THE APPEAL OF THE ETCHINGS
The citizen and golfer, whose commerce with Rembrandt was narrated in the
first chapter, approached the master through the writings of his
Recoverers, certain art historians and scholars, who frequent libraries,
search archives, and peruse documents; men to whom a picture is a
scientific document rather than an emotional or intellectual experience. He
was well content to end his commerce with Rembrandt there. History
interested him: to art he was apathetic.
His son, as was indicated in the second chapter, was indifferent to art
history, and he would not have walked across the road to read an unedited
document; but I see him tramping ten miles to seek a picture that promised
to stir his emotions and stimulate his imagination. Rembrandt, the maker of
pictures, had become a vivid personality, a master whom he reverenced; but
Rembrandt the etcher was unknown to him.
There are authorities who assert that in etching Rembrandt's art found its
amplest and most exquisite expression. None will deny that his is the
greatest name in etching. If all Rembrandt's pictures were destroyed, if
every record of them by photograph or copy was blotted out, the etchings
alone would form so ample a testimony to his genius that the name of
Rembrandt would still remain among the foremost artists of the world.
Rembrandt enjoyed a period of popularity with his pictures, followed by
years of decline and neglect, when lesser and more accommodating men ousted
him from popular favour. But from first to last the products of his needle
were appreciated by his contemporaries, even if he himself did not set
great store by them. He began to etch early in life: he ceased only when
his eyesight failed. He found in etching a congenial and natural means of
self-expression. His artistic fecundity threw them off in regal profusion.
The mood seized him: he would take a prepared plate, and sometimes, having
swiftly spent his emotion, he did not trouble to do more than indicate the
secondary incidents in a composition. Often he gave them away to friends
and fellow-artists, or tossed them, when they had answered their purpose in
his art life, so continuously experimental, into one of the sixty
portfolios of leather recorded in the inventory of his property.
The history of _Christ Healing the Sick_, known as _The Hundred Guilder
Print_, now the most prized of all the etchings, shows that he did not
attach much value, either artistic or monetary, to this plate. He did not
even receive a hundred guilders (under £9) for it, but gave the etching to
his friend Jan Zoomer in exchange for _The Pest_, by M. Anthony. At the
Holford sale, as has already been noted, £1750 was given for the _Hundred
Guilder Print_.
It is supposed that only two of the etchings were made expressly for
publication--the _Descent from the Cross_, and the _Ecce Homo_; but
Rembrandt may have benefited from the sale of them through the partnership
that was formed in 1660 between his son Titus and Hendrickje Stoffels.
[Illustration: MINERVA
1655. The Hermitage, St. Petersburg.]
In the eighteenth century certain connoisseurs had already made collections
of his etchings. Catalogues began to be published, and in 1797 Adam
Bartsch, keeper of the prints in the library at Vienna, issued the
well-known catalogue that bears his name in two octavo volumes. Since
Bartsch's monumental work many students of the etchings have striven to
sift the authentic from the false. Needless to say, they disagree. Here are
the figures:--
Bartsch 375 authentic etchings.
Wilson 366 " "
Claussin 365 " "
Blanc 353 " "
Middleton-Wake 329 " "
de Seidlitz 260 " "
Legros 71-113 " "
M. de Seidlitz's list of 260 was arrived at through consultation with
several authorities, and that number is now accepted as approximately
correct.
Our enthusiast knew nothing of the work of the labourers in Rembrandt's
etching vineyard. He was quite ignorant of the expert contributions of Sir
Francis Haden, P.G. Hamerton, and Mr. Frederick Wedmore, although his
father, had he been a communicative man, could have discoursed learnedly on
their efforts. Fate so willed it that he came to Rembrandt's etchings by
chance, and, being sensitively alive to beauty and idealism, they merged
into his life, and became as it were a personal possession.
On a certain day, in the window of one of those delightful London shops
where first editions, prints, pieces of pottery, and odds and ends tempting
to the virtuoso, are exposed for sale, he saw a small opulent picture by
Monticelli. Entering to inquire the price, he discovered, as he had feared,
that it was far beyond his bank balance. At the invitation of the
proprietor, who seemed delighted that his goods should be admired, he
stayed to "look round." Strewn upon a rosewood, inlaid table were a hundred
and more etchings. Many were quite small, heads of men and women minutely
and beautifully wrought; others, larger in size, were Biblical subjects;
some were weird and fantastical; one, for example, showed a foreshortened
figure lying before an erection, upon which a skinny bird stood with
outstretched wings, flanked by ugly angel boys blowing trumpets.
[Illustration: TITUS IN A RED CAP AND A GOLD CHAIN
1657. The Wallace Collection, London.]
"The best are sold," said the gentle proprietor.
The enthusiast was about to ask the name of the artist, when he suddenly
caught sight of the _Christ at Emmaus_. His blood stirred in him. That
little shop became an altar of art, and he an initiate. It was not the same
version as the Louvre picture, but only one mind--the mind of Rembrandt,
only one heart--the heart of Rembrandt, could have so felt and stated the
pathos and emotion of that scene. Controlling his excitement, he turned
over the prints and paused, startled, before _Abraham's Sacrifice_. What
was it that moved him? He could hardly say. But he was moved to an
extraordinary degree by that angel standing, with outstretched wings, by
Abraham's side, hiding the kneeling boy's eyes with his hand, staying the
knife at the supreme moment. He turned the prints, and paused again before
_The Prodigal Son_. Some might call the face of the kneeling prodigal
hideous, might assert that the landscape was slight and unfinished, that
the figure in the doorway was too sketchy. Not so our enthusiast. This was
the Prodigal Son, and as for the bending, forgiving father, all that he
could imagine of forgiveness and pity was there realised in a few scratches
of the needle. He turned the prints and withdrew _Tobit Blind_. In every
line of this figure of the wandering old man, tapping his stick upon the
pavement, feeling his way by the wall, was blindness, actual blindness--all
the misery and loneliness and indignity of it.
"Are these for sale?" he asked the smiling proprietor, without the
slightest hope that he could afford one.
"Oh yes! _Tobit Blind_ you can have for two shillings and sixpence.
_Abraham's Sacrifice_, _Christ at Emmaus_, and _The Prodigal Son_ are four
shillings each."
The enthusiast could not conceal his astonishment. "I thought Rembrandt's
etchings cost hundreds of pounds," he said.
"They do, but these are merely reproductions. Only a millionaire could hope
to possess a complete collection of first states. These are the
reproductions that were issued with M. Blanc's catalogue. He made them from
the best proofs in his own collections, and from the public museums. You
should compare them with the originals. The difference will astonish you.
It's candle-light to sunlight, satinette to the finest silk."
"But where can I see the originals? I don't know any millionaires."
"Nothing easier! Go to the Print Room of the British Museum or to the
Ionides Collection."
A day or two later the enthusiast, carrying under his arm the roll of four
Rembrandt's etchings that he had purchased for fourteen shillings and
sixpence, ascended the stairs of the British Museum, and timidly opened the
door marked, "Print Room. Students only."
His reception agreeably surprised him. He, an obscure person, was treated
as if he were a M. Michel. An obliging boy requested him to hang his hat
and coat upon a peg, and to sign his name in a book. An obliging youth
waved him to a noble desk running at a right angle to a noble window, and
begged him to indicate his needs upon a slip of paper. He inscribed the
printed form with the words--"Rembrandt's Etchings and Drawings."
The obliging youth scanned the document and said--"Which do you wish to
see? There are many portfolios. I can bring you one at a time."
"Do so, if you please," said the enthusiast. "I should like to examine them
all, even if it takes a week."
The obliging youth inclined his head and departed.
There is a delightful air of leisure and learning about the Print Room, and
an entire absence of hustle. Two students besides himself were the only
other members of the public, one studying Holbein, the other Blake.
[Illustration: PORTRAIT OF AN OLD LADY, FULL FACE, HER HANDS FOLDED
1641. The Hermitage, St. Petersburg.]
The first portfolio that was brought to him contained the _Christ Healing
the Sick_, known as _The Hundred Guilder Print_, in several states. It was
the first large etching by Rembrandt that he had seen, and he gazed with
astonishment, admiration, and awe at the almost miraculous characterisation
of the figures, at the depth and richness of the blacks, and the nobility
of the conception. He passed from that to _The Three Crosses_, and was even
more moved by the dramatic intensity and realism of those burdened crosses
against the profound gloom, and the dim, poignantly realised figures in the
foreground. He saw the _Christ before Pilate_ and _The Death of the
Virgin_, lingering before them, studying every detail, realising to the
full, through these splendid impressions, the height and significance of
Rembrandt's genius. He compared the four prints he had purchased with their
originals, and understood why collectors were eager to pay enormous prices
for fine states, probably printed by the master himself.
As soon as he had finished one portfolio, the watchful attendant carried it
away, and substituted another. It was so easy, so restful, and so
invigorating to study a master under these conditions, that he wondered the
public did not flock to the Print Room as to a first night at a popular
theatre.
On another day he studied the drawings and landscape etchings--that dark,
spacious design called _The Three Trees_, and a perfect little drawing of
_Joseph Consoling the Prisoners_. The large plates inspired him with
reverence and profound admiration for Rembrandt's genius as an etcher, but
it was the smaller etchings that won his love and held it. He promised
himself, when he came into certain family monies of which there was some
prospect, that instead of buying an automobile, he would make himself the
proud owner of _The Three Trees_, _The Prodigal Son_, _Abraham's
Sacrifice_, and _Tobit Blind_--perhaps one, perhaps two, perhaps three,
perhaps all four.