Chapter VII: English, Eighteenth Century 329–428 (7)

“To envelop and immerse everything in a bath of shadow; to plunge light itself into it only to withdraw it afterwards in order to make it appear more distant and radiant; to make dark waves revolve around illuminated centres, grading them, sounding them, thickening them; to make the obscurity nevertheless transparent, the half gloom easy to pierce, and, finally, to give a kind of permeability to the strongest colors that prevents their becoming blackness,--this is the prime condition and the difficulties of this very special art. It goes without saying that if any one ever excelled in this it was Rembrandt.”

PORTRAIT OF A YOUNG OFFICER.

_Rembrandt van Rijn
(1606–1669)._

_Collection of
Mr. A. W. Erickson._

This picture signed lower right, “Rembrandt f. 1636” is painted on a panel, 20 × 25⅞ inches. It is one of Rembrandt’s finest and most pleasing portraits. With masterly skill the artist has painted the light in the eyes and the fine lines and texture of the lips.

The subject is supposed to be François Copal, the brother-in-law of Saskia van Ulenburgh, Rembrandt’s wife, and there is abundant evidence in support of the theory. Dr. Bode in his _Rembrandt_ notes:

“There is a pair of portraits in the Liechtenstein Gallery at Vienna, dated 1636, of a _Young Officer with Thick Black Hair and His Wife_, in costumes like those in which Rembrandt painted Saskia and himself. The young couple here represented was probably closely connected with the artist and his bride. The husband, whose features are regular, almost handsome, and who has a slight moustache wears a steel gorget and a small gaily-colored neck cloth over his finely plaited silk shirt, a greenish blue cloak hangs from his right shoulder, and his gloved hand rests on the hilt of his sword.

“Portraits of the artist himself and of his relations and friends, are nearly all executed with as much care as the numerous portraits of other persons painted to order at this time. Some few may have been presents to friends and relations; but the majority produced at this period (1633–1635), and that immediately following it were very probably commissions from friends and patrons of the master, the most renowned artist in Holland whose name was soon to be associated with those of the greatest painters in Europe. These pictures had a special attraction over and above their interest as portraits, by virtue of the highly individual costume and conception which add so much to their picturesque effect.”

Dr. W. R. Valentiner, also believing this to be a likeness of Saskia’s brother-in-law, says:

“The portrait of a cavalier, possibly François Copal, is one of the most imposing and impressive of the portraits which Rembrandt painted in the middle of the thirties, at the time when he was approaching the height of his fame as a portrait-painter at Amsterdam. Among the considerable number of portraits which the artist painted to order during these years, the present one (and a companion piece in the Liechtenstein Gallery, Vienna) stand out through the vivid, passionate expression and the personal touch which undoubtedly reflects the artist’s own mood. At no time Rembrandt expresses so much of a youthful, almost wild, temperament in his compositions, at no time he endeavors to give to them such an overpowering force and such an intense, almost sensuous feeling of life, as in these stormy years of his first successes at Amsterdam, which were accompanied by a happy marriage, by social connections, by acquiring riches and almost luxury.

_Collection of Mr. A. W. Erickson_

PORTRAIT OF A YOUNG OFFICER

--_Rembrandt van Rijn_]

“Something of young Samson, of whom the artist was so fond in these years, we feel also in the portrait of a handsome cavalier. We feel the lion’s force behind those glowing, piercing eyes, behind the energetic chin and cheek bones, and the exuberantly flowing, broad waves of the bushy, dark hair remind us of a lion’s mane.

“We easily recognize in Rembrandt’s work those portraits of which the sitters were strangers to him. The present one, in which he put so much of his own self, as he did only with friend’s portraits, does not belong to these. He has ornated the young cavalier with a costume which appealed to his imagination, the details of which we know from portraits of persons in his surroundings and self-portraits: the breast-plate, the colored scarf around the neck, the golden chain with medal-lion, the green velvet mantle with gold-embroidered border. On the companion-piece, on the other hand, the lady wears a costume and pieces of jewelry which we find also in Saskia’s portraits.

“Strange to say, the female figure itself has so much likeness to Saskia that we would be tempted to believe it to be a portrait of her, if there was not the portrait of the cavalier as the companion-picture preventing us from this supposition. But we know that Saskia had a sister, Titia, who visited the Rembrandt family frequently within these years (a portrait-sketch, a pen-drawing made of her in 1639 by Rembrandt is in the Stockholm Museum). She and her husband François Copal, were witnesses at the baptism of Saskia’s first children. We know also a portrait of François Copal’s brother, Antoni, in the Rothschild Collection, Vienna, which Rembrandt painted in 1635. The sitter of this portrait undoubtedly has a resemblance to the gentleman in our picture, almost as much as the companion-piece resembles Saskia. Is thus the theory too bold that the present portrait represents François Copal and the companion-piece at Vienna, Titia, his wife?”

The portrait came to the present owner, Mr. Erickson, directly from the famous Liechtenstein Collection, Vienna, purchased by Prince Liechtenstein from the Marchesa Incontri, Florence. Previously the picture had been in the Collections of the Comte Koucheleff Besborodko, Paris; the Duc de Choiseul Praslin, Paris (1793), and B. da Costa, The Hague (1752).

AN OLD LADY SEATED IN AN ARMCHAIR.

_Rembrandt van Rijn
(1606–1669)._

_Collection of the
Hon. Andrew W. Mellon._

This splendid portrait, oils on canvas (42½ × 35½ inches), takes rank with Rembrandt’s famous study of _Elizabeth Bas_, widow of Admiral Swartenhout, in the Rijks Museum, Amsterdam. It is three-quarters length, life-size, and signed on the left “Rembrandt F. 1643.” The subject is seated in an arm-chair of red leather with her head turned slightly to the left and she is looking in the same direction. She wears a black costume with a tightly fitting jacket lined with fur, a large flat, round, and gauffered ruff, and a flat, dark velvet cap. Her arms rest easily on the arms of the chair and in the right hand she is holding her eyeglasses, while the fingers of her left hand are placed between the leaves of a large book--presumably a Bible, with silver clasps and gilt edges,--a marvellous piece of still-life painting. The background is dark of the brownish Rembrandt tone and the light falls from the left upon the face of the sitter and upon her large ruff. Dr. Bode, in speaking of the lighting of this remarkable portrait, says: “A strong light falls on the broad, gauffered ruff and is reflected on the more softly illuminated face; another ray of light touches the hands with their small white cuffs. The dull red of the chair-back, the subdued glint of the gold edges and silver clasps of the book relieve the blackish tone of the picture almost imperceptibly. It takes a special place among Rembrandt’s portraits by reason of its peculiarly distinguished harmony. In arrangement and illumination it stands midway between the St. Petersburg _Portrait of the Old Woman_ and the numerous studies of old women painted between 1650 and 1660.”

_Collection of the Hon. Andrew W. Mellon_

AN OLD LADY SEATED IN AN ARMCHAIR

--_Rembrandt van Rijn_]

The picture was sold in Amsterdam in 1764 and has passed through the Collections of J. van der March, Amsterdam, 1773; M. Thelluson, Paris, 1777; an anonymous Parisian collection, 1788; M. C. A. de Calonne, London, 1795; Mr. J. Allmutt, London, 1863; and M. Louis Lebeuf de Montsgermont, Paris.

SIMEON AND MARY PRESENTING THE INFANT CHRIST IN THE TEMPLE.

_Rembrandt van Rijn
(1606–1669)._

_Collection of
Mr. Nils B. Hersloff._

This picture is interesting for two reasons. One, that it belonged to Horace Walpole and hung for many years in _Strawberry Hill_; and the other, that it is a recently discovered Rembrandt.

It would seem from the present documents that the picture is not many stages away from the painter’s studio. In a case like this, it is best to tell the story of the identification of this _Strawberry Hill_ picture with the Rembrandt studio picture in the words of those most concerned in the matter.

_Collection of Mr. Nils B. Hersloff_

SIMEON AND MARY PRESENTING THE INFANT CHRIST IN THE TEMPLE

--_Rembrandt van Rijn_]

But first let us read the interesting analysis written by the Rembrandt specialist, Dr. Jan Veth, author of the _Life and Art of Rembrandt_, published on the commemoration of the 300th anniversary of his birth. This essay is dated Amsterdam, August 2, 1916, when this picture from the Walpole Collection was discovered and sent to Holland.

Dr. Veth speaking:

“A rather large-sized picture, about 39½ × 31½ inches, has recently been imported from England, a picture which one recognized without any difficulty as being a late work by Rembrandt. This unknown work was at first thought to be in a rather dilapidated condition. Evidently long ago it had been relined by an unskilled hand, leaving the canvas badly wrinkled in places. These have been easily removed, the picture slightly restored and apart from a few local blemishes (nowhere occurring in the vital parts) the beautifully crackled and original coat of paint appears unimpaired. Many a museum piece giving the impression of being in a perfect state of preservation is, in reality, much less intact than this Rembrandt.

“The figure of Simeon in the picture reminds us to a certain extent of the figure of _Homer_ in the Collection of Dr. Bredius, but the handling of the paint is more certain, the head firmer and more plastic. In his later period, where his old men bear so much of a resemblance to each other, it was not necessary that Rembrandt should always use the same models. The character, however, of this Simeon is akin to that of _St. Matthew_ in the Louvre, to the father in the _Prodigal Son_ in Petrograd, to the man behind _Pilate_ in the picture in New York, Altman Collection, and to the _Haman_ in the Collection of the King of Roumania.

“For the rest, the peculiar expression of Simeon’s rugged and full bearded countenance can be traced quite easily in that dark, majestic etching of the _Presentation in the Temple_ with the exception that the head in the etching leans slightly more backward. Simeon’s expression depicts in a striking manner the decrepit old man to whom the divine revelation was made, and who, after walking into the Temple, seeing the Child and taking Him into his arms, said: ‘Lord, now lettest Thou Thy servant depart in peace, according to Thy word: For mine eyes have seen Thy salvation, which Thou hast prepared before the face of all people: A light to lighten the Gentiles, and the glory of Thy people, Israel.’ Luke II, 29–32.

“The hermit-like old man wears a wide gold-colored leather mantle. Full of devotion he is holding the Christ Child, without touching Him with his long and stiffened hands.

“The little face appears foreshortened and recalls to one’s mind the strange drawing of the uplifted face of the young Jesus where he walks between his parents in that remarkable etching of the _Return from the Temple_. Close to Simeon and behind, stands Mary, the inclination of the head and attitude identical with the Virgin in the etching of the _Presentation_. Over her head she wears a wide, drooping hood, and the greater part of her face--a face of no ordinary maternity and with something of the grandeur so characteristic in Mantegna’s Madonnas--is deeply enveloped in shadows. In contrast with the bronze-like, warm color of the ancient man, she appears cool in tone, the neck only illuminated like enamel against the sombre purple of her frock.

“The group is composed without any additional accessory to distract or allure the spectator, being placed against a background deep and sombre, a great and connected whole. Throughout, the handling of the paint is full and direct without any small or useless accents, a great design treated like sculpture. The stronger colors of brown and red are dissolved in a sombre tone of bronze and with that singular mixture of smothered lights and cave-like half-tones and shadows which give the true expression of the quiet and pathetic event.

“Out of the whole tonality emerges first the powerful head of the old Seer, then the suppressed light of the strange Infant, and finally the beautiful sibyl-like Mary. The picture is full of that inner power of expression which Millet would have admired and Israels would have revelled in.

“In Holland we can point to more complete, perhaps more pompous and more brilliant, Rembrandts, but a picture by the master of such wonderful simplicity and at once of such great eloquence we hardly know of in this country.”

Turning to the Dutch records we learn the following:

“The desire to obtain the minutest detail of information about Rembrandt’s life and works, and perhaps with a wish to discover some allusion to his pictures, has led such men as Dr. Bredius to search among the old Dutch archives for records of ancient deeds in the registries of Amsterdam and near-by towns and villages. This has been no light task, for besides the numberless documents to be examined, the difficulties of deciphering the curious legal language used in the Seventeenth Century had to be combatted. Dr. Bredius’s efforts, however, were rewarded, when, about ten years ago he discovered an ancient deed relating directly to a painting by Rembrandt, and dated May 12, 1671 (two years after his death), signed before a notary named J. De Winter of Amsterdam. The document so unearthed threw light upon a picture entitled _Simeon_, of which no record had up to the time of Dr. Bredius’s discovery, been known. Dr. Bredius deemed the subject so interesting that he wrote an article dealing with _The Last Year of Rembrandt’s Life_, which appeared in _Oud-Holland_ in 1909.”

Now we go to the number of _Oud-Holland_ and take this extract.

Dr. Bredius speaking:

“Although we have learned much of the last years of Rembrandt’s life, of the very last and perhaps the saddest year of that rich life, we have learned little up to the present time. Only one work, that of his own portrait in the collection of Sir Audley Neeld in Griffleton House, seems to bear the date of 1669. We have no other picture and no etching, and in this portrait the master appears so feeble that we had begun to believe that Rembrandt worked but little in the last year of his life.

“That he was, however, still working and planned to do some etchings and also that there was a picture on his easel shortly before he died, is proven by an old deed I have recently discovered. Short as this may be, it nevertheless gives us much important information. Among other things it is new to us _that Rembrandt was working up to the time of his death_, and that Dirck van Cattenburch, a gentleman dealer with his brother, Otto, as far back as 1654, had business connections with Rembrandt. And here we see the aged master, as often happened and still happens with artists, more or less in the hands of the Art-dealer, who pays for the work before it is finished.

“Perhaps Rembrandt really considered his _Simeon_ a finished picture, but the buyers probably did not, and looked upon his broadly painted canvases of his latest period as not being ‘entirely finished.’ We are not acquainted with any _Simeon_ of his last period.[23] It is also interesting to note from the deed that the artist planned to make a series of etchings of the _Passion_, a subject which always attracted him and of which he made some of his most wonderful plates. Deed: May 12, 1671, Appeared before me, Allart van Everdingen, age about fifty years and Cornelius van Everdingen, age twenty-five years, both artists living in this town, and on request of Dirck van Cattenburch, do hereby declare that Allart van Everdingen, a few months before the death of Rembrandt van Rijn, artist, had a conversation as to the settling of a painting representing Simeon, painted by the aforesaid Rembrandt van Rijn, not yet entirely finished, owned by Dirck van Cattenburch and being in Rembrandt’s house.

“That he, witness, went to see and examine the aforesaid picture in the house of van Rijn, who told him at the time that the picture was owned by said Dirck van Cattenburch. The aforesaid Cornelius van Everdingen further declares that he went up to Rembrandt’s studio several times, where, on each occasion, he saw and examined the said picture, which was discussed by them, Rembrandt declaring that the picture was owned by Dirck van Cattenburch. Also that Rembrandt had several polished plates owned by Dirck van Cattenburch in order to engrave the _Passion_.

Signed Allart van Everdingen
Signed Cornelius van Everdingen.”

“It is interesting to note that Allart van Everdingen was a well-known painter of the time of Rembrandt and that he was born in 1612. He excelled in painting rocky landscapes. He also executed sea-pieces and storms with such surprising effect and spirit that his work entitled him to the appellation, the ‘Salvator Rosa of the North.’ Allart van Everdingen was also an etcher of repute and in this work there must have existed a bond of sympathy between Rembrandt and himself. He died in 1675, six years after the death of the master. His works are represented in all the great museums. Cornelius van Everdingen, his son, was also an artist, but not so universally known as his more brilliant father.”

Now then we turn to another Dutch authority to continue the story:

“Dr. Bredius, by the remarkable discovery of the ancient deed, had established the fact that a certain picture of _Simeon_ (always identified in Art with _The Presentation in the Temple_) was in Rembrandt’s studio a few months before his death. But what had become of the picture there was nothing to show, none of the great biographers of the artist has ever classified a work of this subject dating from his last period.

“And now commence the most interesting events connected with the picture under consideration. Many inquiries were instituted. Dr. Bredius, from his rich stock of material bearing upon the master, searched exhaustively for some indication where the picture might be found. The known and unknown private and public collections of Europe and even America were examined through and through, until at last his efforts were rewarded and nine years after the discovery of the deed and his subsequent article, the picture was recognized and acclaimed as the lost _Simeon_.

“The painting was found in the collection of a nobleman in England, and although it had lain neglected for centuries there could be no possible doubt that it was the picture of _Simeon_ referred to in the deed.

“This discovery occurred in the year 1916, at a time when the world was in the midst of the Great War; but such was the importance of the find that the masterpiece was sent at once to Holland, there to be admired by all of the great Rembrandt authorities.”

Critics have called attention to the fact that the _first_ important picture painted by Rembrandt was _Simeon in the Temple_ which is now in the Mauritshuis, The Hague, and which is also called _Presentation in the Temple_. It is a little strange that the _last_ picture should have been on the same subject. Yet any one can see they are by the same hand. In the Hague picture it is beneath the high roof of a temple that the Virgin and St. Joseph make the offering and present the Holy Child to the Lord. Simeon, in a robe glittering with gold, holds the Holy Child and the High Priest stands in front of the group, his hands lifted in ecstasy. The latter’s robe of violet makes a beautiful note of color which is carried through the lights and shadows and which contrasts and harmonizes, too, with the Virgin’s dress of light blue. In the vaporous distance persons are seen ascending and descending the steps. All the light is concentrated on the central group and the cold, mysterious depths of the vast fane are expressed with marvellous skill.

_Homer Reciting his Poems_, also in the Hague Gallery, representing an old man in a yellow robe, has the face of the _Strawberry Hill Simeon_ and _Homer_ was painted in 1663. It could be possible that the same model was used for _Homer_ and the _Strawberry Hill Simeon_.

How did Horace Walpole get this Rembrandt?

The information that we gain from the Catalogue of the _Strawberry Hill_ Collection issued when Earl Waldegrave sold the contents of _Strawberry Hill_ at Covent Garden in 1842 is rather tantalizing than otherwise.

The items read as follows.

On Page XVII of prefatory remarks:

“A Fine Rembrandt (No. 100) and a Nicholas Poussin adorn this end of the chamber. Page 204. The great North Bed Chamber: No. 100. _The Presentation in the Temple_, displaying all the power of light and shade so peculiar to this great master, Rembrandt.

“The above two pictures No. 99 and 100 were bought from a very old gentlewoman for whose grandfather they had been painted, and till then had never been taken out of their old black frames and are still in their pure and genuine state.”

Was the “very old gentlewoman” the grand-daughter of Dirck van Cattenburch?

PORTRAIT OF AN OFFICER.

_Frans Hals
(1580?–1666)._

_Collection of
Mr. Henry Goldman._

The subject, which we might almost call a Dutch Falstaff, is seated in a chair on the arm of which he rests his right elbow, while he seems to be grasping a stick with his hand. The left hand is hidden. Beneath his large grey felt hat with its wide turned-up brim a few locks of straggly grey hair are visible. His doublet is of grey silk with a dotted pattern (long anticipating the “Polka Dot” of the early Nineteenth Century), a surcoat of buff leather, and a broad, flat collar, trimmed with handsome and heavy lace, worn over a metal breast-plate. The Officer looks directly at us with a half-humorous, half-suspicious glance,--one of those characteristic Frans Hals’s expressions.

The picture, oils on canvas (32½ × 25¾) bears the monogram F. H. and the words “Ætat 55. A. 1637.” It was sold from the Collection of Mr. J. H. Töpfer in Amsterdam in 1841 and then it was in the Collection of Sir Edgar Vincent (Lord d’Abercorn) at Esher.

_Collection of Mr. Henry Goldman_

PORTRAIT OF AN OFFICER

--_Frans Hals_]

Frans Hals (1580?–1666), one of the greatest masters of painting, was born in Antwerp, where his parents (natives of Haarlem, and of good lineage), are supposed to have gone because of political disturbances of the time. It seems that Hals was settled in Haarlem before 1591, busily painting, and he lived there all the rest of his life. In 1637 he came under Rembrandt’s influence in Amsterdam. Hals’s life was rather disgraceful and went from bad to worse until poverty and comparative oblivion compelled him to accept charity. He died in Haarlem in 1666, leaving a great many followers. The real life of the man is to be found in such works as _The Laughing Cavalier_ in the Wallace Collection and those vagabonds, lute-players, topers, and other rascals that belong to the same class as Autolycus, Launcelot Gobbo, Touchstone, Dogberry, Sir Toby Belch, Falstaff and our other much-prized, although disreputable, Shakespearian low-comedy characters.

Hals always accomplished his work by the greatest economy of means. A few broad, rapid, and unhesitating strokes, or _swipes_, of the brush, a dot here and there of light,--and that is all!

Everything that Hals painted shows his dazzling genius, his astounding instinct for striking effects, and his marvellous ability for catching a likeness. Hals never worked out his ideas: he left no sketches, nor studies. His extraordinary power of quick analysis with the eye and the gift his hand had for expressing what his eye had seen, combined with a rapid, sure, and skilled technique rank Hals as a master among masters.

Moreover, he had a keen and gay humor. No painter has ever been able like Hals to render the face in action and to fix forever, a rapid and fleeting expression on canvas. He loved to catch and make permanent a wink, a smile, a leer, or even hearty laughter.

Frans Hals was a genius at portraiture. Those who have seen the large number of Hals’s _Doelen_ pictures in the Town Hall of Haarlem, each canvas containing from fourteen to twenty life-size portraits, stand aghast at the power represented in just this one phase of his art.

When we look upon these pictures we feel as if we were entering a hall full of convivial officers, laughing, jesting and making merry over their fine wines and choice food. They are richly dressed. Many of them wear lace cuffs and ruffs and bright scarves. Flags flutter, spears glitter, spurs and swords clink and rattle and flash in the sunlight; and plumes on the large hats nod in the breeze, or with the motions of these men’s bodies. Loud talk and bursts of laughter seem to issue from the frames. These convivial men have fought against the hated Spaniard and are ready “to trail a pike” again at any moment. A gallant and a jovial crowd,--these Arquebusiers of St. George and St. Andrew!

The artist was commanded to paint each man accurately and according to his rank in the Company; and Hals did more than fill his order,--he made each and every man _live_.

THE LAUGHING MANDOLIN PLAYER.

_Frans Hals
(1580–1666)._

_Collection of
Mr. John R. Thompson._

Here is a half-figure of a young man seated, turning his head towards the spectator, and laughing merrily as he holds up a glass of wine in his right hand. His mandolin is lying on the table beside him and his left fingers close around its neck. He wears a dark cloak lined with blue and a large black cap thrown carelessly at the side of his head and his hair is unkempt and straggly. But what cares he? He has sung his song and played his tune and has been rewarded well,--well enough, indeed, to have a glass of good wine. So no wonder he laughs! Life is a joke anyway--“So here’s to the company and thank you, gentlemen!”

_Collection of Mr. John R. Thompson_

THE LAUGHING MANDOLIN PLAYER

--_Frans Hals_]

The picture is an oil painting on panel (36 × 30 inches), and is signed with the monogram F. H.

The _Laughing Mandolin Player_ belonged to the Capello Collection, Amsterdam, from which it was sold in 1767, and then it passed to Count Bonde, Stockholm; to Jules Porges, Paris; to the late Baron Ferdinand de Rothschild, Waddeston Manor, England; and to M. A. Veil-Picard, Paris.

A MUSIC PARTY.

_Pieter de Hoogh
(1629–1677?)._

_Collection of
Mrs. John N. Willys._

Here are six figures in the reception bedroom of a prosperous merchant or citizen. The dominant note of the apartment is red. The floor is paved with square blocks of marble. The primary interest of the picture is in the group on the left, consisting of two fashionably dressed gentlemen and an elegantly attired lady at a table over which is spread an Oriental “table-carpet.” The lady, dressed in a scarlet skirt, an old-gold overskirt and bodice and a deep white lace collar, is looking at the spectator and singing from a piece of music which she is holding in her left hand, her right being raised as if to beat time. Standing near her and smilingly accompanying her in her song is a young gentleman with long hair and wearing a white jacket and a broad-brimmed hat. With his right hand he is holding a long funnel-shaped glass partly filled with wine. Seated opposite and looking intently at the lady is a middle-aged gentleman with long hair and yellow jacket, holding a flageolet with both hands, and apparently waiting for the note at which he may join in the accompaniment. On the table are the flageolet player’s high-crowned hat with red feathers, an open book of music and a glass. In the background are standing figures of a lady and gentleman in conversation, and near-by is an attendant in brown dress holding a wine-jar in his left hand and abstractedly looking out of the window. In the background is a bed enclosed with curtains. Two windows to left and right open on to a garden, a portion of which, adorned with statues, is seen through an open doorway on the extreme right.

_Collection of Mrs. John N. Willys_

A MUSIC PARTY

--_Pieter de Hoogh_]

The picture, oil on a panel (24 × 28 inches), was formerly in the Collections of Edmund Higginson of Saltmarshe Castle, England, 1846; George H. Morland, Esq., London, a well-known amateur, a descendant of George Morland, the artist, 1863; and Albert Levy, London, 1874.

Pieter de Hoogh (or Hooch) is thought to have been born in Rotterdam. Little is known of his life. He seems to have been a servant in his early years employed by Justus de la Grange and to have lived in Delft, in Leiden and in The Hague. In some way he learned to paint; some authorities say he studied under Rembrandt’s pupil Carel Fabritius, Houbraken says he was a fellow-student with Jacob Ochtevelt under Nicholaes Berchem. In 1653 Pieter de Hoogh became a member of the Guild of Painters in Delft and he married in that city and lived there Until 1664. Next he is living in The Hague and after that in Amsterdam. Pieter de Hoogh is ranked as one of the best of the “Little Dutch Masters.” His pictures show a particularly fine mastery in the action of light. He almost invariably opens a door in the background leading into a garden or into an adjoining room. He groups his figures interestingly and tells his simple story in paint graphically and convincingly. His architecture is always remarkably fine and his drawing is second to none.

Pieter de Hoogh was neglected for many years, but to-day he is deeply appreciated. Burger says he never saw any picture by de Hoogh that was not of the first rank: “Sometimes he paints interiors--people are playing cards, or having a family concert, or reading, or drinking, or conversing. Sometimes he paints exteriors; and then the painter introduces us to domestic occupations and the innocent recreations of private life, as, for instance, a servant washing linen in a backyard, or cleaning fish, or plucking fowl, or perhaps there are ladies and their cavaliers playing at bowls in a garden with trim gravelled walks.

“When he paints interiors this artist rarely neglects to show, on the right or left, doors opening on a staircase or revealing a leafy alley, or the trees along a quay, so that his pictures always seem to be the antechamber of another picture. In this characteristic style of de Hoogh when the interior of the apartment is moderately lighted the sun shines outside. Pieter de Hoogh seems to have been in Rembrandt’s secrets.”

THE LACE-MAKER.

_Jan Vermeer
(1632–1675)._

_Collection of the
Hon. Andrew W. Mellon._

This delightful picture on panel (17¾ × 15½ inches) was only discovered in 1926. On its exhibition at the Kaiser Friedrich Museum in 1926–1927 in Berlin, Dr. Wilhelm Bode wrote: “I consider it a genuine, perfect, and very characteristic work of Jan Vermeer of Delft. Not only has it the true Vermeer charm as to the lighting and coloring, but at the same time there is an extraordinary fascination in the expression of the face, still half that of a child.” Dr. Max J. Friedländer also pronounced it “a genuine and highly characteristic work by Vermeer of Delft.”

The young girl is seen at half-length with her head turned towards the observer and her eyes looking straight out of the picture. She is busy making lace on a pillow, or cushion, which is supported on a frame with two upright posts. In her left hand she is holding a bobbin. Her costume is a yellow jacket, or bodice, with broad white collar and broad white cuffs. Her brown hair, arranged very simply, is adorned with a tiny knot of blue ribbon. The handsome pear-shaped pearls in her ears proclaim that she is in more than affluent circumstances and that she is a young Dutch lady of some position, making lace for her pleasure and not to earn a living. At her left elbow is a blue cushion and a large pewter dish.

_The Lace-Maker_ is in every way a picture of charm and one of the most thoroughly attractive that Vermeer ever produced.

_Collection of the Hon. Andrew W. Mellon_

THE LACE-MAKER

--_Jan Vermeer_]

When it came to light in 1926 it was cordially welcomed. Seymour de Ricci published a long article under the title of _Le Quarante-et-Unième Vermeer_ in the _Gazette des Beaux-Arts_ (December, 1927), which says in part:

“Seated, with her work on her knees and her bobbins in her hand, she stops in her occupation for a moment to look at the spectator. On the right, upon the corner of a table, covered with an Oriental rug, a flat dish of pewter and a blue cushion ornamented with three rows of gold braid and two gold tassels--that is the entire subject of the picture!

“It needed the consummate art of a Vermeer to produce with this slender material such a veritable _chef-d’œuvre_. Many painters would doubtless have tried to place this fresh figure in a striking setting. A Gerard Dou would have framed her in a window; a Metsu would have surrounded her with furniture; and a Pieter de Hoogh would have felt compelled to let us see through an open door into the next room, or into a bright flower garden. The bolder and much greater painter, Vermeer, places his model before a white wall, the plaster of which in the course of two centuries has combined ivory reflections with the pearly gray of clouds in springtime. Upon the clearness of this wall this youthful figure stands out with striking clarity: the faint rosy tints of the complexion, the whiteness of the broad flat collar and cuffs and the bright yellow of the bodice form a scale of colors that are juxtaposed with singular frankness and boldness. It is only in the flesh tints that the painter allows himself to bring the model into relief: in everything else he shows an affection for flat surfaces and flat tints. His touch is so light that in places--noticeably in the whites--each stroke of the brush has left its trace. The artist has proceeded by circular blots juxtaposed, announcing therefore a technique which certain French artists pretend to have discovered at the end of the Nineteenth Century.

“In everything here Vermeer the colorist takes precedence of Vermeer the draughtsman. There is not a line in the entire picture,--nothing but the juxtaposition of color-tones. A magnifying glass is impotent to make us discover the bridge of the nose, the profile of the cheek or the fingers. The eyebrows are barely indicated, the brown hair is treated in large luminous masses, and even the bobbins which to the naked eye seem to be drawn with such punctilious exactitude are merely indicated, but with such correctness and such prodigious skillfulness of touch that the illusion of the detail is most complete, even for the instructed spectator.

“In this charming composition, the greatest of Dutch colorists has taken pleasure in playing the entire scale of his favorite colors. In the brown masses of the hair he has placed a tiny blue ribbon, echoing the large blue surface of the cushion. On the other hand, on this same cushion three rows of dark yellow braid echo the bright ochre of the bodice. In the very centre of the picture the cherry red of the little smiling mouth throws a note more brilliant than the artist dared to place on the rose cheeks of his model white with the reflections from the large starched collar. All the lower part of the picture is in deep half-light which is brightened by the red and blue tones of the table-carpet and the luminous reflections of the pewter dish. The curious observer will notice that the painter was not afraid to change the centre of his composition towards the right, indifferent to the traditions of its accepted place, just as he was to the methods of his fore-runners with regard to the use of color.

“It has been attempted more than once to elucidate the mystery of the technical methods to which is due the incredible luminosity of Vermeer’s pictures. It has even been thought that he painted on a groundwork of some very bright color; but it has been correctly remarked that such a groundwork--if he had employed it--would at the end of two centuries have become visible under the painting and would have necessarily assimilated the colors. Others have suggested a preliminary preparation of water colors or gum. But, in truth, we are perfectly ignorant of how this amazing and incontestable result has been attained. This newly discovered picture reveals nothing to us relative to Vermeer’s technique, and although the painting is so lightly done and of so thin a coating, it has taken on its surface something of the hardness and brilliance of porcelain; and fine crackles have broken all through this suggesting the paste of porcelain.

_The Lace-Maker_ was in the Collection of Harold R. Wright, Esq., of London, before it passed to the Hon. Andrew W. Mellon.

Jan Vermeer of Delft (1632–1675) was a pupil of Carel Fabritius, who was a pupil of Rembrandt--consequently Vermeer had the best training. Lemke’s eulogy is worth reading:

“Vermeer was a painter of the light and sun school; and this was his chief study--to catch and hold fast the moment. What Frans Hals did for the physiognomy, grasping the flying moment in an incomparable manner with winks, smiles, leers, gesticulation, etc., and fixing it in paint, Vermeer as a landscape painter, delighted to do for the sunshine. He shows its rays streaming into a room, or the play of light and shadow when the light with the moving air falls through heavy foliage against a bright house and paints it with rays of light and shade. Unlike the moment of Rembrandt and Ruisdael, which is fixed for all eternity, with Vermeer the moment vibrates in the light. The shadows lose their sharp outlines and the fine brush-work suggests the living change and play of the light. Rembrandt paints light in darkness and lets it glow in the dark or streaming into it, or in a broad flood of brilliance; but Vermeer prefers to set darkness or twilight against the light.”

GERMAN PAINTING

_GERMAN PAINTING_

Painting reached its greatest development in Germany from the middle of the Fifteenth to the middle of the Sixteenth Century during the Renaissance and the Reformation. The dominating personalities were Albrecht Dürer and Hans Holbein the Younger.

The early German painters devoted their talents almost exclusively to altar-pieces. The chief centres of activity were Cologne, Colmar, Ulm, Nuremberg, and Augsburg. Cologne was the most important and had much influence upon the neighboring Flemings. As early as the Thirteenth Century Wolfram van Eschenbach, describing his handsome Knight in _Parsifal_, declares that

“From Koln nor from Maestricht
No limner could excel him.”

The first important Cologne painter is Meister Wilhelm, first half of the Fourteenth Century, followed by Meister Stephan Lochner (active 1430–1451), possibly his pupil, painter of the great altar-piece in the Cologne Cathedral, the “_Dom-bild_”, which every painter tried to see. Albrecht Dürer, for instance, wrote in his _Journal_: “Item. I have paid two silver pennies to have the picture opened, which Meister Stephan painted at Cologne.”

Heine, many years later, sang of the wondrous eyes of the Madonna in that picture in the Cologne Cathedral that reminded him of his beloved; and the idea is most beautifully emphasized in the musical setting of that little song by Robert Franz, who expresses in his accompaniment all of the emotion aroused by the painting.

The Cologne painters were much influenced by Roger van der Weyden, who seems to have visited Cologne in 1450. Certainly Martin Schöngauer (about 1445–1491) was a follower of Roger, if not a personal pupil. Schöngauer is remarkable among other things for the weird and fantastic creatures he frequently introduced into his pictures. Martin Schöngauer, regarded as the precursor of Dürer, was much admired by the Italian painters, who called him “_Il bel Martino_.” Michelangelo is said to have copied in oils his celebrated print of _Saint Anthony tormented by Demons_ and he was a friend of Perugino and exchanged drawings with him. The two Germans of next importance were Bartholomäus Zeitblom of Ulm (1450?–1521), who, like Martin, belongs to the Swabian School, and Michael Wohlgemut (1434?–1519?), the leading spirit of the Franconian School, who worked especially in the Nuremberg churches.

In the picturesque town of Nuremberg, with its peaked gables, overhanging balconies, and quaint façades, town of wood-carvers, goldsmiths, and toy-makers, town of Hans Sachs and the Meistersinger, the house of Dürer is still shown to tourists.

Albrecht Dürer (1471–1528), one of the giants in art, was supreme master in wood-cuts, etchings, and drawings as well as in paintings. Dürer, too, is one of the greatest portrait-painters (see page 237).

In Augsburg, the leading commercial city of Southern Germany, there were many wealthy art-lovers, such as the Fuggers, famous merchant-princes of the Fifteenth and Sixteenth Centuries. The leading painter was Hans Holbein the Elder (1470?–1524), much influenced by Martin Schöngauer and also by the Italians. He trained his gifted son, Hans Holbein the Younger (1497–1543), who completely overshadowed him. The latter went to Basle and eventually to London, where he became Court-Painter to Henry VIII (see page 240).

Lucas Cranach the Elder (1472–1553), leader of the Saxon School, was a contemporary of Dürer and Holbein, pupil of his father, and, in common with most German artists, excelled as an engraver on wood and copper and designer, as well as a painter. Cranach was Court-Painter to three Saxon Electors (see page 251).

Lucas Cranach the Younger (1515–1586) was a pupil of his father, but was far below him in talent and performance.

PORTRAIT OF A MAN.

_Albrecht Dürer
(1471–1528)._

_Collection of the
Hon. Andrew W. Mellon._

We should like to know--but we never shall--the name of the man who looks so keenly from this picture (12¾ × 15⅝ inches). All that is known of it is that it belonged to the Collection of Count Bonde, of Stockholm, before it found its present home.

Albrecht Dürer was a great painter of portraits. He began early. Indeed the first authentic drawing by him is a portrait of himself at the age of thirteen, which is preserved in the Albertina, Vienna.

At all periods of his life, Dürer painted and drew portraits. To the early Nuremberg period belongs _Frederic the Wise_, tempera on linen (Berlin), and he painted a _Portrait of his Father_ in 1497 (of which there are several versions). Then there is _Oswald Krell_ in the Munich Gallery and a _Portrait of Himself_, a _Portrait of a Young Man_ at Hampton Court Palace and the very famous _Hieronymus Holtzschuher_ in Berlin.

Dürer’s one idea was to give as exact a representation of the sitter as possible; and if he painted character as well as the features, it was because his penetrating eye saw directly through the person. There was no conscious analysis or deep ponderings of any kind. Dürer simply saw the person and painted him; and he painted him so well that we see him, too, just the man he was. Dürer was like a camera; he depicted every wrinkle and every hair with an amazing effect of reality and he caught the personality as well. Nothing seems to have been hidden from his eyesight and nothing seems to have been beyond the power of his brush.

Albrecht Dürer was the son of a goldsmith of Hungarian origin who had spent some time in the Netherlands. In 1455 he settled in Nuremberg, where Albrecht was born in 1471, the third of eleven children. His father intended him for a goldsmith, but, seeing his talent, apprenticed him to Michael Wolgemuth to serve three years. Of this period Dürer wrote: “God gave me diligence so that I learned well. And when I had served my time, my father sent me away and I was absent four years until my father needed me again; and I set out in 1490 after Easter, so I returned in 1494 after Whitsuntide. And when I returned home Hans Frey treated with my father and gave me his daughter, Agnes, and he gave me with her two hundred florins; and the marriage was celebrated on the Monday before St. Margaret’s Day in the year 1494.”

_Collection of the Hon. Andrew W. Mellon_

PORTRAIT OF A MAN

--_Albrecht Dürer_]

The story that Dürer’s wife was a shrew who led him an unhappy life is now exploded.

In 1505 Dürer went to Italy and spent some time in Venice, where he painted for the Guild of German merchants and their Fondaco dei Tedeschi, _The Feast of the Rosary_, which is now in the monastery of Strahow near Prague.

Returning to Nuremberg in 1507 Dürer painted some of his finest altar-pieces. In 1511 he began his fine sets of wood-cuts and etchings--the _Apocalypse_, the _Great Passion_, the _Little Passion_, the _Life of the Virgin_ and _St. Jerome in his Study_. To this period belongs the large altar-piece _Adoration of the Trinity_, in the Belvedere at Vienna. In 1518 Dürer was in Augsburg and in 1520–1521 he travelled in the Low Countries. Once back in Nuremberg, he seems to have worked quietly and industriously until his death in 1528.

In forming any estimate of Dürer it is essential to remember that Dürer was a great expression and a great flowering of the German race. Mrs. Heaton has well summed up his characteristics: “We do not find,” she says, “in Dürer’s art the classic ideal of the perfection of man’s physical nature, nor the spiritual ideal of the early religious painters, nor the calm dignity and rich sensuous beauty of the great masters of the Italian Renaissance, but in it we find a noble expression of the German mind, with its high intellectual powers, its daring speculative philosophy, its deep-seated reverence, its patient laboriousness, and above all its strange love for the weird and grotesque. Dürer was the companion of some of the most learned and thoughtful men of his day. Luther and Melancthon were among the number of his friends, and there is no doubt but the reforming spirit of the age was powerfully at work within him, affecting his thought and art. Melancthon bears testimony to his rare worth as a man by saying: ‘his least merit was his art.’”

PRINCE EDWARD OF ENGLAND.

_Hans Holbein the Younger
(1497–1543)._

_Collection of the
Hon. Andrew W. Mellon._

This portrait is one of the finest that Holbein ever painted. The artist had every reason to do his best, for the picture was intended as a New Year’s Gift to Henry VIII of his little son, the Prince of Wales, who was nearly two years old. The King was so delighted with the picture that he presented Holbein with a magnificent gold standing-cup with cover. Prince Edward (who became Edward VI) was the son of Jane Seymour, the third wife of Henry VIII, who only lived twelve days after Prince Edward’s birth at Hampton Court Palace on October 12, 1537. By the Peace Treaty of Scotland in 1543, it was arranged that Prince Edward should marry Mary, Queen of Scots, at that time but a few months old; but this came to nothing, owing to “the grasping greed” of Henry VIII, whose ambition was to absorb the Crown of Scotland and whose purpose was discovered by the patriotic Scotch. On the death of Henry VIII in January 1547, the Prince of Wales succeeded to the throne and was crowned on February 20, 1547, as Edward VI. Edward, on the point of death, bequeathed the Crown in 1553 to Lady Jane Grey, daughter of his cousin, Frances Grey, eldest daughter of Mary, the daughter of Henry VII, and who was married to the son of the Duke of Northumberland. On July 6, 1553, the young King Edward VI died and was buried the next day in Henry VII’s Chapel, Westminster Abbey.

The portrait in oil on a panel (21¾ × 17 inches) was painted in 1538. The little prince is wearing a red and gold costume and red and gold hat with white feather. The background is gold.

His hands are marvellously painted, particularly the right, which is a triumph of foreshortening. The left hand holds a silver rattle.

_Collection of the Hon. Andrew W. Mellon_

PRINCE EDWARD OF ENGLAND

--_Hans Holbein the Younger_]

The Latin inscription painted at the base was written by Sir Richard Morysin (who became English Ambassador to the Hanse towns in 1646 and to the Court of the Emperor Charles V in 1550). The eulogy is addressed to Henry VIII, through the child; and it is well for Edward VI that he did not live to learn the verdict that time has passed upon this Bluebeard of History. Translated it reads:

“Little one, imitate thy father and be the heir of his virtue, the world contains nothing greater. Heaven and Nature could scarcely give a son whose glory should surpass that of such a father. Do thou but equal the deeds of thy parent: the desires of man cannot go beyond this. Surpass him and thou hast surpassed all the kings the world has ever worshipped and none will ever surpass thee.”

Can flattery go beyond this?

For many years this portrait hung in the Royal Picture Gallery at Hanover in Germany, probably taken there by one of the Georges, all of whom preferred their Hanoverian Court to that of England. In late years the picture belonged to the Duke of Cumberland, whose father was King of Hanover until Prussia absorbed that kingdom in 1866.

Hans Holbein, born in Augsburg in 1497, was taught by his father, Hans Holbein the Elder, as was also his elder brother, Ambrose. About 1515 these two young Holbeins went to Basle, where there was plenty of work for artists, for Basle had long been a centre of intellectual and artistic life. Holbein’s talents won recognition; and among other kinds of work he drew designs for title-pages and various decorations for books. Some marginal drawings for _The Praise of Folly_ by Erasmus, led to a friendship with that distinguished personage, which was destined eventually to change his entire life. Holbein also painted in fresco the council chamber of the new Rathaus in Basle and also the famous votive picture _The Meier Madonna_, representing the Burgomaster, Jacob Meier of Basle, kneeling with his family before the Virgin. He also painted several portraits of Erasmus. In 1526 Holbein decided to visit England, taking a letter of introduction from Erasmus to Sir Thomas More and stopping on the way at Antwerp to visit Quentin Massys. Holbein remained in London two years, returned to his family in Basle in 1528, bought a house, designed for goldsmiths, worked again on his unfinished frescoes in the Rathaus, made another portrait of Erasmus and painted the faces of clocks. In 1532 Holbein decided to return to London, where, after a period of working in the German colony, he became Court-Painter to Henry VIII with a salary of thirty pounds a year and rooms in the Palace. From that time onward Holbein painted everybody of importance in Tudor England. He also aided in the street decorations for Anne Boleyn’s Coronation procession and festivities. Holbein was also sent on various missions by Henry VIII to paint portraits; also in 1538 to Brussels, to paint the portrait of the young widow, Christina of Denmark, Duchess of Milan; and in 1539, to Cleves, to paint Anne, sister of the Duke.

These two portraits were ordered by the King with a view to matrimony, in case they met with his favor. The first portrait (now in the National Gallery, London) representing, in her mourning garb of black satin, Christina the young widow of Francesco Sforza, brother of Maximilian Sforza (see page 148) and who was, moreover, niece of the Emperor Charles V, in every way, therefore, a distinguished and desirable bride, pleased Henry VIII so well that he offered his royal hand on seeing it. But the wise young Duchess, declining the hand replied sarcastically “that unfortunately she had only _one_ head; if she had _two_, one would be at His Majesty’s service.” The other portrait of _Anne of Cleves_ (now in the Louvre), in purple velvet flashing with jewels, standing full face, with beautifully painted hands laden with rings and clasped gracefully, gained for this lady the Royal Bluebeard; but only for a short time. The portrait was too flattering of the “Flanders Mare”, as Henry VIII called her, and the _fourth_ wife was soon divorced.