In recent times the number of pictures painted by Rembrandt has been variously estimated. Smith, in his Catalogue Raisonne (1836) lists 614 pictures; Bode's Catalogue (Paris, 1897, seq.) lists some 55o; Wurzbach's Lexicon (191o) has about zoo; Hof stede de Groot's Catalogue (1916) has 988 numbers; and recently J. C. Van Dyke (Rembrandt and his School, New York, 1923) has reduced the number of undoubtedly genuine examples painted by the master's own hand to 48. It is impossible here to notice more than the prominent works. Besides the Pellicorne family portraits of 1632, now in the Wallace collection, we have the caligraphist Coppenol of the Cassel gallery, interesting in the first place as an early example of Rembrandt's method of giving permanent interest to a portrait by converting it into a picture. He invests it with a sense of life by a momentary expression as Coppenol raises his head towards the spectator while he is mend ing a quill. The same motive is to be found in the "Shipbuilder," 1633 (Buckingham Palace), who looks up from his work with a sense of interruption at the approach of his wife. Coppenol was painted and etched by the artist. The two small pictures of "The Philosopher" of the Louvre date from 1633, delicate in execution and full of mysterious effect.
In 1634 Rembrandt married Saskia van Uylenborch, a beauti ful, fair-haired Frisian maiden of good connections. Till her death in 1642 she was the centre of his life and art. Saskia brought him a marriage portion of 40,000 guilders. She bore him four chil dren, Rumbartus and two girls, successively named Cornelia after his mother, all of whom died in infancy, and Titus, named after Titia, a sister of Saskia. We have several noble portraits of Saskia, a good type of the beauty of Holland, all painted with the utmost love and care, at Cassel at Dresden (1641), and a posthumous one (1643) at Berlin.
One of Rembrandt's greatest portraits of 1634 is the superb full-length of Martin Daey, which, with that of Madame Daey, painted according to Vosmaer some years later, formed one of the ornaments of the Van Loon collection at Amsterdam. Both now belong to Baron Gustave de Rothschild. From the firm detailed execution of this portrait one turns with wonder to the broader handling of the "Old Woman" (Francoise van Wasser hoven), aged 83, in the National Gallery, of the same year, re markable for the effect of reflected light and still more for the sympathetic rendering of character.
The life of Samson supplied many subjects in these early days. The "Samson Menacing his Father-in-Law" is forced and violent in its action. One of the prominent examples of Rembrandt's work is the "Marriage of Samson," of the Dresden gallery, painted in 1638. Here Rembrandt gives the rein to his imagina tion and makes the scene live before us. Except the bride (Saskia), who sits calm and grand on a dais in the centre of the feast, with the full light again playing on her flowing locks and wealth of jewels, all is animated and full of bustle. Samson, evi dently a Rembrandt of fantasy, leans over a chair propounding his riddle to the Philistine lords. In execution it is a great ad vance on former subject pictures; it is bolder in manner, and we have here signs of his approaching love of warmer tones.
The story of Susannah also occupied him in these early years, and he returned to the subject in 1641 and 1653. "The Bather" of the National Gallery may be another interpretation of the same theme. In all of these pictures the woman is coarse in type and lumpy in form, though the modelling is soft and round, the effect which Rembrandt always strove to gain. Beauty of form
was outside his art. But the so-called "Dance" (1636) at Lenin grad is a sufficient reply to those who deny his ability ever to appreciate the beauty of the nude female form. It glows with colour and life, and the blood seems to pulsate under the warm skin. In the picturesque story of Tobit Rembrandt found much to interest him, as we see in the beautiful small picture of the d'Arenberg Collection at Brussels. Sight is being restored to the aged Tobias, while with infinite tenderness his wife holds the old man's hand caressingly. In the Berlin gallery he paints the anx iety of the parents as they wait for the return of their son. In 1637 he painted the fine picture now in the Louvre of the "Flight of the Angel." Reverence and awe are shown in every attitude of the Tobit family. A similar lofty treatment is to be found in the "Christ as the Gardener," appearing to Mary, of 1638 (Buck ingham Palace).
We have now arrived at the year 1640, the threshold of his second manner, which extended to 1654, the middle age of Rem brandt. During the latter part of the previous decade we find the shadows more transparent and the blending of light and shade more perfect. There is a growing power in every part of his art. The coldness of his first manner had disappeared, and the tones were gradually changing into golden-brown. He had at tained to a truer, calmer form of dramatic expression, of which the "Manoah" of Dresden is a good example (1641). The por traits painted "to order" became more rare about this time, and those which we have are chiefly friends of his circle, such as the "Mennonite Preacher" (C. C. Ansloo) and the "Gilder," a fine example of his golden tone, in the Havemeyer collection, New York. His own splendid portrait (1640) in the National Gallery illustrates the change in his work. It describes the man well— strong and robust, with powerful head, firm and compressed lips and determined chin, with heavy eyebrows, separated by a deep vertical furrow, and with eyes of keen penetrating glance—alto gether a self-reliant man. He has now many friends and pupils, and numerous commissions, even from the stadtholder; he has bought a large house in the Breedstraat, in which during the next 16 years of his life he gathers his large collection of paintings, engravings, armour and costume which figure afterwards in his inventory. His taste was wide and his purchases large, for he was joint owner with picture-dealers of paintings by Giorgione and Palma Vecchio, while for a high-priced Marcantonio Rai mondi print he gave in exchange a fine impression of his "Christ Healing the Sick," which has since been known as the "Hundred Guilder Print." The stadtholder was not a prompt payer, and an interesting correspondence took place between Rembrandt and Constantin Huygens, the poet and secretary of the prince. The Rembrandt letters which have come down to us are few, and these are therefore of importance. Rembrandt puts a high value on the picture, which he says had been painted "with much care and zeal," but he is willing to take what the prince thinks proper; while to Huygens he sends a large picture as a present for his trouble in carrying through the business. There is here no sign of the grasping greed with which he has been charged, while his unselfish conduct is seen in the settlement of the family affairs at the death of his mother in 164o.