PORTRAIT OF REMBRANDT
(ABOUT 1664)
The subsequent history of the family may be briefly sketched. Within a fortnight of Rembrandt's death, on October 13th, his daughter-in-law Magdalena was also dead. On the 16th and 18th of March, and again on April 15th, Abraham Francen, the old and faithful friend, and Christian Dusart, acting on behalf of Cornelia, settled with François van Bylert, acting on behalf of the baby Titia, their respective portions of the small inheritance. François would seem to have been a kindly guardian, and Titia to have had a happy home, for, on June 16th, 1686, at the church of Slooten, she married his son, also named François, a jeweller, living in the Kloveniers-Burgwal, in the heart of her native town. Here she bore, and buried also in the Westerkirk, three children, one in 1688, one in 1695, and one in 1698, and herself died November 22nd, 1725, leaving a fourth child, who only survived her three years.
Cornelia married a man named Suythoff, and with him travelled to Java, where, in the town of Batavia, she gave birth to two sons, one on December 5th, 1673, called Rembrandt, the other, on July 14th, 1678, named Hendrick.
REMBRANDT THE PAINTER
CHAPTER V
EARLY YEARS (1627-1633)
Of the blank spaces in the record of Rembrandt's career, none is so long or so inexplicable as that which begins with his return from Amsterdam to Leyden in 1624. Here the track breaks off abruptly, and we can be sure of nothing until we come to the first known pictures signed by him, and dated 1627.