REMBRANDT, GERRITZ. 



RfiMUSAT, JEAN-PIERRE-ABEL. 



following: 'De Religions Mohammedica Libri Duo,' 12mo, Utrecht, 

 1705, a second edition of which, with mauy additions, was published 

 at the same place, 12mo, 1717 ; ' Dissertationum Miscellanearum 

 Partes Tres/ 12ino, 1706, 1707, 1708. These three parts, which are 

 not always found together, comprise thirteen dissertations upon 

 various s.ubjects, more or less connected with eastern history and 

 antiquities, with the exception only of one, treating of the languages 

 of America. ' Aualecta Rabbinica,' 8vo, ib., 1702; ' Antiquitates 

 Sacrse Veterum Hebmeorum,' 12mo, 1708; ' Dissertationes quinque 

 de Nummis Veterum Hcbrseorum," &c. ; ' De Spoliis Templi Hyeroso- 

 lymitani in arcu Titiano Romae conspicuis,' 12mo, 1716; 'Oratio pro 

 Lingua Persica," 4to, ib., 1701 ; and a dissertation on the Marbles of 

 Puteoli, 12mo, ib., 1709. But his greatest work, and that in which 

 his learning of the eastern languages shines most conspicuous, is 

 ' Palaestina ex Monumeiitis Veteribus illustrata et Chartis Geographicis 

 accuratioribus illustrata,' which appeared first at Utrecht, 2 vols. 4 to, 

 1714, and was reprinted at Niirnbeig, 1716. Besides tbe above works 

 Reland wrote many others, as the 'DissertatiodePhilippi Imperatoris 

 Patris et Filii credito ternere Christianismo/ a funeral oration to the 

 memory of Mary, wife of William III. of England, a dissertation on 

 the progress of philosophy at the beginning of the 18th century, &c. 



REMBRANDT, GERRITZ, commonly called REMBRANDT VAN 

 RYN, or RHYN, was the son of Hermann Gerritz, a miller. He was 

 born on the 15th of June 1606, in his father's mill on the banks of 

 the Rhine near Leyden, whence the agnomen van Ryu. When very 

 young he was sent to a Latin school at Leyden ; but he showed such 

 a distaste for learning that hia father gave up the idea of making a 

 scholar of him, and consented to his becoming a painter,' as he had 

 manifested a decided talent for it. Young Rembrandt was accordingly 

 placed first with Jacob van Zwaanenburg, or, according to another 

 account, George Schooten. He remained with his first master about 

 three years. He then studied for a short time under Peter Lastmann 

 at Amsterdam ; and lastly, for a short time, under Jacob Pinas ; but 

 he formed a style peculiarly his own. After leaving Pinas he returned 

 to his father's mill, where he commenced painting, taking the imme- 

 diate vicinity and the peasants of the neighbourhood as his standard 

 of nature, and applying himself enthusiastically to his work. He had 

 not finished many pieces before he was considered as a prodigy by his 

 friends, and he was persuaded by them to take one of these early 

 productions to a dealer in the Hague, who, to his no greater joy than 

 astonishment, gave him 100 florins (about eight guineas) for his per- 

 formance. Rembrandt was BO elated with this unexpected good 

 fortune that he posted home to his father in a chariot to convey the 

 joyful intelligence. From this time he rapidly acquired both fame 

 and fortune. In 1630 he settled in Amsterdam, where he resided the 

 remainder of his life, and shortly afterwards married a handsome 

 peasant-girl of Ramsdorf, whose portrait he has often painted. His 

 reputation now became so great that he had many scholars, each of 

 whom paid him annually 100 florins, and he so arranged their studies 

 as to make them as profitable as possible to himself ; he retouched 

 the copies which they made from his own works, and sold them aa 

 originals. 



This rapid and unexpected good fortune appears to have engendered 

 in Rembrandt a love of money. He is said to have resorted to various 

 mean expedients for acquiring wealth, though it appears to be ascer- 

 tained that the common story of his miserly habits is incorrect. He 

 eold impressions of his etchings, which were the principal source of 

 hia income, before they were finished, when finished, and afterwards 

 with slight alterations ; and such was the rage after his works, that 

 collectors thought it incumbent upon them to possess impressions of 

 his various etchings in all their different stages ; and he is said to 

 have thrown off from some plates as many as seven proofs, all varying 

 but very slightly. Various absurd and mean practices are reported of 

 him, probably without much truth ; but he was a man who could 

 endure no restraint upon his manners or his conversation ; polite 

 society was to him intolerable, and he always avoided it. The burgo- 

 master Six was the only man of rank with whom Rembrandt asso- 

 ciated, and with him he occasionally passed a few days in his house in 

 the vicinity of Amsterdam, in which the burgomaster had fitted up 

 a painting-room for him. 



According to Sandrart, Rembrandt realised an annual income of 

 nearly 2500 florins (about 2001.) from the sale of the copies made 

 from his works by his pupils ; and the traffic in his etchings alone, 

 independent of the labours of his own pencil and hia pupils' fees a 

 large amount of itself, but which added to the rest must have made a 

 princely income for those times; yet in 1656 he was declared bank- 

 rupt, and hia property remained under legal control as an insolvent 

 debtor till his death. It may serve to illustrate the high value' 

 attached to his works to mention that the celebrated print of ' Christ 

 Healing the Sick,' commonly called the ' Hundred Guilders,' received 

 its denomination from the fact that he refused to sell it for less than 

 that amount about eight guineas. This plate was bought by Alder- 

 man Boydell, who destroyed it after he had taken a few impressions 

 from it, which enhanced the value of the prints accordingly. A good 

 impression is worth upwards of 60 guineas. 



Rembrandt's best etchings realise enormous prices, both the portraits 

 and the historical pieces varying from 30 to 100 guineas. The most 

 remarkable portraits are those of the burgomaster Six; Van Coppenol, 



the writing-master; Van Thol, the advocate; Uytenbogaert, the minis- 

 ter ; and Uytenbogaert, the gold-weigher. 



Rembrandt's great power was portrait ; his pictures of that class 

 are in the mass incomparably superior to his historical pieces, which 

 though wonderful for their effects of light and shade, exhibit fre- 

 quently an utter want of taate in design. Instead of acquiring fame 

 in the ordinary way by any merits or beauties of form, Rembrandt 

 commanded it, in spite of drawing the most coarse and incorrect 

 through a rich and brilliant colouriug, a consummate mastery of 

 chiaroscuro, and not unfrequently a power of composition that has 

 seldom been surpassed. Rembrandt is supposed to have acquired his 

 peculiar taste for a brilliant concentration of light from an appear- 

 ance that he had been familiar with from hia infancy in his father's 

 mill, where a strong beam of light coming from a small and lofty 

 aperture cast on the surrounding objects that peculiar tone which 

 we see so happily illustrated in his pictures. He arranged the light 

 in his own painting-room upon similar principles, and generally fixed 

 a drapery behind his sitter of such colour aa he intended to paint the 

 ground. 



Rembrandt had a contempt for the antique ; and the ordinary cant 

 of connoisseurs about grace, sublimity, and grandeur only excited his 

 ridicule. His antiques, as he used to call them, were some old pieces 

 of armour, unique weapons, curious turbans, and various antiquated 

 articles of dress, which he procured from Polish Jews, and with which 

 he almost indiscriminately clothed individuals of all nations, ancient 

 and modern. Rembrandt's taste led him to imitate certain effects of 

 nature, and in the truth and power with which he gave these effects, 

 both in his paintings and his etchings, he has seldom been equalled, 

 and never surpassed. The prevailing light of his portraits is that of 

 a brilliant sunset, and a rich golden tone of colouring pervades all his 

 works. His originality is perhaps even more conspicuous in his etchings 

 than in his paintings ; he exhibited powers of the etching-needle 

 before unknown ; many of his plates are prodigies of chiaroscuro ; 

 and there is a softness and reality about them which we look for in 

 vain in the works of other masters. It ia said that he made a great 

 secret of his mode of etching, and never allowed any one to see him 

 at work. Most of his more important plates have evident traces of 

 the dry point. 



Rembrandt, at the beginning of his career, bestowed great labour on 

 his pictures, and, in the manner of the generality of the Dutch painters, 

 wrought them up to a very high finish. ' The Woman taken in 

 Adultery,* in the National Gallery, is probably his best picture in this 

 etyle. At a later period of life his whole attention was given to the 

 effect ; and his pictures, although still greatly laboured, had the 

 appearance of having been executed with a remarkable freedom and 

 boldness of touch : this is particularly the case with hia portraits, 

 some of which have an astonishing body of colour in the lights. When 

 this roughness was objected to by any one, he was in the habit of 

 saying that he was a painter, not a dyer ; and when visitors ventured 

 to examine his pictures too closely, he used to tell them that the 

 smell of paint was unwholesome. 



Rembrandt died at Amsterdam in October 1669. He had one son, 

 Titus, who inherited his property, which, according to Descamps, was 

 considerable. Titus was the pupil of his father, but being Rembrandt's 

 son was the only distinction he ever enjoyed. Original Rembrandts 

 are very valuable ; some are estimated at several thousand pounds. 

 They are scattered all over Europe, and this country possesses mauy ; 

 those in the National Gallery are all particularly fine specimens ; the 

 gallery of Dresden also possesses several of his master-pieces. The 

 pictures by Rembrandt in the National Gallery are ' The Woman 

 taken in Adultery ; ' ' The Adoration of the Shepherds ; ' ' A Laud- 

 scape, with Tobit and the Angel ; ' ' Christ taken down from the 

 Cross ' a sketch iii oil ; 'A Woman Bathing ; ' ' Portrait of him- 

 self : ' ' Portrait of a Jew Merchant ; ' ' A Capuchin Friar ; ' ' A Jewish 

 Rabbi ; ' ' Portrait of a Girl ; ' ' Portrait of a Man.' 



Descriptive catalogues of his works were published by D. Daulby, 

 Liverpool, 1796 ; by A. Bartsch in 1797 ; by Nagler and others. There 

 is a very extensive and remarkably fine collection of Rembrandt's 

 etchings in the British Museum. 



R&MU8A.T, JEAN-PIERRE-ABEL, a celebrated orientalist and 

 professor of Chinese and Tartarian languages in the College de France, 

 was born at Paris on September 5, 1788. A fall in his infancy 

 placed his life in danger, and necessitated an absolute repose for several 

 years, but occasioned the loss of the use of one of his eyes. He at 

 first studied for the profession of medicine, but he soon commenced 

 the study of oriental languages, and rapidly acquired great proficiency 

 in both these departments of knowledge. The death of his father in 

 1805 left him with his mother dependent on him for support, when 

 he successfully commenced the practice of medicine in Paris ; but a 

 Chinese work on botany so greatly excited his curiosity, that without 

 a master, and only assisted by the grammar of Fourmont, he taught 

 himself the language in order to read the explanations of the plates. 

 In 1811 he published an 'Essai sur le Langue et la Litterature 

 Chinoises/ which attracted much attention. In 1813 he received the 

 degree of Doctor of Medicine, and in 1814 distinguished himself by 

 the zeal and skill with which he attended the patients suffering from 

 epidemic typhus in the hospitals of Paris. In 1814 the College de 

 France instituted for him the professorship of Chinese. The loss of 



