In the following year we find him for the first time attempting pure landscape. One, signed and dated, an entirely imaginary composition, is in the possession of Herr Georg Rath at Buda-Pesth; another, also signed and dated, in which he has to some extent compromised by introducing some small figures illustrating the "Parable of the Good Samaritan," is in the Czartoryski Museum at Cracow. "Christ and Mary Magdalene at the Tomb," in Buckingham Palace, though the figures are made of more importance, may also be included in the transition pictures between landscape and subject, for the garden, tomb, and distant city are at least as much insisted on as the figures. The important picture of the year, however, was a figure subject, "Samson propounding his Riddle to the Philistines," the great canvas in the Dresden Gallery [No. 1560], a magnificent piece of work, but, apart from its technical qualities, of no great interest: the only other pictures dated 1638 being a "Portrait of an Old Man," in the Louvre [No. 2544], and a "Bust of a Man in Armour," at Brunswick [No. 237].
[Hermitage, St. Petersburg
PORTRAIT CALLED SOBIESKI
(1637)
[Dresden Gallery
THE MAN WITH THE BITTERN
(1639)
Two more pictures were completed for the Stathouder in 1639, a "Resurrection" [No. 329], signed and dated, and an "Entombment" [No. 330], unsigned, now with the others at Munich. The only other subject treated that year, if the date and signature are genuine, which M. Michel doubts, was "The Good Samaritan" dressing the wounds of the injured man, in the collection of M. Jules Porgès, for "The Slaughter-house," belonging to Herr Georg Rath, is a study rather than a picture; and the "Man with the Bittern" at Dresden [No. 1561] as much a portrait as a study. Other portraits are the so-called "Lady of Utrecht," lent by the family Van Weede van Dykveld to the Amsterdam Museum; that of "Alotte Adriaans," belonging to the executors of the late Sir F. Cook, a life-sized full-length figure of "A Man," at Cassel [No. 217], at one time erroneously called "Burgomaster Six," and a so-called "Portrait of Rembrandt's Mother," at Vienna [No. 1141].
There are six pictures dated 1640—four subjects and two portraits—one of himself in the National Gallery [No. 672], (see [ill., p. 28]), and the famous one of "Paul Doomer," better known as "The Gilder," now in the possession of Mr Havemeyer of New York. The subjects include the Duke of Westminster's beautiful "Salutation" and the "Expulsion of Hagar and Ishmael," in the Victoria and Albert Museum, in both of which, however, the concentration of light on a small portion is so intense as to suggest the lime-light of a theatre; the charming version of "The Holy Family" in the Louvre [No. 2542], known as "The House of the Carpenter," where the contrasting light and shade, though equally marked, are reasonably brought about; and the mysterious allegory, in the Boymans Museum at Rotterdam [No. 238], known as "The Concord of the Country," containing a rather confused mass of detail and incident, all obviously meaning something, but what no one can quite decide.
Other pictures supposed to have been painted about the same time are a "Good Samaritan"; a "Saving of Moses," in which the figures play a part quite subordinate to the landscape; three pure landscapes, "An Effect of Storm," at Brunswick [No. 236], one in the Wallace collection; a study of "Dead Peacocks," belonging to Mr W. C. Cartwright; and several portraits, the most noteworthy of which is the one of "Elizabeth Bas" in the Ryksmuseum at Amsterdam [No. 249].