Rembrandt's Mirror (32 page)

Author's Note

I remember standing in front of Rembrandt's
Self-Portrait at the Age of 63
, in 1999, for a very long time. I looked at the artist's ageing face, depicted with such unflinching honesty and found myself moved. Since that day, I've been intrigued by the power of Rembrandt's art to engage our emotions.

Perhaps it's because his works touch on what it means to be human, to live, to love and to die. These big questions are like sparkling jewels at the bottom of a dark pool. And it's that sparkle, more than the potential answers, that have kept me looking at his paintings, etchings and drawings.

His art and the events of Rembrandt's life are rich and deeply interesting and some of them are stranger than I could have imagined. I have studied the historical documents and theories of Rembrandt's life and work and they are woven into the fabric of this novel, but they are not why I wrote it. I read and write for the experience, to journey to a place either familiar or unknown.
Rembrandt's Mirror
therefore, is not intended as a proclamation of facts or beliefs but as a means of transport.

Historical figures

Rembrandt van Rijn
(1606–69)

We know a great deal about Rembrandt's life. This is largely thanks to hundreds of historical documents that have been discovered in archives. Many are related to Rembrandt's numerous legal proceedings. They include an inventory that was drawn up of his possessions when he filed for
Cessio Bonorum
. Other sources of information are writings by contemporaries, such as Samuel van Hoogstraten, or the works themselves.

Some art historians believe that the change in style and drop in Rembrandt's output after Saskia's death was the result of some kind of breakdown but Ernst van de Wetering, the chair of the Rembrandt Research Project, argues that Rembrandt's work changed as a result of his artistic process – he had pushed his style of dramatic light and dark to such an extreme that it meant he had to sacrifice too much pictorial detail and texture in order to achieve extreme spotlight effects. Consequently he had to find a new approach. It is impossible to know with certainty what motivated his artistic choices.

What we do know is that towards the end of his life, with the onset of old age and the experience of severe personal losses, his art lost nothing of its potency. If anything, he seems to have delved even deeper into what it means to be human and his late works are considered to be amongst the most moving and timeless works of art ever created.

Hendrickje Stoffels
(
c
.1626–63)

Hendrickje entered Rembrandt's household in 1647/8. Her date of birth is usually given as about 1626 (genealogy directory of Bredevoort); however in a document from 1661 she declared she was thirty-eight, which would make her year of birth 1623. Either way she would have been in her early twenties when she entered Rembrandt's workshop. Hendrickje was the youngest of four children. She had two brothers and one sister. Her father died in July 1646, possibly the victim of an explosion of the gunpowder tower in Bredevoort. In January 1647, after half a year of mourning, her mother, Mechteld Lamberts, married a neighbour, Jacob van Dorsten, a widower with three young children. As a consequence of her mother's marriage, Hendrickje seems to have left home for Amsterdam.

Rembrandt never married Hendrickje; however, almost two years before her death, on 20 October 1661, Hendrickje and two neighbours made a deposition as witnesses about an intoxicated surgeon who ‘showed great insolence and wantonness while holding a glass of wine in his hand, by accosting every male person who passed him and forcing him to drink or fight with him' (
Rembrandt Documents
, 61/12). On this legal document she is named as ‘Hendrickje Stoffels, wife of Rembrandt van Rijn the fine art painter aged 38'. The document provides evidence that Hendrickje's status as Rembrandt's wife, without having been formally married, was accepted by her neighbours and the notary.

Hendrickje Stoffels was buried in a grave in the Westerkerk on 24
July 1663. It is not known with certainty that she died of the plague, but her sudden death, while the epidemic raged in Amsterdam, suggests that it was the cause.

Saskia
, née
van Uylenburgh
(1612–42)

Saskia married Rembrandt in 1634. She was twenty-two and he twenty-eight years old. She died seven years later, probably of tuberculosis, after the birth of their fourth child, Titus. In the preceding years she suffered several bouts of illness, confining her to bed for many months. Their three children born prior to Titus all died within weeks of being born.

Samuel van Hoogstraten
(1627–78)

Samuel studied with Rembrandt between 1642/3–1646/7 (according to Thijs Weststeijn, although other sources suggest he may have been with Rembrandt as early as 1640). We know he had returned to his native Dordrecht by January 1648. Having spent between five and seven years in Rembrandt's workshop, he was one of the longest-staying pupils. His writings are a source of information about Rembrandt's views on art and painting. Samuel wrote a book entitled
Introduction to the Academy of Painting, or the Visible World
(original title:
Inleyding tot de hooge schoole der schilderkonst: anders de zichtbaere werelt
). And it seems likely that some of the content is based on the methods and theories Rembrandt taught in his workshop.

Geertje Dircx
(
c
.1610–
c
.56)

Geertje grew up in a modest family in Edam. It is unclear when exactly she entered Rembrandt's household. It is likely that she was hired in 1641, the year before Saskia's death, to help look after baby Titus. It has been suggested that she is the model of
Woman in a Bed
(Scottish National Gallery) but there is no evidence that she was the model for any of Rembrandt's works.

Titus van Rijn
(1641–68)

Titus was named after Saskia's sister Titia. On 28 February 1668 he married Magdalena van Loo but died soon after on 4 September 1668 and was buried in the Westerkerk in Amsterdam. His wife and Rembrandt both died a year later. Magdalena gave birth to their daughter, Titia, six months after Titus's death. Titia had no children and died in 1715. She was the last of Rembrandt's descendants.

Cornelia van Rijn
(1654–84)

In 1670, at the age of sixteen Cornelia married Cornelis Suythof and together they emigrated to Batavia, Indonesia. She gave birth to a boy in 1673, called Rembrandt Suythof. She had another boy in 1678, Hendric Suythof. Neither of them had children of their own.

Jan Six
(1618–1700)

Jan Six was the wealthy son of a merchant family and a patron of the arts who had a long association with Rembrandt. In 1655, through his marriage to Margaretha Tulp, he became the son-in-law of
Nicolaes Tulp – the surgeon and then mayor of Amsterdam. Six himself became mayor of Amsterdam in 1691 at the age of seventy-three.

Pupils

Rembrandt had a great many pupils throughout his working life. Most of them had already completed an apprenticeship with another painter before joining Rembrandt's workshop, finishing their education by learning his style of painting, which was very popular for many years. When fashions changed many adopted the popular style of detailed brushwork. However, Rembrandt never pandered to contemporary tastes.

Notes by Chapter

I have relied on research and theories by a number of scholars, some of which I have adapted for fictional purposes.

For links to all of the images below, please visit:
http://kimdevereux.co.uk/Rembrandts_Mirror/Pictures.html

PART I

The Night Watch

The Night Watch
(1642), Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam. Originally titled
The Company of Frans Banning Cocq
.

I have taken inspiration from Ernst van de Wetering's description of the painting in
A Corpus of Rembrandt Paintings, vol. 3

St Jerome in a Dark Chamber

St Jerome in a Dark Chamber
(1642), Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York.

This chapter is based on the theory of Joseph J. Schildkraut in
Saint Jerome in a Dark Chamber: Rembrandt's Metaphoric Portrayal of the Depressed Mind

PART II

The Supper at Emmaus

The Supper at Emmaus
(1648), Louvre, Paris, signed and dated.

Acting and emotions

In this chapter Rembrandt asks the pupils to act out the
Supper at Emmaus
. Some of its content is informed by Thijs Westerstein's
The Visible World
. According to Samuel van Hoogstraten's writings it was important to depict emotions in such a way as to evoke a strong response in the viewer.

Rembrandt himself appears to have practised different facial expressions in front of a mirror as a series of early etchings shows him surprised, laughing and scowling.

Rembrandt's speech about drawing

The ideas contained in this speech are based on Fredrick Franck's
The Zen of Seeing: Seeing/Drawing as Meditation
. Franck's writings also inspired the scene of Hendrickje drawing Rembrandt, in particular the idea that when drawing a face, mask after mask falls away.

Self-portrait at the age of 34
(1640), National Gallery, London.

In this self-portrait Rembrandt depicts himself as well groomed, with a self-assured pose and elaborate sixteenth-century costume. It seems that Rembrandt deliberately alludes to Titian's
Portrait of Gerolamo
Barbarigo
, thus declaring himself to belong to the same canon as the famous Old Masters.

Prostitution and attitudes to women

Many of Petronella's attitudes towards sex are based on Lotte van de Pol's
The Burgher and the Whore: Prostitution in Early Modern Amsterdam
, which draws on seventeenth-century writing such as descriptions by travellers, as well as witness statements which were taken in the process of prosecuting women for prostitution. Extracts are used by kind permission of Oxford University Press.

Van de Pol paints a vivid picture of attitudes at the time:

Intercourse while undressed was considered abnormal.

The sexual appetite of women was feared and considered greater than that of men.

The dialogue ‘Doggy, where are you going? Come, go with me to my house, we'll share a jug of beer' is a quotation from a statement by a constable who lingered at the head of the Kalverstraat, pretending to be drunk.

A chamber cat was a female prostitute who plied her trade at home often with only one or a few regular clients.

Silent whores were prostitutes who hid the fact and outwardly led respectable lives.

Woman on a Gibbet

Woman on a Gibbet
(1664), Robert Lehman Collection, New York.

Elsje Christiaens was the first woman to be executed in twenty-one
years. Rembrandt was not the only artist to draw her body. She is also visible on the far right in Anthonie van Borssom's 1664 ink-and-watercolour painting of the execution site.

This is one instance where I have deviated from the chronological order of Rembrandt's works. The drawing appears in the novel in the year 1647 but Rembrandt made it towards the end of his life in 1664. It is a good example of his lifelong practice of making studies from life (and death). These included many extraordinary subjects, amongst them a lion, an elephant, a defecating dog and corpses being dissected.

Sermon of Jodocus van Lodenstein

Most of van Lodenstein's words are quoted from the sermons reproduced in
In Quest of Pentecost: Jodocus van Lodenstein and the Dutch Second Reformation
, by kind permission of University Press of America.

The French Bed

The French Bed
(1646), Teylers Museum, Haarlem. Also known as
The Ledikant
.

Due to a revision made by Rembrandt, the woman has three arms!

A Woman Sleeping

Woman Sleeping
(
c
.1654), The British Museum, London.

Saskia Lying in Bed

Saskia Lying in Bed, a Woman Sitting at her Feet
(
c
.1635–8), Staatliche Graphische Sammlung, Munich.

The Mill

The Mill
(1645–8), National Gallery Washington, Widener Collection (oil painting).

This chapter is loosely based on the painting
The Mill
for which Rembandt may have made preparatory drawings. See also the etching:
The Windmill
(1641), Harleem.

Self-Portrait by a Window

Self-Portrait by a Window
(1648), Rijksmuseum.

The idea of the inherent freedom of ‘looking' is inspired by Douglas Harding's writings.

Self-Portrait Wearing a White Feathered Bonnet
(1635), Buckland Abbey, National Trust Collections.

This painting was reattributed to Rembrandt in 2014, based on stylistic criteria, the quality of the paintwork and the fact that X-rays revealed exploratory paint work related to the conception of the painting which is proof that it is not a copy. As a result, the value of the painting is now about £30 million.

Jan Six with a Dog, Standing by an Open Window

Jan Six with a Dog, Standing by an Open Window
(
c
.1646), Six Collection, Amsterdam. See also the etching
Jan Six
(1647), Teylers Collection, Haarlem.

Rembrandt and Geertje appear before the Commission of Marital Affairs

Many documents associated with Rembrandt's and Geertje's negotiations (if one can call them that) have survived. Most of what is read out by the notary and the exchange in front of the tribunal are quotes from the original documents, such as Rembrandt's response to Geertje's claim, ‘I do not have to admit that I have slept with Mistress Dircx. It is for her to prove it.'

Rembrandt's wrangles with Geertje and his financial decline stretched over several years. In the novel the events have been grouped closer together for the sake of narrative flow.

The Return of the Prodigal Son

The Return of the Prodigal Son
(
c
.1650–55), Fondation Custodia, Collection Frits Lugt, Paris.

Sometimes referred to as
The Departure of Tobias
.

‘Miracle of our age
'

‘The miracle of our age
' was how the South German art-lover Bucelinus (1599–1681) commented on the fifty-eight-year-old Rembrandt in his list compiled in 1664 of ‘The Names of the Most Distinguished
European Painters'. Rembrandt's was the only name out of 166 to attract such a tribute.

Samuel's drawing of balance scales

The idea of this drawing is based on Thijs Westerstein's discussion of ‘Noch hallt het over', an emblem depicting a woman holding a balance by Jan Lyken,
Voncken der liefde Jesu
, Amsterdam, 1687.

Daniel in the Lions' Den

Daniel in the Lions' Den
(
c
.1649), Rijksprentenkabinet, Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam.

Portrait of Jan Six

Portrait of Jan Six
(1654), Six Collection.

Rembrandt's portrait of Jan Six is still owned by a direct descendant of Jan Six, Jan Six van Hillegom.

PART III

Self-Portrait

Self-portrait
(1658), The Frick Collection, New York.

Rembrandt painted himself at least forty times and etched himself thirty-one times. The question of the raison d'être of so many self-portraits is touched on in the novel a number of times and inspired by the conflicting views of Perry Chapman, who suggests that Rembrandt strove to define himself as an artist and ultimately
as an individual, and Ernst van de Wetering, who argues that the fact that they sold well was the primary motivating factor in their creation.

In 1999 a
Self-Portrait at the Age of 28
(1634), was discovered by Ernst van de Wetering and Martin Bijl and then restored to its former glory. It had been overpainted by Rembrandt himself and turned into a tronie,
Man with a Russian Hat
. The fact that Rembrandt himself overpainted his self-portrait suggests that he did so because it had not sold, perhaps because it depicted him at a much younger age and therefore no longer resembled him. He may have hoped to increase his chances of selling it by turning it into a tronie.

My own view is that, whatever other motivation Rembrandt had for depicting himself, he must also have been deeply interested in the process and the pictorial opportunities it represented. The convenience of using oneself as a model may also have played a part.

Woman Bathing in a Stream

Woman Bathing in a Stream
(1654), also known as
Callisto in the Wilderness
, National Gallery, London.

This chapter is based on Ernst van de Wetering's suggestion that Hendrickje is portrayed as Callisto. It was Jan Leija who first suggested that the woman's shift could be interpreted as a reference to the story.

Rembrandt rarely painted outside, so this painting may well not have been executed in the open air. We do not know with absolute
certainty that any of Rembrandt's paintings do in fact show Hendrickje, but I believe that this one does, as well as the
Portrait of Hendrickje Stoffels
in the National Gallery, London.

The Shell

The Shell
(1650), The British Museum, London.

The Anatomy Lesson of Dr Nicolaes Tulp

The Anatomy Lesson of Dr Nicolaes Tulp
(1632), Mauritshuis, The Hague.

PART IV

Self-Portrait with Two Circles

Self-Portrait with Two Circles
(1665–9), also known as the Kenwood Self-Portrait, Kenwood House, London.

The idea of the two circles as two worlds is based on Thijs Westerstein's
The Invisible World
.

The myth of Rembrandt's decline into obscurity is contradicted by the fact that he was still famous enough for Prince Cosimo III de' Medici, Grand Duke of Tuscany, to make a point of visiting him in the Rozengracht in 1667, two years before he died.

Isaac and Rebecca

Isaac and Rebecca
(
c
.1665–9), Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam. Also known as
The Jewish Bride
.

The name change occured after the painting became related to a drawing by Rembrandt that depicts Isaac and Rebecca caught in amorous engagement by King Abimelech. This was the result of interconnected observations by Wilhelm Valentiner, Cornelius Müeller-Hofstede and Hans Kaufmann.

This link was further strengthened by X-ray examinations by Ernst van der Wetering and the discovery of a detail previously hidden by the frame. The detail shows a window's edge which is assumed to be the window from which King Abimelech was spying on the sporting couple.