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.
[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.
CHAPTER IV
DAYS OF DECLINE
He was then starting upon the downward course which was leading him to utter ruin. In the course of the following years, Fashion, who had decreed that he was the one painter to patronise, shook her fickle wings and flew off to others, and thenceforth decried her former favourite with the more ignorant dispraise because of her equally ignorant pæans in the past.
It was in vain that the Stathouder continued his patronage, giving him a commission for two pictures, "The Circumcision" and "The Adoration of the Shepherds," for which, on the twenty-ninth of September 1646, he paid the sum of 2400 florins, just double what he had paid before. It was in vain that the rising artists could not fail to perceive his transcendent merits, and that pupils from all Europe sought him out, Michiel Willemans, Ulric Mayr, and Franz Wulfhagen, Christoph Paudiss, Juriaen Avens, Bernard Keilh, Cornelis Drost, Nicholas Maes, Carel Fabritius, Samuel van Hoogstraten, and many more. He had ceased, apparently, to attract the public. At any rate, though his productive energy was unabated, his affairs grew ever more and more involved.