Painted in oil on canvas.
3 ft. 3½ in. × 2 ft. 7½ in. (1·00 × 0·80.)
This great master of the brush some time before his death had to avail himself of poor relief granted by the municipality of Haarlem, and after his death, in 1666, his widow received an allowance of fourteen sous a week! Such was the tragic end of one of the most accomplished of portrait painters in the whole range of art.
DUTCH INDEPENDENCE
Holland after a terrible struggle had ultimately succeeded in throwing off the Spanish yoke before the art of Hals was on the wane. Dutch art then became gradually more independent, self-centred, democratic in outlook, and Protestant in tendency. Religious subjects became less frequent, and domestic scenes dealing with indoor and outdoor life were before long largely on the increase. Before we pass to the detailed study of the most striking characteristics of art in Holland in the last half of the seventeenth century, we must examine at some length the far-reaching influence and the world-famous achievements of Rembrandt, for whom Hals may be said to have prepared the way.
REMBRANDT
As his name denotes, Rembrandt Harmensz van Rijn (1606–1669) was born on the banks of the Rhine, his father being a miller at Leyden. When fourteen years of age he entered the university of his native town and had a classical education, which stood him in good stead through his long and troubled career. Although he was at first placed as a pupil of Jacob van Swanenburgh, he at an early age removed to Amsterdam. There he worked under Pieter Lastman (1583–1633), whose Abraham’s Sacrificing Jacob (No. 2443a) of 1616 is hung opposite the works of his illustrious pupil. The independent spirit of Rembrandt soon asserted itself, and as early as 1627 he placed his name on pictures which still exist, notably in the Berlin and Stuttgart museums. His earliest picture in the Louvre is the Old Man Reading (No. 2541a), which is signed and dated 1630, and was presented by M. Kaempfen, a former Director of this gallery, on his retirement. Three years later came the two small and very similar versions (No. 2540 and No. 2541) of the Philosopher in Meditation, the former of which is signed and dated; in 1633 was painted the Portrait of the Artist (No. 2552), while another oval picture of the same subject (No. 2553) is inscribed 1634. In this early period the artist was in the habit of portraying members of his own family, who were naturally his most accessible models.
At this moment of his career Rembrandt had to measure himself with many rivals in Amsterdam, notably with Thomas de Keyser (1596?–1667), whose Portrait of a Man (No. 2438a) was formerly in the Rodolphe Kann collection, while a half-length Portrait of a Man (No. 2438b), also by de Keyser, was formerly at Versailles. From the trammels and restrictions which the art of de Keyser would have been likely to impose on a less gifted and original mind, Rembrandt readily set himself free; and he must have had great hopes for the future when, in 1634, he took to wife the wealthy Saskia van Uylenborch. However, the oval Portrait of Himself wearing a black cap (No. 2554), dated 1637, is of marked inferiority to the dignified and deeply religious panel, The Archangel Raphael leaving Tobias and his Father Tobit (No. 2536), of the same year. A year later he must have painted the Portrait of an Old Man (No. 2544), and his first pure landscape.
The influence of domestic bereavements on Rembrandt’s art is clearly reflected in the choice of his subjects, in their more intimate setting, and in the deep feeling which evidently inspired them. No better example of this side of his character and his art could be found than the Holy Family in the Carpenter’s Shop (No. 2542), which he painted in 1640. In that year his mother died, an event which followed rapidly on the death of his two infant daughters and his son, and his wife’s frequent illness. He, however, still went on painting such varied compositions as the Portrait of a Man (No. 2546), of 1645, and the Woman Bathing (No. 2550), which he achieved two years later.
