AN OLD WOMAN IN AN ARM CHAIR, WITH A BLACK HEAD-CLOTH
1654. The Hermitage, St. Petersburg.
He found an authentic portrait of Titus in the Wallace collection, painted in 1657, the year after Rembrandt had become bankrupt. It is one of the most charming portraits the master ever produced, a picture that even the most casual frequenter of galleries must pause before and love. A red cap crowns his curly hair, which falls to his shoulders. The face has a sweet expression; but the observant can detect traces of ill-health upon it. Titus died before his father. Father, mother, Saskia, Hendrickje, Titus, had all gone when the old man passed to his rest.
On the opposite wall at the Wallace collection is The Parable of the Unmerciful Servant, a fine example of Rembrandt the chiaroscurist, straightforward, but touched with that mystery so rare in painting, but which, under certain conditions, was as natural to Rembrandt as drawing. It is not always present in his work. None can say that there is any mystery about the sober portrait pictures called The Wife of Jan Pellicorne with her Daughter, and Burgomaster Jan Pellicorne with his Son, in the Wallace collection. A scriptural subject was needed to inspire Rembrandt's brush with the sense of mystery.
It was the mystery of two pictures at the National Gallery that first drew the child to Rembrandt: it was the etchings that gave him a deeper insight into Rembrandt's sense of mystery, and made of him a willing Gamaliel at the master's feet.