there are one
hundred and two. Commissions, indeed, flowed in faster than he could
execute them, so Houbraken assures us, and the not infrequent occurrence
of a pair of portraits, husband and wife, one painted a year or more
after the other, tends to confirm this; so that those who wished to be
immortalised by him had often to wait their turn for months together,
while all the wealth and fashion of the city flocked to the far-off
studio in the outskirts, the more fortunate to give their sittings, the
later comers to put down their names in anticipation of the future
leisure. From the beginning, too, pupils came clamouring to his doors,
Govert Flinck and Ferdinand Bol, Philips Koninck, Geerbrandt van den
Eeckhout, Jan Victors, Leendeert Cornelisz, and others, eager to pay
down their hundred florins a year, as Sandrart says they did, and work
with and for the lion of the day.
Not Fortune alone, however, with her retinue of patrons, and Fame, with
her train of pupils, sought him out; Love, too, came knocking at his
portal, and won a prompt admission. To the many admirable works produced
at this time I shall return later, but three of those painted in 1632
call for further notice now. One is an oval picture, belonging to Herr
Haro of Stockholm, representing the half-length figure of a girl in
profile, facing to the left, fair-haired, and pleasant-looking rather
than pretty; the second, in the Museum at Stockholm, shows us the same
girl in much the same position, but differently dressed; while the
third, in the collection of Prince Liechtenstein at Vienna, is a less
pleasing representation of her in full face, wherein the tendency to
stoutness and the already developing double chin detract from the
piquancy of her expression and make her look more than her actual age,
which we know to have been twenty at the time that these were painted.
We have heard her name casually already, in connection with the
arrangements for Rembrandt's marriage, when discussing the date of his
birth--for this is Saskia van Uylenborch, a cousin of his friend
Hendrick, which fact may haply have had something to do with that ready
loan of a thousand florins. Though poor Rembrandt, be it said, was,
unhappily for him, never backward with loan or gift when he had money to
give or lend. Saskia was born in 1612 at Leeuwarden, the chief town of
Friesland in the north, across the Zuider Zee, and at the time when
Rembrandt met her was an orphan, her mother, Sjukie Osinga, having died
in 1619, and her father, Rombertus, a distinguished lawyer in his native
place, in 1624. The family left behind was a large one, consisting,
besides Saskia, of three brothers, two being lawyers and one a soldier,
and five sisters, all married, who, as soon as the worthy Rombertus was
laid to rest, seem to have begun wrangling among themselves concerning
the estate; the quarrel, chiefly, as it appears, being sustained by the
several brothers-in-law, and leading shortly to an appeal to law.
[Illustration: [_Liechtenstein Gallery, Vienna_
PORTRAIT OF SASKIA
(1632)]
Among the less close relations was a cousin Aaltje, who was married to
Jan Cornelis Sylvius, a minister of the Reformed Church, who, coming
from Friesland, had settled in Amsterdam in 1610, and with them Saskia
was in the habit of coming to stay. Where and when Rembrandt first met
her we do not know. Probably at the house of Hendrick; it may have been,
as has been said, in 1628 or earlier, for, if the acquaintance began in
1631, it ripened rapidly. Without accepting unhesitatingly all M.
Michel's identifications of her, not only in portraits and studies but
in subjects, such as that one which is known as "The Jewish Bride," now
in the collection of Prince Liechtenstein, there is no question that she
sat to him several times during the two years 1632 and 1633. The
attraction was mutual; Rembrandt soon became a welcome visitor to the
Sylvius household, and, in token doubtless of the kindness and
hospitality which he there met with, he etched, in 1634, a portrait of
the good old minister (B. 266).
The course of true love in this case ran smoothly enough; the young
people soon came to an understanding; no difficulties were raised by
Sylvius, who acted as Saskia's guardian; and the marriage was only
deferred till Saskia came of age. The union, indeed, from a worldly
point of view, was unexceptionable. Saskia, it is true, was of a good
family, while Rembrandt sprang from the lower middle class, but he had
already carved out for himself a rank above all pedigrees. Saskia was
twenty, and he, with all his fame, was only twenty-six. The wedding,
then, was decided on, and Rembrandt, painting Saskia yet again, put into
her hands a sprig of rosemary, at that time in Holland an emblem of
betrothal. It was possibly even fixed for some date late in 1633, when
Saskia would have passed her twenty-first birthday.
Just at this time, to confirm, if that had been needed, Rembrandt's
increasing reputation and prospects of future prosperity, he was brought
into business relations with the chief personage in the land, Prince
Frederick-Henry, who in 1625, on the death of his brother Maurice, had
succeeded to the office of Stathouder, as the head of the Republic was
officially entitled. Constantin Huygens, whose earlier enthusiasm for
Rembrandt's work we have already noted, was the Prince's Secretary,
acting in that quality as intermediary in his many dealings with
artists, and clearly found time in the intervals of his duties to
continue his acquaintance with Rembrandt. It was probably on his
recommendation that the artist had painted in 1632 the portrait of his
brother Maurice, and it was certainly at his suggestion that the
Stathouder bought "The Raising of the Cross," now at Munich. Rembrandt,
indeed, says as much in a letter to Huygens, still existing in the
British Museum, in which he invites him to come and inspect the
companion picture, "The Descent from the Cross," for which, though
offering to leave it to the Prince's generosity, he considers two
hundred livres would be a reasonable price. The picture was bought, and
so content was the Prince with his purchase that soon afterwards he
commissioned three other pictures to complete the set. The exact date of
this event is unknown, but it cannot have been long delayed, for, in a
letter written early in 1636 the painter informs Huygens that one of the
three, "The Ascension," is finished and the other two half done.
With such guarantees of continued good fortune, there was nothing, when
Saskia was once of age, to necessitate longer delay, in the completion
of his happiness, but in the autumn she was peremptorily called away to
Franeker, a town in Friesland, between Leeuwarden and the sea, where her
sister Antje, the wife of Johannes Maccovius, professor of Theology, was
lying ill, and where, on November the ninth, she died. This untoward
occurrence put an end to the possibility of an immediate marriage, and
Saskia went to spend the winter with another sister, Hiskia, who was
married to Gerrit van Loo, a secretary of the government, and lived at
Sainte Anne Parrochie, in the extreme north-west of Friesland; while
Rembrandt, discontentedly enough, no doubt, toiled through the long
winter months in his studio at Amsterdam.
In the spring of 1634, however, the sunshine returned again into his
life, and he commemorated the advent, appropriately enough, by painting
the bringer of it in the guise of Flora. The period of mourning was now
at an end, and some time in May, probably, Saskia once more returned to
Hiskia's to make preparation for the approaching day; while Sylvius, as
her representative, and Rembrandt began to arrange the more formal
business matters. On June 10th, as recorded by Dr Scheltema, Sylvius, as
the bride's cousin, engaged to give full consent before the third asking
of the banns; while Rembrandt, on his part, promised to obtain his
mother's permission. Whether he merely wrote to Leyden for this, or
whether, as is more probable, he went in person, we do not know; but in
either case he wasted no time, for on the fourteenth he produced the
necessary documents, and prayed at the same time that the formal
preliminaries might be cut as short as possible. His appeal was
evidently received with favour, for eight days later, on June 22nd, at
Bildt, in the presence of Gerrit and Hiskia van Loo, he was duly
married, first by the civil authorities, and afterwards by the minister
Rodolphe Hermansz Luinga in the Anna-kerk.
As far as domestic happiness depending upon their relations with one
another went, there is every reason to suppose that this union was a
thoroughly successful one; but we cannot help, nevertheless, feeling
some doubts as to whether it was altogether the best that might have
been for Rembrandt. Frank and joyous, but strong-willed, not to say
obstinate, recklessly generous and prodigal, and without a thought for
what the future might bring forth, he needed some firm yet tender hand
to check, without seeming too much to control, his lavish impulses.
Impossible to drive, yet easy enough to lead, a giant in his studio, a
child in his business relations with the world outside its doors, he
should have found some steady practical head to regulate his household
affairs and introduce some order and economy into his haphazard ways.
Such, unfortunately for him in the end, Saskia was not. Devoted to him,
she yielded in everything, and his will was her law. As her love for him
led her to let him do always as he would, so his passion for her led him
to shower costly gifts upon her--pearls and diamonds, gold-work and
silver-work, brocades and embroideries; nothing that could serve to
adorn her was too good or too expensive. She would have been as happy in
plain homespun, as long as he was there; but to give largely was in the
nature of the man, and the very fortune that she brought with her was
an evil, even at the time, in that it led him to further extravagances,
while in the future it proved a still more serious one.
Furthermore, Rembrandt, hot-headed and impetuous as he was, must needs
fling himself into the family quarrels and suits-at-law, taking therein
the part of the one who had stood by him and Saskia at the altar, Gerrit
van Loo, in whom, though he had possibly never set eyes on him till he
went north to his wedding, he had already developed so complete a
confidence that, exactly one month later, on July 22nd, as Dr Scheltema
discovered, he gave him a full power of attorney to act for him in all
affairs connected with the property in Friesland. From this sudden and
violent partisanship still more trouble arose in due course, owing
largely to the fact that his championship of Gerrit was soon after
justified by his winning one of the many cases brought before the court
of Friesland in the course of the prolonged dispute.
For the time, however, there is no doubt their happiness was supreme,
and if for her sake he was energetically brewing the storm that was to
burst upon him later, there were as yet no threatening clouds upon the
horizon. Nor, be it said, was it on her account alone that he scattered
money broadcast. The impulse to collect works of art, pictures,
engravings, casts and statues, armour and curious objects, had begun to
influence him even in early days at Leyden, and had become by that time
a perfect mania. On February 22nd, 1635, we find his name as a purchaser
at the Van Sommeren sale, and thereafter he reappears again and again as
buyer at various auctions. But not even in this could he attempt to be
business-like. Baldinucci, a Florentine, in a volume published in 1686,
gives many interesting details anent Rembrandt, which he obtained at
first hand from one of his later pupils, Bernard Keilh, a Dane, and
among them relates that, when at a sale he saw anything he coveted, he
ran it up in one bid to a wholly impossible price, thus making sure of
it, and at the same time, as he explained, paying honour to his art.
The Van Uylenborch family quarrels happily did not extend to the
sisters, amongst whom the most amicable relations appear to have
prevailed. At any rate, in the summer of 1635, we find Saskia revisiting
Sainte Anne Parrochie, to be with Hiskia during her confinement, and
subsequently at the baptism of the child, a mark of kindly feeling the
more notable in that she herself was about to become a mother. In the
early winter, having returned meanwhile to her home, she gave birth to a
son, who, on December 15th, in the Oudekerk, was christened Rombertus,
after her father. Rembrandt's delight in this small person is indicated
by numerous sketches of him and his mother; but the happiness, like all
that he experienced, was short-lived, for the child did not long survive
its birth.
[Illustration: [_Dresden Gallery_
REMBRANDT AND SASKIA
(ABOUT 1635)]
Rembrandt, at some time before his marriage, had removed from the
Bloemgracht to Saint Antonies Breestraat, in the heart of the city,
close to the Nieuwe Markt, and by 1636 had moved once more to the Nieuwe
Doelstraat, whence the letter to Huygens, already referred to, was
addressed. There can be no doubt that the change was an improvement, for
the artist must then have been at the height of his prosperity and
fame.
Throughout Holland, imitators of his style were springing up, for the
public would have no other. His studio was freely sought by pupils; his
home-life was passed in a circle of trusted friends, and the broadly
sympathetic nature of the man, which aided so largely in raising him to
the first place among portrait painters, is seen in the various pursuits
of these.
Fellow-painters, apart from his pupils, were not conspicuous among them,
and those we find are chiefly landscape painters--Roghman and van der
Helst, Ruysdael and Berchem, van de Cappelle and Jan Asselyn. With
ministers he was largely acquainted, probably through Jan Sylvius, who,
however, died on November 19th, 1638, among them being Alenson, Henry
Swalm, and Anslo; while Tulp probably first introduced the medical
element, Bonus, van der Linden, and Deyman. Several dealers in objects
of art, brought in by Hendrick van Uylenborch, or picked up in the
course of business transactions, were among his friends--Pieter de la
Tombe, Clement de Jonghe, Abraham Francen, and others; while the worthy
though conceited Coppenol, and the jeweller, Jan Lutma, together with
the burgomaster Six, were among those who remained faithful to the last.
Rembrandt's championship of Gerrit van Loo in the family differences
began about this time to bear troublesome fruit. The losers in the
action already mentioned, in the course of the year 1634 seem to have
nursed an especial grudge against Saskia, and, to relieve their ruffled
feelings, had been spreading abroad reports reflecting on her, asserting
that she had "dissipated her paternal inheritance in dress and
ostentation." There was, as far as Rembrandt himself, at least, was
concerned, too much truth in the story to render the scandal altogether
stingless. The thrust at Saskia, moreover, angered him more, probably,
than one at himself alone would have done, and we find him accordingly
rushing headlong into the law-courts with an action for damages against
one Albert van Loo, declaring that "he and his wife were amply, even
superabundantly, provided for."
Whether he was ever called upon to prove this statement does not appear;
probably not, since the court found, in July 1638, that he had not
sufficient grounds for action. It is doubtful how far he could have
established its truth had he been required to do so. There can be small
question that he believed it to be true, though his paying 637 florins
the previous year for a book of drawings and engravings by Lucas van
Leyden, and again, in October of the same year, 530 florins for a
picture of Hero and Leander by Rubens, might only indicate his habitual
indifference to ways and means. We know also that at the time he was
getting from five to six hundred florins for his portraits, but, judging
by the number known to exist--a very imperfect test it need scarcely be
said--the demand for these was beginning to fall off, there being seven
for 1636, four for 1637, two for 1638, and four for 1639, while even
these small numbers include three of himself, and one believed to be his
mother.
The strongest reason for supposing that he was in some financial
embarrassment is found in his correspondence at the beginning of the
latter year with Huygens. Writing in January from the Suijkerbackerij, a
house on the borders of the Binnen-Amstel, whither he had removed at an
unknown date, he announces the completion of the last two of the
Stathouder's commissions, and only fifteen days later he presses for
immediate payment of the 1244 florins due to him, on the grounds that
the money would be then extremely useful to him. Since there was some
delay, he renewed the appeal, though Huygens, on February 17th, had
already given orders for the discharge of the debt. This unceremonious
dunning, though by proxy, of a powerful Prince, does not seem altogether
to indicate that superabundance of which Rembrandt boasted; but there
was, as we know, a special reason, apart from any financial
difficulties, which may have accounted for this urgent need of ready
money.
He had decided to settle himself finally, not long after the birth on
July 1st, 1638, of his second child, a daughter, christened at the
Oudekerk on July 22nd, Cornelia, after his mother, and on January 5th,
1639, had purchased from one Christoffel Thysz a house in the
Joden-Breestraat, now Number 68, for 13,000 florins. Though only one
quarter of this sum had to be paid within one year, the rest being
distributed over the following five or six, he seems for once to have
been actually eager to pay the money, and by May had discharged half the
cost and taken possession.
One birth and three deaths mark the year 1640. The first, of another
daughter, on July 29th, who was also christened Cornelia, the elder
child bearing that name having died in the meantime. The name, however,
seems to have been an ill-omened one, for its second bearer did not
survive a month, its burial being recorded in the Zuiderkerk on August
25th. Of the other deaths the first was that of an aunt of Saskia, who
was possibly also her godmother, as she bore the same name, and
certainly left her some property, since Ferdinand Bol was sent, on
August 30th, to Leeuwarden with formal authority to take possession on
her behalf. The other death must have been, to Rembrandt at any rate, a
far heavier blow, for by it he lost, in September or October, his
mother, to whom he was cordially attached, and from whom his residence
in Amsterdam had only partially separated him, since we know by various
portraits, painted subsequent to 1631, that either he visited her or she
him with considerable frequency.
[Illustration: [_National Gallery, London_
PORTRAIT OF REMBRANDT
(1640)]
An event arising out of the consequent settlement of the estate has
given rise to the suspicion that, then at all events, Rembrandt was in
difficulties, but it is again possible to take another point of view.
The inheritance of each child amounted to 2490 florins, and a further
1600 remained to be divided later. The business was entrusted to Adriaen
and Lysbeth, and Rembrandt, unhesitatingly accepting every suggestion
made by them, contented himself with a mortgage on half the mill, the
redemption of which was to be postponed indefinitely. No sooner,
however, was the arrangement completed than he authorised his brother
Willem to sell his rights for what they would fetch. This may mean, as
M. Michel supposes, that he wanted the money promptly, yet wished to
deal tenderly with a brother who was himself by no means beforehand with
the world; but the two reasons seem somewhat inconsistent with the
facts. That Rembrandt, even though pressed for money himself, should
have practically forgone his due, and consented to take a small annual
interest which he could, in case necessity arose, easily forgo, is quite
reconcilable with what we know of him; but that, having acted so, he
should have at once undone the good he proposed, by selling his claim to
some stranger, who would certainly demand the full letter of his bond,
is hard to believe.
Any other evidence concerning these presumed embarrassments is certainly
against them. At this very time he was cheerfully accepting security for
considerable sums of money lent, in addition to the original one
thousand florins, to Hendrick van Uylenborch; and in later years, when
his affairs came to be inquired into, Lodewyck van Ludick and Adriaen de
Wees, dealers both, swore that between 1640 and 1650 Rembrandt's
collections, without counting the pictures, were worth 11,000 florins,
while a jeweller, Jan van Loo, stated that Saskia had two large
pear-shaped pearls, two rows of valuable pearls forming a necklace and
bracelets, a large diamond in a ring, two diamond earrings, two
enamelled bracelets, and various articles of plate. Finally, Rembrandt
also, at a later date, estimated that his estate at the time of Saskia's
death amounted to 40,750 florins; and though the estimate was made under
circumstances calculated to incline him to exaggerate rather than
diminish the amount, it must be considered as approximately correct.
Poor Saskia was not destined to enjoy much longer her plate and
jewellery. Death, having entered the family, was thenceforth busy. Titia
died at Flushing on June 16th, 1641; and Saskia herself, after the
birth of Titus in September of that year, possibly never enjoyed really
good health again. By the following spring she was unmistakably failing,
and at nine in the morning of June 5th, 1642, she made her will. She was
not even then without hope of recovery, for there are express
stipulations as to any further children she might bear, but the pitiful
irregularity of her signature at the end of the document shows how
forlorn this hope was; and, in fact, she died within the following
fortnight, and was buried on the 19th of June in the Oudekerk, where
Rembrandt subsequently purchased the place of her sepulture.
Upon what this loss must have meant to Rembrandt, with his affectionate
nature and almost morbid devotion to a home-life I need not dwell, nor
did Fate rest content with dealing him this single blow. The great
picture, which forms the chief ornament of the Ryksmuseum at Amsterdam,
"The Sortie of the Company of Banning Cocq," better known under the
inaccurate title of "The Night-Watch," was no sooner completed, in the
course of the same year, than it aroused a storm of vituperative
criticism. The reasons for this I must defer till I come to the
consideration of the paintings, and must only note the fact here, and
the dwindling of Rembrandt's popularity, which appears to have been, to
some extent at least, the consequence.
[Illustration: [_Dresden Gallery_
PORTRAIT OF SASKIA
(1641)]
One dim ray of consolation alone seems to beam through the darkness that
overshadowed him, Lievensz, who had long been absent, first in England
and subsequently in Antwerp, came to settle in Amsterdam, and doubtless
did all that in him lay to comfort his doubly-stricken friend. In the
meantime the business matters so loathed by him, and now aggravated by
their intimate connection with his bereavement, had to be attended to,
though, through the consideration of Saskia's relatives, they were made
as easy for him as well might be. Saskia, by her will, left everything
practically to Rembrandt, confident that he would properly educate Titus
and start him in life. Ostensibly, indeed, her share of the estate was
left to Titus and any other children she might bear, but she expressly
stipulated that he was not to be asked to provide any inventory or
guarantees to anyone whatsoever. She particularly forbade the
interference of any Chamber of Orphans, in especial that at Amsterdam.
Rembrandt alone was to have control, and the property, principal and
interest, was to all intents his own, unless--an important exception as
we shall find--he married again. In that case half of the joint estate
at the time of her death was to be put in trust for the child or
children, though Rembrandt was still to enjoy the interest for life. It
was obvious that the making at once of an inventory of all the property
in his possession was the only right course to pursue, in order that the
share which might eventually revert to Titus should be accurately known,
for Rembrandt was but six-and-thirty, and his re-marriage by no means
impossible. He, however, wished to avoid this course, doubtless through
that over-mastering distaste for business to which I have had and shall
have occasion to refer so often, and having the consent of Hendrick van
Uylenborch, obtained permission from the Chamber of Orphans, on December
19th, to enter into possession of the estate without any estimate of its
value being recorded.