REMBRANDT VAN RYN (BY HIMSELF)
National Gallery, London

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Masterpieces of Art

REMBRANDT

A COLLECTION OF FIFTEEN PICTURES

AND A PORTRAIT OF THE PAINTER

WITH INTRODUCTION AND

INTERPRETATION

BY

ESTELLE M. HURLL

BOSTON AND NEW YORK

HOUGHTON MIFFLIN COMPANY

The Riverside Press Cambridge

1899

COPYRIGHT, 1899, BY HOUGHTON, MIFFLIN & CO.

PREFACE

The choice of pictures for this collection has been made with theobject of familiarizing the student with works fairly representativeof Rembrandt's art in portraiture and Biblical illustration, landscapeand genre study, in painting and etching. Admirers of the Dutch mastermay miss some well-known pictures. For obvious reasons the Lecture inAnatomy is deemed unsuitable for this place, and the Hundred GuilderPrint contains too many figures to be reproduced here clearly. TheSyndics of the Cloth Guild and the print of Christ Preaching willcompensate for these omissions, and show Rembrandt at his best, bothwith brush and burin.

There are perhaps no paintings in the world more difficult toreproduce satisfactorily in black and white than those of Rembrandt.His marvelous effects of chiaroscuro leave in darkness portions of thecomposition, which appear in the photograph as unintelligible blurs.With these difficulties to meet, great pains have been taken to selectfor the reproductions of this book the best photographs made directfrom the original paintings. A comparative study of the availablematerial has resulted in making use of an almost equal number fromMessrs. Hanfstaengl & Co. and Messrs. Braun & Cie.

In reproducing the etchings the publishers have been most fortunate inbeing able to use for the purpose original prints in the Harvey D.Parker Collection of the Boston Museum of Fine Arts.

ESTELLE M. HURLL.

New Bedford, Mass.

November, 1899.

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CONTENTS AND LIST OF PICTURES