THE ETCHED WORK 
 
 OF 
 
 REMBRANDT 
 
 CRITICALLY RECONSIDERED. 
 
 BY 
 
 FRANCIS SEYMOUR HADEN, F.R.C.S. 
 
 1877. 
 
 no COPIES PRIVATELY PRINTED FOR THE AUTHOR. 
 
 (All Rights Reserved.) 
 
THE ETCHED WORK 
 
 OF 
 
 REMBRANDT 
 
 CRITICALLY RECONSIDERED. 
 
 BY 
 
 FRANCIS SEYMOUR HADEN, F.R.C.S. 
 
 1877. 
 
 no COPIES PRIVATELY PRINTED FOR THE AUTHOR. 
 
 (All Rights Resa-vcd.) 
 
LONDON : 
 
 METCHIM & SON, 20, PARLIAMENT STREET, SAV., 
 
 A N D 
 
 32, CLEMENT'S LANE, E.G. 
 1877. 
 
The folloiving MonograpJi makes no pretence to the mfallibility of 
 a Ti-eatise. 
 
 An attempt^ on the occasion of a temporary Exhibition of 
 Rembrandf s Etchings at the Btirlington Fine Arts Club, to give 
 practical shape to siiggestions made ten years ago — the utmost that 
 can be claimed for it is that it may se7''ve as a point of departure 
 for more deliberate luork in other and more competent hands. 
 
 Meamvhile, it is hoped that it has been so written that no one 
 but its Author can, properly, be held responsible for the subvej^sive 
 
 theory which it seeks to establish. 
 
 1st May, 1877. 
 
Abbreviations. 
 
 Brit. Mus." 
 
 D." 
 
 W." 
 
 British Museum. 
 Daulby's Catalogue. 
 Wilson's Catalogue. 
 
HE action of the Club in bringing together the 
 present collection* has been mainly utilitarian : its 
 aim — in furtherance of a special object to be 
 presently described— not so much to gratify the eye as to 
 assist the judgment, and, in the case of the advanced Rembrandt 
 Student, to stimulate the critical faculty. 
 
 That object may be thus briefly explained. On the occasion 
 of a former Exhibition of the Etchings of Rembrandt, in the Old 
 Club House in 1867, it was suggested to the Committee that 
 the arrangement according to Stibjed, then universally adopted, was 
 fatal to the comprehensive study of such works, and that it might 
 with advantage be discarded for the more rational order of date of 
 produdiofi] that an arbitrary method, by which works of the 
 latest were mixed up with works of the earliest period, confused 
 
 A Collection of the Etchings of Rembrandt, arranged chronologically, in the 
 Gallery of the Burlington Fine Arts Club, May ist, 1877. 
 
6 
 
 the sense, perverted the judgment, and rendered critical exami- 
 nation and comparison impossible ; and, generally, that such a 
 system, though it might satisfy the Cataloguer, was unworthy 
 of the Biographer and useless to the Student. The Art work 
 of a lifetime, it was contended, should not be looked at as a 
 series of hap-hazard disjointed efforts, but as the continuous expres- 
 sion of a prolonged chain of logical sequences depending for their 
 coherence on the due maintenance of the order of their production, 
 and only to be properly understood when studied in that 
 order ; and finally it was hinted — and that with tolerable confi- 
 dence — that if this unintelligent and incoherent classification were 
 reversed, and a more consecutive method of arrangement substituted 
 for it, new matter yet unsuspected in regard to the Etched Work 
 of Rembrandt might be brought to light, and grave errors of 
 attribution as to some of his larger published plates be both proved 
 and rectified. 
 
 To these representations — novel and revolutionary as they 
 no doubt felt them to be— the Committee were good enough 
 to listen, and hence it came to be conceded not only that 
 there should be a second Exhibition of the Etched Works of 
 Rembrandt in the rooms of the Club, but that that exhibition, 
 in accordance with one of the fundamental objects for which the 
 Club was established, should be made subservient to a directly 
 
/ 
 
 useful purpose. Discarding therefore, the methods of the 
 Cataloguers from Gersaint downwards, we have now, for the hrst 
 time, what may be called the Natural History of Rembrandt 
 before our eyes, and may read, pari passtL with the events 
 of his Life, the motives of that Art of which those events were 
 but the proximate cause. Admitted thus to the intimacy at once 
 of the Artist and of the Man, we may here see him dealing with 
 those magic fragments of copper to be measured only by 
 inches on which his earliest essays were made ; and, following 
 him through the changes of style and execution of his middle 
 period, may still attend him till his power, constantly augmenting, 
 culminates in the impressive conceptions of his latest day — 
 Christ before Pilate " and the great " Crucifixion." We may 
 perhaps be pardoned, if — brought suddenly into the presence 
 of a great story thus graphically told, and while even yet 
 in the full enjoyment and fruition of a grateful dream thus 
 at length realised — a somewhat less grateful thought should 
 carry us on to that inevitable time when, in common v/ith all 
 sublunary things, this wealth of treasure must come to be dispersed, 
 and when our " Hundred Guilders in the First State," our 
 " Rembrandts with the Sabre," our "Tholinx's," our " Buenos with 
 the Black Ring," our " Old Haaring's," and our " Turned-up Hats 
 and Embroidered Mantles " — with their inestimable dates and 
 gfiffonments, and which by a generous courtesy we are now 
 
8 
 
 permitted to enjoy as our own — will pass into hands that know 
 us not 
 
 ******* 
 
 Orlers, a Magistrate and Burgomaster of Leyden, having access 
 to the municipal archives, and writing at a time when Rembrandt 
 was alive to contradict him, tells us plainly that he was born on the 
 15th of July, 1606, and that, "become one of the most renowned 
 painters of the century," he had removed to Amsterdam, where " in 
 this year of 1641 he still lives;" while Rembrandt himself, in a 
 precious note on his own portrait, contributed by Mr. Holford 
 tells us no less plainly that in 1631, when that portrait was 
 executed, he was twenty-four years of age — ''Rembrandt, f. i6ji^ 
 y£.2^"—t\\Q note clearly showing that the portrait in question was 
 made in the early part of the year — i.e., before the 15th of July — 
 and that the supposition that he was born in 1607 01* 1608 is 
 gratuitous. 
 
 Nor, since it is an object of this paper to deal with error in 
 whatever form it may present itself in connexion with Rembrandt, is 
 there any better ground for the fable that he was born of needy 
 parents and in his father's mill, seeing that his parents lived at the 
 time of his birth in a well-to-do house in the Weddesteeg of Leyden, 
 and that when the family property came to be divided some years 
 
9 
 
 later on the death of his mother it consisted, besides "the house 
 with land adjoining it " on the Weddesteeg, of " a house and land 
 " on the Rhine, a house and land on the old Rampart, two other 
 " houses (smaller) on the Rhine, two houses behind the three last, 
 " and of a pleasure garden on the principal dyke of the town — besides 
 " a-half share in the mill near the Whitte-Poert " (valued alone at 
 3,064 fl.,) and of " effects in gold and jewellery, and letters of rent." 
 
 Rembrandt, then, was of Burgher, not pauper origin, and his 
 entry into the world was consistent with that status, since we 
 find him in 1630 taking a good house on the Breedstraat of 
 Amsterdam, and shortly afterwards aspiring to, and effecting, an 
 alliance with the considerable family of Rombartus van Ulenburg. 
 Jurisconsult, Councillor and Burgomaster of Leeuwarden, a member 
 of the Court of Friseland, and more than once a political envoy 
 from that Court.* Of this marriage with Saskia van Ulenburg, if 
 time and space permitted, we should have much to say, since it 
 furnished the proud and happy husband with many a motive for 
 his art during the eight years of sunshine that succeeded it. Saskia, 
 however, died in 1642, leaving to Rembrandt the usufruct of her 
 
 * Note. — Tt is this Rombartus who reports to his fellow magistrates how, on an 
 occasion when he had been treated with marked affabihty and retained to dinner by 
 William the Taciturn, the Prince, on leaving the table, had been assassinated by " a 
 Bourgoingnon." — Vosmaer, "Rembrandt sa vie et ses ceuvres," p. 43. La Haye, 1868, 
 
 B 
 
lO 
 
 property for as long as he should continue unmarried, with remainder 
 to a son born of the marriage. From that moment, when the 
 romance of his life may be said to have ended, comparatively 
 little is known of Rembrandt. Whether, in the cloud that 
 then began to gather about him and which finally enveloped 
 him, this boy was a cause, or, whether, as some have not unreason- 
 ably supposed, Titus, by the various legal processes in which he 
 figured, was merely an instrument to save for his father the wreck of 
 a declining estate ; whether the cause of that decline was the reaction 
 which often follows great success, or the general impoverishment 
 consequent on the disastrous foreign wars in which Holland 
 was then engaged ; or whether, as Sandrart suggests, Rembrandt 
 would have been a richer man if he had known how to " manager les 
 gens qu il frdquentait^' it is not within the scope of this article to 
 enquire. That of which we are only too certain is that, somewhere 
 about 1654, he did marry again and that, in order to satisfy the claims 
 put forth by the trustees of Titus, who was a minor, he was obliged 
 to make an inventory of the goods which he had enjoyed in common 
 with Saskia ; that he valued those goods at 40,000 fl., and that they 
 realised less than 5,000 fl. ; and that this, with the sum produced by 
 the sale of his house in 1660 for 6,700 fl., being insufficient to satisfy 
 the claim against him, he became a bankrupt — and also, that, 
 for some unexplained reason, his brother Adrian and his sister 
 Elizabeth, both of whom had received a larger share of the patrimonial 
 
II 
 
 estate than he, fell into extreme poverty about the same time. But 
 what it chiefly concerns us to know is that through all the troubles that 
 followed upon the death of Saskia and his subsequent marriage, his 
 constitutional energy and industry never forsook him and that, from 
 that time till his own death, though we hear of him and see him no 
 longer, he was no less than at any period of his career adding to his 
 power, and, both by his painting and etching, accumulating immortality. 
 The following simple entry in the Livre Mortuaire of the Wester 
 Kerk, of Amsterdam, is the last word we have of him: — 
 
 " Tuesday 8 Oct., 1669, Rembrandt Van Riyn, Painter, on the Roozegraft, 
 opposite the Doolhof. Leaves two children." 
 
 A theory of Rembrandt's latest day, however, has been 
 recently advanced so much more grateful to. subscribe to than the 
 received account and which is to some extent confirmed by the 
 relatively considerable sum of i6fl. spent on his funeral, that we 
 transcribe it tel quel : — 
 
 " Un jour," says Mons. Vosmaer, "j'allai k la recherche au Rozegracht pour 
 voir encore s'il ne restait plus de trace de la derniere demeure de Rembrandt, qui 
 " ne paraissait plus etre connue. En face de I'emplacement oil s'est trouvd le vieux 
 " Doolhof ^Vi cote nord, je remarquai deux facades de vieux style, portant des ecussons, 
 " avec la date 1652. Or c'est vers 1656 que Rembrandt s'etabht sur ce quai. Au 
 " rez-de-chausse'e d'une de ces maisons, se trouve I'ateHer de M. Stracke', statuaire. 
 
12 
 
 " Des que j'entrai et regardais autour de moi, une vive ressemblance me frappa, 
 " Rembrandt a fait un croquis d'un vestibule, probablement dans sa maison. La vue 
 " est prise d'une chambre attenante, oh au coin gauche se trouve une presse, a droite 
 " quelques marches d'un escaUer. A travers la porte on voit le vestibule, deux 
 " fenetres et une porte ouverte, par lesquelles on apergoit le feuillage d'un arbre, un 
 " quai et les fagades du cote' oppose du canal. Voila bien le meme lieu que celui ou 
 " je me trouvais ! M. Stracke eut la bienveillance de me montrer toute la maison, 
 " dont I'etat actuel permet de saisir celui d'autrefois. Leplancher qui separait les caves 
 " du premier etage a disparu, mais on voit encore les consoles des poutres, Au 
 " second etage, deux chambres ; celle qui donne sur le quai avait eu une belle cheminee 
 " et les murs sont encore garnis de plaques en faience coloriee, recouvertes aujourd 
 " hui d'un papier moderne. L'autre appartement, qui a bien pu se preter comme 
 " atelier de peintre, a trois fenetres sur le nord. Le propridtaire a assure au locataire 
 " actuel que la maison fut autrefois tellement garnie de marbre que la valeur des 
 " depouilles en avait ddpasse le prix d'achat de la maison. Meme une ruelle, 
 " conduisant aux parties attenantes de la maison, en dtait pavee et aujourd'hui encore 
 " le dallage de la cuisine est en marbre de Carrare ! On voit que la maison, nouvelle- 
 " ment construite alors, n'avait pas I'apparence d'une pauvre retraite. 
 
 " Voila done apparemment la demeure oil le viel artiste a passe ses derniers 
 " jours et oil sont encore ecloses tant de chefs-d'oeuvre." 
 
 It is necessary before proceeding further, to say a word on the 
 part played by Etching in the time of which we are writing, and in 
 explanation of that condition of the etched plate which is technically 
 called a "State." 
 
 How comes it, it may first be asked, that the Old Masters made 
 Etching — " Painter's Etching " as it was called to distinguish it from 
 
13 
 
 Engraver's copy — so essential a part of their practice and that with 
 us moderns it is a comparatively lost art ? The answer is obvious. 
 Etching is a direct and personal, as well as a reproductive, art, and, 
 in the days when locomotion was difficult and communication limited, 
 it was at once a means of extending the reputation of the artist and 
 enlarging his market, and of putting into the hands of persons at a 
 distance and of modest fortunes work as original as his painting, at a 
 nominal cost. The engraving of the present day, or even of the day 
 of the great English mezzotinters, (who may be said to have done 
 for Reynolds what Rembrandt did for himself,) supplies the same want 
 in a much less perfect degree, seeing that the engraver's work, how- 
 ever useful in disseminating design, is, as to execution and expression, 
 but speech at second hand, while Etching is utterance a vive voix. 
 Etching, therefore, and with reason, entered largely into both the 
 Practice and the Commerce of Art in Rembrandt's day. Simple 
 people like ourselves profited by that commerce; nor have we in these 
 later times any reason to complain of it. How else in a small Society 
 like this could we produce, at a month's notice and exhibit to others at 
 a glance, the whole artistic side of such a life as Rembrandt's — how 
 in our own persons, possess and enjoy, as we are able to do, not one 
 but a dozen of his undoubted works ! We venture to think the 
 modern painter much to blame for his indifference to so original, 
 prolific, and passionate an art — an indifference to which we owe the 
 idea that has come to be spread abroad that Etching, the most 
 
14 
 
 difficult of the Arts and the one which most requires the experience 
 of the master, is fitted only for the amusement of the amateur ; and 
 which again, has taught the latter to believe that in proportion as he 
 is ignorant and untrained he can practise it successfully. To 
 Philip Gilbert Hamerton* is due the merit of amending this 
 error and of replacing by philosophical and sound reasoning 
 original Etching on its true aesthetical foundations ; and to this Club, 
 no less the credit of proving, by its splendid demonstration of to-day, 
 that it is, par excellence, a Painter's Art. 
 
 A thing which cannot fail to strike the observer in making the 
 tour of the Gallery of the Club is the constant repetition of the 
 word " State." Two distinct notions, we may explain, attach to that 
 word, the popular notion and the collector's notion. The popular 
 notion is that the finished must be better than the unfinished state 
 of a plate ; the collector's that the first, which is usually the unfinished 
 state, is the more desirable of the two ; the less critical observer, in 
 short, preferring to be in possession of what he would call the 
 ultimate mind of the artist — the more fastidious collector of the 
 freshness of his first impression. As usual in the settlement of such 
 questions, reason and unreason meet, and both must be made allow- 
 ance for. Thus, if we consider the spontaneity which distinguishes 
 
 * "Etching and Etchers," 2d Edit. 8vo. Macmillan, 187 
 
i5 
 
 Etching from every other art — the impulse, the sensitiveness, and 
 the emphasis which constitute its chief claim to interest and which 
 determine the brilliancy of its suggestions — the collector has the best 
 of it ; if a more effective tonality and a corrected drawing be 
 preferred, the less sensitive acqu4reur has the advantage. Our own 
 sympathies, we need scarcely say, are with the collector who evinces 
 in this preference a correct appreciation of the intention of Etching. 
 But to proceed. Between the true " first " and true " second " state 
 of an etched plate a distinct interval of time must always be supposed 
 to have elapsed, an interval during which the spirit in which the work 
 was undertaken has had time to cool or at all events undergo a 
 change, and, in the subsequent elaboration which is to constitute the 
 new state, to be even altogether lost. The earlier the state also, as 
 a rule, the better the impression, but not necessarily so, and upon 
 this we desire to lay particular stress. And tliere is yet another point 
 which, as practical etchers and printers, we would submit to the 
 consideration of the purchaser of etchings, and that is that it is not 
 every addition to a plate which properly constitutes a " State." 
 Practically, what happens when the Etcher takes his plate to 
 the printers, or proceeds to print it himself, is this — the artist may, 
 if we will, be Rembrandt and the plate the portrait of the 
 Burgomaster Six. An impression, or possibly two only, may have 
 been taken, when it is seen that the height of the window-sill coming 
 too near the shoulder of the Burgomaster affects unfavourably the 
 
i6 
 
 freedom and movement of the figure, so — the plate being a " dry 
 point " which will yield but few impressions, and perhaps a precious 
 plate on other accounts — it is taken home at once, the objectionable 
 sill in it is reduced, a false line in the contour of the face removed, 
 and the artist's name and the date are added to the right hand corner. 
 This done, he again goes with it to the printer, and, while at the 
 press side, rectifies first a misplacement of two of the numerals 
 comprising the date, and, probably after another impression or two, 
 thinks it better to add the name and age of Six to the left hand 
 corner of the work. Now, Rembrandt himself would tell us, as we 
 now also venture to submit to the collector, that these four 
 or five exceptional, unsettled impressions anterior to the main 
 tirage, were but " trial proofs," and the printer will go farther 
 and aver that they were not "good" proofs. But three 
 centuries later comes the Biographer and Cataloguer, and with 
 him the dealer, to tell us something quite difi"erent — the first 
 with laudable precision to describe three different states of the 
 plate — the last to persuade us that the two first of these " states " 
 are worth three times more money than the perfected plate. 
 We desire to say that there is room for grave misconception 
 here, and that the slight differences we have described in such 
 a plate do not properly constitute so many states expressive of 
 a descending scale of value, real or conventional, but that as " trial 
 impressions" they are not so good as when the plate, in technical 
 
17 
 
 phrase, has " begun to print " — that is to say, when the ink has fairly- 
 begun to enter the deeper lines, and the printer has had time to 
 become what is technically called " acquainted with his plate ; " and, 
 more than this, that as these desirable conditions do not usually 
 happen till towards the eighth or tenth impression, it follows as 
 a matter of course that the third state of such a plate is likely 
 to be, as to impression, better than the first. In a "bitten" 
 plate, like that of Clement de Jonge (W. 274), the case is 
 different. Here, because the plate is more durable, there may 
 be, and probably there have been, a considerable number of 
 impressions taken of each condition of it. Each one of these 
 conditions may, therefore, with propriety, be called a " State.'' 
 
 A word, also, about dates. The signature and date upon a plate 
 might with reason be supposed to indicate the time of its execution. 
 It does not necessarily do so. Thus, the signature and date of a 
 plate will often not be found upon it till the second or third state, or 
 even, as in the case of the " Christ before Pilate," till the fourth 
 state of the plate. Now, in the case of so formidable a work as this, 
 many weeks, and even months, may elapse between the printing of 
 the first and the printing of this fourth state ; and, after all, the 
 date found on that plate may refer, not to the time of its composition 
 and first printing, but to the fourth printing of it. As practical 
 Etchers we can attest this to be frequently the case, and we 
 
 c 
 
i8 
 
 shall revert to the subject when we come to speak, as we 
 shall have to do, of the " Crucifixion," a companion and probably 
 posterior plate to this, but which, for all that, bears a date 
 anterior to it. 
 
 * * * * 
 
 We have now to address ourselves to a part of our task which 
 appeals to the advanced student rather than to the general reader. 
 Having glanced at so much of the life of Rembrandt as connects 
 itself immediately or remotely with that branch of his art with which 
 only we have undertaken to deal, and seen the part borne by original 
 Etching in the business of the painter of his day, we come to the 
 main purposes of this sketch, which are — Firstly, to inform ourselves 
 of the actual means which Rembrandt took to develope the Art 
 in his own particular case and to make it profitable to him in the way 
 of his profession ; and Secondly, and principally, to inquire whether 
 the whole of the extensive work before us is undoubtedly by his hand, 
 or whether any and what portion of it may with greater probability be 
 attributed to the hands of others — whether this treasure, in short, is 
 without alloy, or whether its ring has been in any degree impaired by 
 admixture with a baser metal. For ourselves, reverting to what has 
 been hinted at at the commencement of this paper, we must state at 
 once our belief that all we have here is not by the hand of Rembrandt ; 
 
19 
 
 that for many years past, as our acquaintance with his work has 
 become more intimate, this beHef has strengthened ; and that, by the 
 rare opportunity for comparative study which has been afforded us 
 by the present Exhibition, it has assumed all the proportions of a 
 conviction. But how are we to impart this belief to others ? If 
 Rembrandt's hand is not in all we here see, whose is the hand that 
 has displaced it, or been a sharer with his in the work ? This is the 
 question which it is at once the main purpose of this exhibition to raise 
 and the chief attempt of this imperfect page to answer. How solve 
 it ? How account for the fact that these Etchings, the authenticity of 
 many of which we say we doubt, are yet, one and all, signed 
 " Rembrandt,'' and that no name, either of pupil or assistant, appears 
 on any one of them ? The position, it must be confessed, is 
 embarrassing. On the other hand, now that we have them arranged 
 in the order of their date of production, how comes it that one 
 etching, say of 1633, is so unlike, and inferior to, another etching 
 of 1633, that one of them, on the face of it, is the work of the 
 master, the other of the man ? The conflict being between sense 
 and evidence, how bring these into agreement ? Obviously, only by 
 sifting the evidence anew. 
 
 And the evidence is this. In 1630, or thereabouts, we have 
 seen Rembrandt, as yet with no practice but with a reputation which, 
 doubtless, had preceded him, taking a house on the Breedstraat of 
 
20 
 
 Amsterdam of unreasonable dimensions for a bachelor of twenty- 
 three, unless some ulterior object attached to the venture. What was 
 that object ? Houbraken tells us plainly that it was the formation of 
 a School :— " He divided the whole of the upper part of the house," he 
 says, " into cellules or small studios for the reception of pupils, who, by 
 " this kind of segregation, were to preserve tlieir individuality;" while 
 Sandrart more specifically informs us who and what those pupils were, 
 and what was the work they did there. To this testimony of Sandrart, 
 whose knowledge of Rembrandt was confined to this portion of 
 his career, we invite the particular attention of the reader, because 
 in it we find the first germ of the solution for which we are looking. 
 " His house," says Sandrart, "was constantly full of pupils of good 
 "family who paid him lOO florins annually, without counting the 
 "advantage he derived from their painting and engraving, which 
 " amounted to 2,000 or 2,500 florins more." Who, we now ask, were 
 those pupils— can they be shown to have been also etchers ? 
 Where are those engravings by which Rembrandt profited so 
 largely, but which the Catalogues make no allowance for ? 
 
 The first pupil that joined Rembrandt in the Breedstraat was 
 Jan Van Vliet— that went with him there, rather, since he was 
 already with him at Leyden— an etcher. Then Ferdinand Bol— 
 an etcher. Then Jan Lievens— an etcher. Then Goevart Flink ; 
 then Jacob Backer, Gerard Dow, and De Wedt, (but which of the 
 
brothers we know not, except that it was the same that painted the 
 Raising of Lazarus" now at St. Petersburg). Then De Poorter, 
 an etcher ; Savry, an etcher ; and Victor. Then PhiHp Koninck, an 
 etcher ; then Gerbrandt Van den Eckhout, an etcher ; and, 
 probably about the same time, P. QE. Rodermondt and J. Verbeecq, 
 both etchers. There were many more — thirty in fact in his house 
 at a time, and many of them etchers too — but as they did not join 
 Rembrandt till after the time at which, as we shall presently show, 
 he had ceased to avail himself of pupil work in his engraved publica- 
 tions (that is to say till after 1639), we abstain from naming them. 
 Well, what do we know of the etched works of these men ? Does 
 it in any way resemble in style and manner what we now see on the 
 walls of our gallery ? We answer, with considerable confidence, that 
 it does ; that we have there, in one and the same year, the work of 
 Rembrandt, the work of Lievens, and the work of Bol, and the work 
 of all three of them together. Is that really so ? Is it susceptible 
 of proof ? If it is, then must the arrangement of every Cabinet in 
 Europe be altered — every Catalogue Raisonnd extant, become obsolete ! 
 We are aware of this, and are sensible of the gravity of the position 
 we are creating. We know what our distinguished and courteous 
 friend, Monsieur Charles Blanc, who has committed himself to the 
 old heresy, will say. Still we shrink not. Why should we ? We 
 are but proposing to exchange our habit of thinking in one direction 
 — or possibly of taking things for granted without thinking at all — 
 
for the use of our eyes, and asking the same sacrifice of others. 
 We do but suggest that they shall examine closely, critically, and 
 anew, as we have done, the various public collections of the signed 
 Etchings of Rembrandt's Scholars, and then — while the eye is full 
 of what they have seen — that they shall carry their corrected 
 knowledge with them into our Club gallery and compare it with 
 what they find there. The following references — we apologise for 
 the necessity of making them — will facilitate the enquiry : — 
 
 Jan Van Vliet. — The characteristic of Van Vliet, the youngest 
 of Rembrandt's pupils, is blackness, violent opposition of light and 
 shade destructive of all tonality and all repose ; coarse, incorrect 
 drawing ; vulgarity and exaggeration of expression ; absence of 
 quality. How could such a man be tolerated, much less employed, 
 by such a master! How permitted, as we see he was (Wilson, 
 28-29), to make distorted second states of some of Rembrandt's 
 plates, and even to attach to vile copies of others of them his 
 master's name (W. 8, 15, Signed R. H. i6ji^' 136), and many 
 more, of which, in particular, may be instanced (Brit. Mus.) his 
 copy of " Rembrandt in a turned-up hat and embroidered mantle," 
 with the signature and date of "i?. H., 1^31^ in close, and evidently 
 intentional, fac simile, but with a mistake in the last numeral of the 
 date of 4 for i. The work, however, of Van Vliet does not appear 
 in any but the earliest Etchings of Rembrandt, and in the crowd of 
 
" small Heads " which have been recklessly attributed to him by the 
 Cataloguers. After that it was confined to the reproduction of his 
 master's works, and, in its e?isemdle, constitutes the ''cupboard full 
 of prints by Van Vliet, after pictures by Rembrandt'' which figure 
 in the catalogue of the bankruptcy. Van Vliet's work was 
 too bad to be admitted into any of the reproductions we have 
 here. 
 
 Ferdinand Bol. — En revanche, there was nothing vulgar about 
 Ferdinand Bol, but rather a quiet dignity which brought his work 
 into closer harmony with that of Rembrandt than could be said of the 
 work of any other of his scholars. He was, besides, a close imitator 
 not only of the manner, but of the actual modus operandi of 
 Rembrandt — a copier not only of the subject but of the very 
 lines which composed it, so that at times, except for an absence 
 of purpose inherent in the copied line — it is extremely difficult 
 to say of two things at once so similar and so dissimilar — this 
 is by Rembrandt and this by Bol. His weeds and broken fore- 
 grounds (Daulby 2), his foliage and middle distances (Brit. Mus. 20 
 and D. 2). and his treatment of masonry (B. M. 20.) are studied 
 fac similes of the same accessories when employed by Rembrandt, 
 and the action and drawing of his hands are invariably good. 
 See also (Brit. Mus. 12, 13) (Daulby 3,8,9). His hand, in our 
 opinion, is largely seen in the present Collection. 
 
24 
 
 Jan Lievens. — Lievens, since he signed his own works and was 
 of the same age as Rembrandt, must be considered as a Sectateur 
 and assistant rather than as a pupil.* His style is of three distinct 
 kinds — his own, thin and without force (Brit. Mus. D. i) — 
 that of Rembrandt (Brit. Mus. 45,) — and a late semi-Italian, 
 or "noble" style, as it was called, which he acquired at 
 Antwerp (Brit. Mus. 40, 42). His diagnostic mark is an attempt 
 to express dramatic force by a protrusion of the eye-ball and 
 an exaggerated isolation of the pupil (Brit. Mus. 7), and by a 
 treatment of atmospheric back grounds by curls and vagaries 
 of the needle, intended to be like Rembrandt's, but really like 
 nothing either in art or in nature (Brit. Mus. 14). He was 
 extensively employed by Rembrandt in the production of his 
 larger etchings, and we shall have much to say of him when 
 we come to speak of those etchings, of which, we hold, there 
 are several in the Gallery. His powers became greatly developed 
 in after life, and, when he left Rembrandt, he did some fine things 
 on his own account, both portraits (D. 55) and woodcuts (W. 318). 
 
 Philip Koninck. — But the artist hature — the robust organisation 
 — most akin to Rembrandt's was Philip Koninck's. His paintings 
 
 * By the Ade Constitutif oi the Guild of Painters at the Hague it was forbidden 
 to a pupil during his apprenticeship, under penalty of a fine, to sign his own works. 
 
25 
 
 and etchings, both portrait and landscape, so closely approach those 
 of his great prototype that we may well expect to find evidence of his 
 collaboration with Rembrandt in his engraved publications. We do 
 not find it, however, for the reason, probably, that he did not join 
 Rembrandt till between 1635 and 1640, when, with one or two 
 exceptions he had ceased to avail himself of pupil-work in his 
 etchings. His name, therefore, is introduced here rather to discharge 
 than convict him of any such supposed association. 
 
 Paulvs CEgidius Rottermondt (or Rodermondt), like Van Vliet, 
 was engaged in making etchings with the signature of Rembrandt 
 in fac simile, but whether as a disciple or a mere appropriator we 
 have been unable to determine. His etching of " Esau Selling his 
 Birthright" (Brit. Mus.), reminds us of the "Good Samaritan" 
 and there are some cocks and hens in it in the middle distance 
 ludicrously like the conventional birds which figure in that much 
 overestimated print. 
 
 Philip Virbeecq. — The etchings of Verbeecq are also singularly 
 like the early work of Rembrandt, and of the " Good Samaritan " in 
 particular, but are said to have been done, which, however, we 
 much doubt, before his time. 
 
 Salomon Savry confined himself to the Etching of " Beggars " 
 
26 
 
 (W. 174, 175), which are freely signed with Rembrandt's name, 
 with the one exception of " The Ratcatcher," the copy of which 
 he avows. 
 
 In all these cases the difficulty of ascription is enhanced by 
 three things. Firstly, by the acte constihttif of the Guild of Painters 
 at the Hague already mentioned, which forbad pupils during their 
 apprenticeship to sign their own works. Secondly, by the fact that 
 the etchings which these pupils were employed upon are, after all, 
 from Rembrandt's design, and therefore imbued with his manner. 
 Thirdly, by the circumstance that these etchings are rendered all 
 the more trompeuse by having received Rembrandt's corrections 
 and by being published with his imprimatur. 
 
 But stranger still than that Rembrandt should have employed 
 his pupils to carry out his designs is the fact that he himself, and that 
 in a fashion quite undisguised, availed himself on numerous occasions 
 of theirs ; thus — Jan Van de Velde is the reputed author of " The 
 Good Samaritan" (W. 95), "The Pancake Woman" (W. 128), 
 and "The Charlatan"* (W. 132); Beham of the Gueux, with the 
 inscriptions " fis Vinnich Kout " and " dats niet,' which Rembrandt 
 copied and Savry etched (W. 174, 175); Lievens, of the three 
 
 * Vosmaer, p. 39. See present Essay, page 36. 
 
27 
 
 " Oriental Heads" (W. 288, 289, 290) ; Jan de Wedt, so it is said, of 
 much of the motive of the great "Raising- of Lazarus" (W. 77); 
 Bol of the plate attributed to, but only adopted by, Rembrandt in 
 the "Pampiere Werld " ; Eckhout of the " Sacrifice of Abraham" 
 (W. 39), which Rembrandt so improved upon in his Etching as to 
 make it his own; Martin Van Heemskerk of two of the subjects 
 from the Life of Tobit ; Leonardo da Vinci of the famous Rembrandt 
 drawing, with slight variations, of " The Last Supper," in the Collec- 
 tion of M. De Vos ; Heemskerk again of the " Return of the 
 Prodigal" (W. 96). H ercules Seghers of the Flight into Egypt 
 (W. 61). Gerard Dow of the Woman of Samaria at the Ruins ? 
 (W. 74). Herkman's of the subject known as " Adverse Fortune" 
 (W. 115), and others whose names we cannot call to mind of the 
 "Travelling Musicians " (W. 123), the small "Disciples at Emmaus" 
 (W. 93), and the Onion Woman" (Ch. Blanc 102). To these, 
 also, may be added the great "St. Jerome at the foot of a Tree" 
 (W. 109), which is after a drawing by Titian, and several other 
 etchings, in which Titian's or Campagnola's drawings or prints 
 furnished motives for the backgrounds (W. 208, 64, 112). 
 
 But strangest fact of all — several of these pupils came to be, in the 
 estimation of Rembrandt's contemporaries, of greater account than he. 
 If a public work or historical fact, such as the visit of Henrietta 
 Maria to Amsterdam, had to be illustrated, it was Elevens or Bol, 
 
28 
 
 not Rembrandt, who was called upon by the authorities to immor- 
 talize it. If a large price had to be paid for a picture, it was Flink 
 who was the Millais of the day. If verses in honour of Painting 
 had to be composed, it was to Koninck, not Rembrandt, that the 
 bays were awarded. 
 
 " Roi Philippe." " Roi {i.e. Konig) par le pinceau et les couleurs." 
 
 It was to no purpose that Rembrandt, then in the Rozengracht, 
 was painting and etching with a splendour hitherto unequalled. A 
 reaction had set in. His prestige had departed. It was no longer 
 necessary, as Houbraken once told us, to paint like Rembrandt to 
 command success ; what was now necessary was not to paint like 
 him. Six florins was enough for a portrait of his then going begging 
 for a purchaser, while Flink was living in a palace, and Vondel was 
 exalting him and Koninck at Rembrandt's expence, 
 " Cest Flink dont la Clarte nous sert d'avis." 
 «#**** 
 
 , " Painting also has its Sons of Darkness, 
 " Like owls loving the night ; 
 " While Koninck follows truth, 
 " And, dealing not in false shadows 
 " Or in phantoms clothed in black, 
 " Paints life and nature as it is — clear r 
 
 All of which, doubtless, the " Son of Darkness," and the " Owl 
 loving the night," received with unrufiied equanimity. 
 
29 
 
 We may now enter the Gallery, and, without losing sight of 
 the special object with which the Collection has been brought 
 together proceed to the examination of its contents. The larger 
 figures above the frames refer to the year in which it is assumed 
 the etchings were produced ; the numbers on the frames to the 
 order in which, as nearly as may be, they were executed. The 
 presumed date of production was arrived at in the following manner. 
 The dated etchings of a given year were first hung ; then those 
 which are not dated, but which present a similarity of manner with 
 the dated etchings of that year ; or which are known to have some 
 necessary association with the events of Rembrandt's life at that 
 time ; or which immediately follow on pictures of the same subject 
 painted in that or the previous year ; or, if portraits, when they 
 correspond with the known age of the individual at the time. Thus the 
 little etching of the dying Saskia (W. 353), which is an undated work 
 of the style of the middle period, finds its place in 1642, partly because 
 it is like the work of 1642, partly because, on the face of it, it is a 
 portrait of Saskia, and partly because it is known that Saskia died in 
 that year. By the aid of these and other data the task of assignment 
 has proved by no means so difficult as had been prophesied, and for 
 all the purposes of a comprehensive study of the Master it may, we 
 think, be taken as sufficiently correct. 
 
 This much premised — a single tour of the Gallery, in the direc- 
 
so 
 
 tion, of the arrow of indication, will show us much that this article 
 is meant to demonstrate. Manifest differences of style and treatment 
 marking the dawn, growth, and maturity of Rembrandt's genius, will 
 probably strike us first ; then a certain inequality in the work of the 
 first ten years, as if different hands had been employed upon it — 
 coarse publications like the " Ecce Homo," coming in incongruous 
 apposition with refined plates like the " Death of the Virgin," 
 melodramatic efforts like the " Raising of Lazarus," with timid 
 representations like the "Good Samaritan" — and so forth. These once 
 passed, a greater homogeneity of design and handling will become 
 apparent, and then Landscape, will be seen not only to have a place, 
 but to become so unexpectedly predominant as nearly to fill the wall 
 space devoted to the next ten years. Then, at last, this in its 
 turn will give way to portraits, compositions, and biblical subjects of 
 such transcendant power and beauty that we shall need no more to 
 convince us that the apogee of this form of art has been reached. 
 
 Our circuit will also have suggested this to us, that, in our more 
 deliberate examination of the prints before us as well as for the 
 convenience of such passing reference as we shall here have to make to 
 them, we shall do well to consider them as belonging, not only to 
 certain years, but, to one or other of three periods, or decenniads ; an 
 Early, or first period — from 1628 to 1639 ; a Middle, or second period 
 — from 1640 to 1650; and a Late, or third period — from 1651 to 1661. 
 
31 
 
 EARLY PERIOD. 1628 to 1639. 
 
 We have said that a chief object in the present arrangement has 
 been to obtain by it the advantage, never yet enjoyed on such a 
 scale, of comparing one etching with another so as to arrive 
 at a knowledge of what is and what is not by Rembrandt. As 
 it happens, an example of this kind of advantage meets us at 
 the very threshold. Thus, if we compare the subtle portrait 
 of Rembrandt's mother (W 348) and the spirited little etching of 
 Rembrandt himself (W. 16) with an aged head which is a little 
 below it (W. 26) we shall see at once that, of the three things, two 
 only are by the same hand, and, from what we now know of the 
 work of Rembrandt's scholars, that the third is by Bol. Similar or 
 analogous mistakes, it may here be mentioned, have been constantly 
 met with and corrected during the hanging of the Collection, till 
 at length, by a process of expurgation, which, however, has still 
 left us quite questionable prints enough for illustration, the Gallery 
 been in great measure cleared of them. 
 
 Portraits of Rembrandt, and his mother and wife, abound in this 
 period, those of himself being commonly in some fancy costume which 
 in the gravity of mature age we notice he does not condescend to. 
 The most important of these is " Rembrandt in a turned-up hat and 
 embroidered mantle" (W. 7), on the first state of which we have 
 
32 
 
 Rembrandt's drawing, with signature, date, and age, in his own hand- 
 writing. We shall do well to spend a little time over this interesting 
 and valuable print, partly because of the evidence it gives us of 
 Rembrandt's age, and partly because it is necessary we should know 
 that the chalk additions to it were made not at the time of its 
 execution, 1631, but at some period posterior to that date. The 
 handling, the writing, and the discrepancy between the signature 
 in full and the " R. H." which was his proper signature at that time 
 and which appears on every subsequent state of the plate except the 
 7th state, leave us in no doubt as to this. Then " Rembrandt with 
 three moustaches,"* (W. 2), a small head of extreme beauty and 
 vivacity should be noticed ; then three others which occur towards 
 the end of the series — " Rembrandt in a cap and feather " (W. 20), 
 "Rembrandt with a drawn sabre" (W. 18), and "Rembrandt 
 leaning on a sill" (W. 21), the latter having on both the first and 
 second states, as in Mr. Holford's print, the artist's drawing in pencil 
 We do not class the all but unique " Rembrandt with an aigrette " 
 (W. 23), among his portraits, because the face, compared with (W. 2), 
 is clearly not his, and because it has a distinct mole near the nose 
 which Rembrandt had not. Among the portraits of his mother — 
 which, by the way, are by no means of good quality or sufficiently 
 
 * We repeat these titles to avoid confusion, but it is high time that a new 
 and more simple nomenclature were adopted. 
 
ample as to selection — is, besides the charming head of 1628, one 
 (W. 340) which deserves notice from the fact that it is in widow's 
 weeds for the death of Harmen (his father), and that Rembrandt has 
 availed himself of that event to attach his name to it at full length ; up 
 to that time his signature having been, as has been shown* " R. H." 
 (" Rembrandt Harmenszoon " — Harmen's son). The fine head of his 
 wife, Saskia (W. 337), then a bride, next claims attention; the ist 
 rare state, in particular, because of its extraordinary brilliancy of 
 execution and of the consummate way in which it is lighted, and also 
 because it is an instance of how much may be lost, even in such 
 hands as Rembrandt's, in the elaboration of an etching, or rather in 
 the act of taking it up to work upon it a second time. To judge 
 by the shadow projected by the head, the etching in its ist state 
 would seem to have been made opposite an ordinary window, 
 and, from the position of the same shadow in subsequent states, to 
 have been completed in the studio — with how much loss to its luminous 
 quality it is needless to say. 
 
 We now come to a series of prints which belong entirely to 
 this period (some of which are here, but the majority of which have 
 been excluded), the authenticity of which we distinctly impugn ; that 
 is, we say of them that they are only in part — and that in small part — 
 
 * Rev. C. H. Middleton. Academy, No. 251, p. 169, and Vosmaer, pp. 134-136. 
 
 E 
 
34 
 
 by Rembrandt, and, although after Rembrandt's design, and done in 
 his house, and under his surveillance and correction, that they are 
 executed by his scholars and assistants. These are — besides a 
 number of heads by Van Vliet, signed "7?. 77.," which are not 
 here but which are chronicled as Rembrandt's work in all the 
 catalogues — a little wood-cut of a " Philosopher with an Hour Glass," 
 by Lievens ; " A Bust of an Old Man," by Bol ; " The Flight into 
 Egypt," Rembrandt inventor et fecit, i6^j, probably also by Bol, 
 after a design by Lastman ; " The Good Samaritan," Rembrandt 
 inventor et fecit, i6jj, by Bol or Rottermondt ; " The Raising of 
 Lazarus," R. H. V. Riyn ft. ; " The Great Descent from the Cross," 
 Rembrandt fecit cum pryvl. t6jj, by Lievens ; " Adverse Fortune," 
 Rembrandt, f /6jj, probably by Bol ; the "Three Oriental Heads" 
 Rembrandt geretuckerdt, i6^S, by Lievens "Rembrandt with a Bird 
 of Prey; "by Van Vliet?; the " Ecce Homo," Rembrandt, f i6j6, 
 " cum privile," by Lievens ; " Rembrandt with Frizzled Hair," by Van 
 Vliet ? " St. Jerome in Meditation," Rembrandt, 16^4, by Bol } " The 
 Goldweigher," Rembrandt, f, i6jg, of which the head and shoulders 
 only are by Rembrandt ; and " Rembrandt Drawing from a Model," 
 of which the dbauche alone is by his hand, and the rest — as in the 
 case of the Goldweigher — by Bol. 
 
 "The Raising of Lazarus "(W. 77).— There is no date on this print, 
 and the signature is not Rembrandt's, nor is the ordonnance of the plate ; 
 nor its melodramatic action ; nor is it at all like any of Rembrandt's 
 
35 
 
 work previous to 1633, when he was using the signature " R.H." or 
 indeed after it. It looks as if done from a picture, and it is 
 said, though we cannot vouch for this, that there is a picture like it 
 at St. Petersburg, by De Wedt. Whether this is so or not there is 
 little of Rembrandt, either in feeling, composition, or execution, in 
 the plate before us, and what there is has the air of being foreign to 
 it — of having been imported into it. The etching of the robe on the 
 principal figure is very able, but not Rembrandt's ? There is work 
 in different parts of the sky like the work of Lievens, and more still 
 in every part of the plate (except the figure of Christ), like that of Bol. 
 The faces in the crowd are Bol's, as well as the rock and earth lines, 
 and the shadowing under the signature. On the other hand there is 
 more force in the work than is usual with Bol, and more, apparently, 
 of the hardihood of Lievens. Altogether, therefore, while we profess 
 a general distrust of the plate, we hesitate to pronounce upon it, 
 nor do we know when it was done. Meanwhile, the Student may 
 compare it for difference from Rembrandfs work with the head 
 of Rembrandt (W. 16) done before it, and with the small head of 
 Rembrandt (W. 2) done after it ; and for similarity with BoVs work, 
 with the School of Rembrandt in the British Museum, and with 
 the heads in the " Good Samaritan " (W. 95). 
 
 "The Good Samaritan" (W.95). — Of this work we may speak with 
 less hesitation. We hold that the plate is by Bol — unless, indeed, which 
 we once thought possible, Rembrandt found for the occasion another 
 
36 
 
 Bol in Rottermondt. The barrel in the right corner without substance, 
 rotundity, or containing power ; the straw above it Hke hair ; the land- 
 scape, buildings, and foliage in the middle distance, Rembrandtesque, 
 but not Rembrandt ; the toy poultry ; the ill-expressed masonry 
 about the window ; the boy holding the horse ; the old man on the 
 steps ; the weeds in the foreground ; all have their counterpart in 
 Bol's work in the British Museum. Meantime, Vosmaer, speaking 
 of an anterior etching of the same subject, signed "/ van de Velde 
 fecit" (to whom in fact, though we cannot agree with him, he attributes 
 its invention) says " La scene me parait le prototype de celle de 
 Rembrandt, avec son vieil Edifice, son perron, ou apparait un 
 valet portant une torche, son escalier, au bas duquel le Samaritain 
 paye I'hote qui tient une chandelle, et avec son cheval et le serviteur 
 qui en enieve le blesse. Le fond en differe." * Compare the heads 
 in this composition, for difference, with " Rembrandt's mother " 
 (W. 348) or " Rembrandt with three moustaches " (W. 2), or the 
 portrait of "Saskia" (W. 337). 
 
 " The Descent from the Cross" (W. 84). — Of the various copies 
 made for Rembrandt in the year 1633 (the year prolific of copies) this 
 plate is the one at once the most able, and yet the most demonstrably a 
 copy, since the evidence against it is not only such as it bears on its 
 
 * Vosmaer, " Rembrandt sa vie et ses oeuvres," p. 39. 
 
37 
 
 face, but such as is obtainable from without. There are, in fact, two 
 plates of the subject similar in size, but widely different in execution 
 and comparative merit. Of these two plates, the first one failed in 
 the biting, and was abandoned; the one exhibited being a second 
 plate done to replace the first. A close study of the two is needful 
 to the appreciation of the views put forth in this article. The first 
 plate (Brit. Mus. W. 83) is finely and delicately etched, and has 
 all the appearance of being by the hand of Rembrandt. The work 
 in it is masterly, and looks original ; that is to say, every line and 
 mark in it has its purpose, and there is a look about the whole 
 as if it had been done con amove. An attempt, for the purpose of 
 illustration, has been made to photograph a portion of this first plate, 
 but the ruin made by the acid has been too complete to make the 
 reproduction other than a confused blot. (Plate i.) Carefully 
 looked at, however, and compared with a photograph of a similar 
 portion of the second plate (Plate ii.), its superiority of handling will 
 be at once perceived. In the foreground, for instance, is an 
 embroidered cloth: look at it attentively, and then carry the eye 
 quickly to the same cloth in the second plate ; look at the ladder and 
 the strands that compose it, and especially at its lowest rung in the 
 first plate, and then at the mechanical rendering of it in the 
 second ; at the work, and especially at the outline and drawing of 
 the advanced leg of the kneeling man, in the one, and at the same 
 thing in the other. If a difference of quality fatal to the idea of the 
 
38 
 
 two plates being by the same hand is not immediately perceived 
 nothing that we can say will make the difference apparent. If it be 
 perceived, it is worth while to carry the comparison further. Look 
 again, therefore, at the embroidered cloth in the first plate, and two 
 pins will be perceived in it by which the folds have been arranged as 
 an artist would arrange them. Examine these folds, and the fine 
 action of the point by which they have been expressed ; and then, as 
 before, examine the same would-be folds in the second plate; at the 
 roundness expressive of substance of the one cloth, and the unsubstan- 
 tial flatness of the other which the heaviest work has proved unable 
 to redeem ; at the woodwork, which is like wood on the ladder of the 
 first, and at the gross idea of a ladder which the copyist has had in 
 the second. From such an examination carried over the whole of 
 the two plates, it is, we hold, impossible to avoid the conclusion 
 that the first was done by a master, the last by a scholar; and 
 that the scholar in this case was Lievens. Compare with the 
 same heads of Rembrandt, for difference, and with the works of 
 Lievens referred to at page 24 for similarity with his work. 
 
 St. Jerome in Meditation (W. 105). — This is a small plate with 
 much of the character of the heads in the " Good Samaritan " and 
 evidently by Bol. The lion is the heraldic leopard, and has its 
 counterpart in an etching by Bol of St. Jerome in a cavern (D 3). 
 A drawing of a lion by Rembrandt has been placed next to it by 
 way of contrast. 
 
39 
 
 " The Three Oriental Heads" (W. 288). — We need not waste 
 much time over these. The original of one of them with the 
 characteristic staring eyes, by Lievens, is here and we credit it 
 with being the original head, and think it better than the supposed 
 copy of it, " with retouches," by Rembrandt. As to the signature we 
 are convinced from re-examination that Vosmaer's reading of it as 
 a Dutch word signifying " retouched," is the correct one. That 
 Lievens and, no one else, is mainly responsible for the authorship 
 of all these plates we cannot, doubt. 
 
 "The Ecce Homo" (W. 82). — Here again we are assisted by 
 evidence from without. First, we have the original picture obligingly 
 placed at the disposal of the Club by Lady Eastlake; next, two finished 
 proofs of the etching itself ; next, a fac simile of an unfinished proof 
 of the etching in course of reproduction by the copyist ; and, lastly, 
 several etchings large and small, done at the same time by Rembrandt, 
 to compare with these— namely, " The Death of the Virgin," " The 
 Presentation in the Vaulted Temple" and "Youth Surprised 
 by Death." We have only to bring the whole of this evidence 
 into juxtaposition — picture, proof, copy, and Rembrandt's undoubted 
 work — to be assured that this popular, but coarse print, for which 
 such large sums have been paid, and which the cataloguers one and 
 all go out of their way to extol, is no more than an able copy largely 
 touched upon by Rembrandt, and published by him solely for 
 
40 
 
 commercial purposes. To make this clear, we have had a reduced 
 fac simile made of a portion of the unfinished proof (Plate iii.). It is 
 worth observing ; the handling of it ; the weak heads in the left 
 corner ; and the glaring fact that the copyist — proceeding from the 
 sides of the plate towards its centre, in true mechanical fashion, 
 finishing as he goes — has actually made the shadows projected by the 
 legs of Pilate's chair, before making the legs themselves ! The late 
 respected keeper of the prints of the British Museum used to 
 say of this unfinished proof, that " it was odd so great a man 
 as Rembrandt should have worked in this strange way from the 
 side toward the centre of his plate," but two things certainly 
 never struck Mr. Carpenter ; namely, that an original artist could not, 
 and would not, have worked in this way, and that a copyist would* 
 — and that other examples are to be found in Rembrandt's 
 works of spaces thus left by the copyist for him to fill up, as in 
 the Goldweigher. But as if to make all this still plainer, there 
 happens to be in the British Museum a second impression of 
 this rare unfinished state, covered with Rembrandt's corrections of the 
 scholar's work — great dabs of bistre here, to let him know where it 
 was to be stronger ; sweeping erasures there, to show where it was to 
 be altogether removed — and, generally, such an emphatic treatment 
 of the proof as we see in unfinished prints of the Liber Studiorum of 
 Turner. Compare for difference with Rembrandt's work at this tim£, 
 
 * See M. Flameng's copy in course of execution of the Hundred Guilder plate. 
 
41 
 
 the "Death of the Virgin," (W. 104). " The Presentation in the 
 Vaulted Temple" (W. 54) ; and Youth surprised by Death" (W. 113); 
 and for similarity with the work of Lievens—yfAxom we designate 
 without hesitation as the author of the plate— the prints by him in 
 the British Museum, to which we have referred at page 24. 
 
 "The Gold Weigher" (W. 283).— Here, as we have said, is 
 another instance of the copyist— in this case Bol— working from the 
 sides towards the centre evidently in the preparation of an etching 
 which Rembrandt was to finish by putting in the principal head. Of 
 this plate we should say that it is from a picture, and that, like another 
 plate next to it, " Rembrandt drawing from a model," it was Sbauch^ 
 by Rembrandt, and given to Bol to fill in, but with instructions to 
 leave a vacant place for the head and shoulders. The head once 
 put in, the most unpractised eye will see the difference between 
 the masterly work of Rembrandt which composes it and the furred 
 robe, and the rest of the plate — between it and the head of the 
 kneeling boy for instance; while for difference between the money 
 chest, barrels, and table cloth, observe the accessories in the " Death 
 of the Virgin," and, for general dissimilarity of work, with " Youth 
 surprised by Death." — both contemporary prints. 
 
 "Rembrandt Drawing from the Model" (W. 189). — The free 
 use of the dry-point line in the laying in of this plate gives it the look 
 
 F 
 
42 
 
 of a later production, but we are persuaded, from the work in the back- 
 ground, that it is a plate of about this time, which, for some unknown 
 reason, was abandoned while in the act of being filled in by Bol. 
 On the first state, when out of the frame, will be seen, in fact, 
 Rembrandt's instructions to his pupil to lower the tone of the two light 
 patches which appear as " spots " in the background. 
 
 We have now come to the end of what we have called these 
 " commercial plates," respecting which we may mention, as a proof 
 of our consistency, that we would never admit them into our own 
 collection. We can at no time, indeed, remember — even in our 
 youngest and least experienced day — to have felt the least desire to 
 possess any of them. 
 
 And now a word, in especial, as to the year 1633. In this year 
 there were done in Rembrandt's studio more etchings alone than 
 would have occupied a professed engraver a year. If Rembrandt did 
 them how, we would ask, did he manage to do thirty-three known 
 pictures, large and small, and a number of signed drawings besides ? 
 The two great plates of the "Descent from the Cross" would alone 
 have occupied six months of the time, and the aggregate work of 
 the year would have been at the rate of a picture or etching a week 1 
 
43 
 
 MIDDLE PERIOD. 1640 to 1650. 
 
 We enter upon the Middle Period with, as it were, a new 
 sensation. Much had happened to Rembrandt by this time. He 
 had made a great name, he had married, and his wife was dying ; 
 and we know that after her death things did not go well with him. 
 We also remember that about this time less began to be heard 
 of him. Is there anything about the work of this period to throw 
 light on this obscure part of his career ? We have said, as an 
 apology for our new method of approaching the subject of 
 Rembrandt, that the accidents and events of a man's life are 
 the immediate incentives and regulators of his work. Inversely 
 then, ought not the Work to tell us something about the Man ? 
 Where was Rembrandt at this time ? What became of him 
 after the death of Saskia in 1642, and the disorder of his affairs ? 
 Was he still in Amsterdam ? If so, how is it we cease to hear of 
 him, and that he is no longer painting and etching its citizens ? Does 
 the sudden appearance of Landscape in his work, and its singular 
 preponderance in the etchings of this period — to which, indeed, it is 
 almost wholly confined — tell us nothing on this score ? What part of 
 Holland furnished him with the motives of all these landscapes — 
 " The Three Trees," the " Omval," the " Goldweigher's Field," the 
 
44 
 
 " Hog," the " Bull," the " Orchard," the " Cow Drinking," the 
 "Milk Pails," the "Boat House," the "Village near a High Road 
 Arched." Where are they ? They negative the idea that he 
 was still in Amsterdam, but they do not tell us what we want 
 to know, which is where he was. Does our boasted chronological 
 arrangement — do our dates — tell us nothing ? Saskia died in 1642, 
 and the two or three landscapes which precede that date are at, 
 or in the immediate neighbourhood of, Amsterdam. But after that ? 
 Well, we believe we have the answer before us. Look at the group of 
 etchings, brought as it were by accident close together, under the years 
 1645 to 1648. The " Portrait of Jan Six" (W. 287), "Six's Bridge" 
 (W. 205), "Medea" (W. 116), the frontispiece to Six's tragedy; the 
 "Spanish Gipsy" (W. 83), an illustration of another tragedy in which, 
 doubtless, Six was also interested ; the portrait of the Portuguese 
 Physician, " Ephraim Bueno" (W. 280), the original picture of which 
 Six had in his possession ; "A Grotto," so-called, but, as we think, a 
 garden boat house (W. 107) ; " Rembrandt Drawing at a Window " 
 (W. 22). Surely that window can be no other than a window in 
 Six's house, and that Rembrandt had found refuge and solace at this 
 time with his sympathetic and powerful friend at Elsbroeck ; and that 
 these things, and all these landscapes — and possibly the " Hundred 
 Guilder Print " itself, which we observe close at hand — were thought 
 out and finished in his companionship, and under his sheltering roof. 
 If so, what an episode in the intellectual life of Six — what a compen- 
 sation for Rembrandt ! 
 
45 
 
 Passing the more important of the prints of this epoch in rapid 
 review, and noticing, as we go, the singular addition of Italian back- 
 grounds to more than one Dutch foreground among the landscapes, 
 we have the famous " Mill " (W. 230) — not " Rembrandt's mill " 
 though, as the Catalogues have it, but a mill etched from a large picture 
 which we ourselves remember to have seen many years ago at the 
 British Institution — a most beautiful and rare proof ; the bright little 
 etching of "Amsterdam" ( W. 207), and the "Saskia Dying" (W. 353), 
 of which rare print there are two proofs, one touchingly worked upon 
 by the hand of Rembrandt himself ; then the "Three Trees" (W. 209), 
 grave and sombre as at such a time it would be ; then the beautiful 
 " Omval " (W. 206), the most perfect of landscapes, done just three 
 years after the death of Saskia ; then the " Elsbroeck Group " as 
 we henceforth propose to call them, among which is the portrait of 
 "Sylvius" (W. 282) — the remonstrant minister who suffered, and looks 
 as if he had suffered, for his opinions — the cousin of Saskia, the ally 
 of Rembrandt, and who, in fact, married them ; not done from the 
 life, for Sylvius had died in 1638, but from a picture painted from 
 recollection of him in 1 644 ; and what place so suggestive of 
 such congenial recollections as the quiet of Elsbroeck? Then the 
 "Faustus" (W. 272), the two "St. Jeromes," the larger one 
 of which is after a drawing by Titian* (W. 109) ; the " Landscape 
 
 * This drawing differing in nothing from the etching, except in the absence of 
 the Hon, and the presence of a recumbent figure of Venus in place of the Saint, was 
 recently sold in London at Dr. Wellesley's sale. 
 
46 
 
 with a Ruined Tower" in its rare ist state (W. 220), the "Gold 
 Weighers' Field" (W. 231), so called, but which we would rather 
 believe to be the Chateau of Six ; and, finally, the famous " Hundred 
 Guilder" print (W. 78) in its two states. These speak so eloquently 
 for themselves, and are represented by such exceptionally fine proofs, 
 that we need do no more than recommend a careful study of them. 
 Of the " Hundred Guilder" prints, however — of which there are no less 
 
 than four magnificent impressions, two of them in the first state a 
 
 few special words are very necessary. No difference, it will be 
 observed, as to technique, exists between these two states except a 
 few oblique lines laid across the neck of the ass in the right hand 
 corner of the plate — a few lines, however, which represent a difference 
 of many hundreds of pounds in their market value. Now, of these 
 two states, what we want to say, as practical etchers and printers, is this: 
 that for the reasons given at page 1 7, the two impressions in the later 
 states are more satisfactory than those in the earlier. We know, 
 probably within one or two, how many impressions were taken of this 
 rare first state, for Rembrandt has told us on the back of one of them. 
 Well, of those few impressions (all of which we have seen,) we say 
 advisedly that they have not, as yet, what we have previously called 
 " begun to print "—that the ink has not yet fully entered into all 
 their lines, and, consequently that the lighter and more luminous 
 portions of them to the left of the plate are less good as to 
 impression than in the proofs in the second state which 
 immediately succeed them. The point being an important one as 
 
47 
 
 bearing upon the conventional, as opposed to the real, value of 
 states, we direct attention to it. 
 
 LATE PERIOD— 165 1 to 1666. 
 
 The latest period opens with portraits of Rembrandt's friend 
 and publisher Clement de Jonge, John Asselyn, and Coppenol, from 
 which and from the fact that it presents us with only one dated 
 landscape, " The Vista " (W. 219), we may conclude that, by this time, 
 a return had been made to Amsterdam. Other Amsterdam portraits 
 also, principally of friends like Lutma, Jan Antonides Van der Linden 
 and Coppenol or of persons connected with the proceedings in bank- 
 ruptcy then going on, like Abraham Fran9en and the elder and younger 
 Haaring, mark this period ; besides the rare portraits of Rembrandt 
 himself at an advanced age contributed by Monsieur Dutuit, and of 
 Dr. Arnoldus Tholinx, usually confused with the advocate, 
 and supposed alchemist, Van Tol. It is in this period, also, that we 
 have the plate " Tobit and the Angel," by Hercules Seghers, so 
 strangely adopted by Rembrandt, and altered by him into a " Descent 
 into Egypt" (W. 61), and the "St. Francis," and that those sublime 
 conceptions occur which fitly close the work of Rembrandt, " Christ 
 Before Pilate," and the " Crucifixion." 
 
 The series of four impressions of " Clement de Jonge" (W. 274) 
 should be first noticed, because of their broad treatment, and as 
 
48 
 
 examples of those progressive conditions of an etched plate, which 
 may properly be designated " states." Nor should " Tobit blind " be 
 passed by (W. 46) on account of its pathos and the complete mastery 
 over the material which it displays, or the touched and other rare 
 proofs of "Jan Asseliyn with the Easel" (W. 279), with the 
 date appended, 1651 ; or the fine "St. Francis," (W. 112) Italian in 
 character, and with back-ground evidently inspired by Titian or 
 Campagnola. But the portraits of the period— the conspicuous 
 examples of the power of etching — are the " Lutma " (W. 278) the 
 "Tholinx" (W. 286) first and second states, and the " Elder" (W. 276) 
 and "Younger" (W. 277) Haaring. These alone would furnish material 
 for a treatise. Since, however, the business of this essay is not 
 with matters which speak for themselves, but with points which have 
 been misunderstood, or which require elucidation, we pass on at once 
 to the consideration of the two great plates to which we have referred 
 and which appear to us to involve such a point — namely, the 
 "Christ before Pilate" (W. 80), and the "Crucifixion" (W. 81). 
 
 In the present collection, notwithstanding a difference in their 
 dates, these obviously companion prints — companion in feeling, treat- 
 ment, size, and subject — have been brought into close juxtaposition, the 
 " Presentation " first and the " Crucifixion " next to it, as if they were 
 essentially one work, which, in its conception, composition, execution, 
 and printing in all its various stages, had taken from first to last, not a 
 
49 
 
 week, as the cataloguers appear to suppose, but a year or more to 
 accomplish. Nor has this arrangement involved any anachronism, 
 since it is clear that the dates on the two plates refer in neither 
 case to the year of their production, but only to the year in which 
 certain late states of them were printed, which of course leaves the 
 question open as to which of the two was done first. The rudely 
 expressed actors in the ''Crucifixion," too, which had suggested an 
 earlier performance, have been only thus "laid in," because they 
 had to be ultimately rendered in an advanced chiaroscuro to suit 
 the divine passage which they were destined to illustrate. * * * 
 " Now from the sixth hour there was darkness over all the land till 
 " the ninth hour. And, behold, the veil of the temple was rent in 
 " twain from the top to the bottom; and the earth did quake, and 
 "the rocks rent;" * * * The plate, in short, from the first, 
 was intended to be one of those dark plates of which we have an 
 example in the "Christ Entombed" (W. 91). It was, therefore, 
 useless to do more than indicate figures which were to be 
 ultimately half obscured. And this being so, we would ask, 
 how is it that this rude preparation for a chiaroscuro plate — for it 
 really amounts to nothing more — and which has impressed the 
 observer so meanly as to cause him to take it for a younger work, vet 
 so recommends itself to the collector that he will pay three times more 
 for it than for the true and final expression of the perfected plate 
 which does not occur till towards its third state 
 
 G 
 
50 
 
 And now, imperfect as we feel it to be, this article would be 
 still less complete without a word upon the insufficiency of the 
 cataloPfues and of those who undertake to make them. To make a 
 Catalogue Raisonnd of the work of Rembrandt, it is not enough to 
 be able to detect and record small points of difference, and 
 yet be without a comprehensive knowledge of the man, and 
 of his art, or of Art in general, or of the art of Etching in 
 particular. Experience; practice; an actual acquaintance with what 
 is possible and what is impossible to be done upon a plate of 
 copper, and with the details of the printing process too ; the ready 
 discernment which belongs to the artist nature ; the skill of the 
 synthesist no less than of the analyst, and many a rare gift besides, 
 must be in possession of him who would undertake so delicate 
 and responsible a task. Borrowed ideas hastily picked up and strung 
 together, the division and sub-division of things which in their very 
 nature are indivisible, can, without such special aptitudes, but lead to 
 the multiplication of states and differences profitable only to the 
 dealer — and to a confusion of the subject even greater than that 
 which exists at present. 
 
 FRANCIS SEYMOUR HADEN. 
 
 May I, 1877. 
 
51 
 
 POSTSCRIPTUM. 
 
 It would be neither fair nor courteous, considering the tone of disparagement of 
 catalogues and cataloguers in which the above article has confessedly been written, 
 not to give to Monsieur Charles Blanc (who is too distinguished to be included within 
 the general scope of its reflections) an opportunity of stating his reasons for not 
 adopting the method of classification which we have proposed, and of which our 
 present exhibition is the first practical example. 
 
 " Pour ranger les estampes d'un maitre," says Monsieur Charles Blanc,* 
 
 " il n'y a, ce nous semble, que deux methodes: I'une consisterait a les classer selon leur 
 " date, de maniere que Ton put suivre les phases diverses du talent de 1' artiste, ses 
 " commencements, ses progres, son apogee, sa decadence, et une telle classification ne 
 " serait pas a coup sur sans inte'ret; I'autre me'thode serait toute de raison ; elle con- 
 " sisterait a rassembler les sujets homogenes et k les ranger philosophiquement par 
 " ordre d'importance, et pour ceux que tiennent a I'histoire, par ordre chronologique. 
 " C'est le parti que nous avons adopte, pour deux motifs : d'abord un grand nombre 
 ^' de pieces de Rembrandt ne portant pas de date, il serait impossible d'en supposer 
 " une a celles qui n'en ont point; en second lieu, cet ordre serait, dans I'ceuvre de ce 
 " maitre, beaucoup moins curieux que dans celui de tout autre, parce que son genie ne 
 
 presente aucune ine'galite, aucune intermittence, depuis le debut jusqu'a la fin de sa 
 " carriere de graveur, si bien que parmi tant de pieces, on n'en citerait guere qui se 
 " ressentent de I'inexperience de la jeunesse ou de la faiblesse de I'age avance. 
 ^' D'ailleurs I'oeuvre de Rembrandt est si varie, qu'un classement suivant la date des 
 
 eaux-fortes, presenterait une confusion de'sagreable et souvent choquante. Telle 
 " fantaisie un peu trop libre semblerait monstrueusement de'placee a cote d'un sujet 
 
 tire de I'Evangile. II a done fallu renoncer absolument a ce genre de classification." 
 
 * Charles Blanc, L'ceuvre Complet de Rembrandt, Paris, 1859, pp. 7, 8, 
 
52 
 
 PROPOSED CHANGE OF TITLE, AND FORM OF CATALOGUE. 
 
 Year of 
 production. 
 
 
 
 Dated Prints of the Middle Period fi 
 Death of Saskia to the Return to Ams 
 including the Etchings of the Elsbroeck 
 
 1642 
 
 I 
 
 The Dying Saskia 
 
 
 2 
 
 A Cottage with White Pales 
 
 1643 
 
 3 
 
 The Three Trees 
 
 
 4 
 
 The Hog - - - - 
 
 1644 
 
 5 
 
 The Shepherd - - - 
 
 1645 
 
 6 
 
 Abraham addressing Isaac - 
 
 
 7 
 
 The Omvai 
 
 
 8 
 
 Repose in Egypt 
 
 
 9 
 
 Six's Bridge 
 
 
 10 
 
 The Boat House 
 
 ] 646 
 
 1 1 
 
 Sylvius - - 
 
 1647 
 
 12 
 
 The Burgomaster Six - 
 
 
 13 
 
 Ephraim Bonus - - - . 
 
 1648 
 
 14 
 
 Medea - - . . 
 
 
 15 
 
 The Gypsy - - - - . 
 
 
 16 
 
 Beggars at a Door 
 
 
 17 
 
 St. Jerome Writing 
 
 
 18 
 
 Rembrandt Drawing - 
 
 1650 
 
 ^9 
 
 The Synagogue 
 
 20 
 
 Christ Heahng the Sick (1650?) 
 
 
 21 
 
 A Canal with Swans - 
 
 
 22 
 
 The Canal Boat 
 
 
 23 
 
 The Flock of Sheep - 
 
 
 24 
 
 The Milkman - - 
 
 
 25 
 
 The Village with a Square Tower 
 
 1651 
 
 26 
 
 The three Cottages 
 
 27 
 
 Six's Chateau (?) 
 
 353 
 229 
 209 
 
 154 
 217 
 
 38 
 206 
 
 63 
 205 
 
 228 
 282 
 287 
 280 
 116 
 124 
 
 173 
 108 
 
 22 
 130 
 
 78 
 232 
 
 233 
 221 
 210 
 
 215 
 214 
 231 
 
 202 
 332 
 315 
 350 
 321 
 
 5 
 
 312 
 
 31 
 311 
 
 331 
 187 
 184 
 172 
 82 
 
 83 
 146 
 
 74 
 
 235 
 98 
 
 49 
 335 
 336 
 
 325 
 316 
 
 319 
 318 
 334 
 
 It will be seen by a reference to existing catalogues that considerable liberties have 
 been taken with the titles of most of the above etchings -No. i, "A Woman with a large 
 hood being called The Dying Saskia j'' No. 7, " Omval," (which is not a village, but a 
 bend m the river Amstel, near Amsterdam,) -The Omvalf No. 10, "A Grotto with a 
 Brook," /T^, Boat Housed &c. ; and (subject to further examination) No. 27 "The 
 Goldweigher's Field," "^.V. Chateau^^-,\,^ probability being that most, if not all,' of the 
 pnmsfrom 9 to 27 were done at Elsbroeck or in the neighbourhood. At Jan Six's sale 
 too m 1702 (Vosm. 385) were "some engraved plates by Rembrandt." 
 
 F. S. H. 
 
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GETTY CENTER LIBRARY 
 
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