[The Hermitage
DANAE
(1636)
[Liechtenstein Gallery, Vienna
PORTRAIT OF A MAN
(1636)
[Liechtenstein Gallery, Vienna
PORTRAIT OF A LADY
(1636)
The four remaining pictures are portraits; two, forming a pair, a young man and his wife, belonging to Prince Liechtenstein of Vienna; one, a woman, to Mr Byers, Pittsburg, U.S.A.; and also a woman, to Lord Kinnaird. The "Ecce Homo," in the National Gallery [No. 1400], must have also been painted that year, if not before, for it is a sketch for the etching of that date. Other pictures probably dating from that year are a "Standard Bearer," belonging to Baron Gustave de Rothschild, from which the last figure of the date is missing; a "Portrait of an Old Lady," belonging to the Earl of Yarborough; "A Saint," formerly in the collection of Earl Dudley; "Saint Paul," at Vienna; and the "Portrait of an Oriental," in the Hermitage [No. 813].
1637 is inscribed on eight pictures, but in one case, that of a "Portrait of Himself," belonging to Captain Heywood-Lonsdale, there is some doubt about the correct reading of the last figure, and in that of "Susannah and the Elders," in the collection of Prince Jousoupoff, the genuineness of the signature is not above suspicion. No such question, however, applies to the rendering of the same subject at the Hague [No. 147], the "Portrait of Himself," in the Louvre [No. 2554], the "Portrait of Henry Swalm," at Antwerp [No. 705], that of another "Minister" at Bridgewater House, or to the "Portrait of a Man," in the Hermitage [No. 811], once absurdly called "Sobieski," and now, with scarcely less absurdity, said to be Rembrandt. The remaining work is "The Parable of the Master of the Vineyard," also in the Hermitage [No. 798]. Two portraits, one of himself, belonging to Lord Ashburton, and one of a "Young Woman" lacing her bodice, belonging to Dr Bredius, are also attributed to that year, as is "The Angel quitting Tobit," in the Louvre [No. 2536], in which once more Rembrandt's desire for actuality has, as far as the angel is concerned, led him to the border-line between the ungraceful and the ridiculous.