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There are two new Rembrandts in the galleries of the Mauritshuis, lent by Prof. A. Bredius, director of the Royal Picture Gallery at The Hague. Neither is an "important" picture in the professional sense of that word, but they are Rembrandts at least one is indubitable and that suffices. The more credible of the pair is a small canvas depicting Andromeda manacled to the rocks.
Doctor A. Bredius has printed an article entitled: A Pseudo-Vermeer in the Berlin gallery, which I have not been able to procure, but then the same worthy authority has contested the authenticity of the portrait of a young man in the Brussels Museum.
There are since then many new pictures, notably a sterling Chardin, marvellously painted, and an excellent landscape by Van Cuyp, both loans of Dr. Bredius. Otherwise this little collection is as choice and as entertaining as ever.
The new era in Rembrandt literature began with Kolloff's Rembrandt's Leben und Werke, published in 1854. This contribution to truth was followed by the works of Messrs. Bürger and Vosmaer, by the lucubrations of other meritorious bookworms, by the studies of Messrs. Bode and Bredius, and finally by M. Émile Michel's Life, which is the definitive and standard work on Rembrandt.
A. J. Wauters finally declared it a Vermeer, though neither Bredius nor Hofstede de Groot are of his opinion. And now we hear the question: Who owns the thirty-fifth Vermeer, Vermeer of the magical blue and yellow? First let us ask: Who was Jan Vermeer, or Van der Meer?
Bredius in 1905 considered the picture by Jean Victor, but it has been pronounced Vermeer by equal authorities. It was once a part of the collection of Humphry Ward. The man sits, his hand holding a glove resting negligently over the back of a chair. He faces the spectator, on his head a long, pointed black hat with a wide brim. His collar is white. A shadow covers the face above the eyes.
We must bow, however, to the judgment of the learned Bredius who made the ascription. These two works are not as yet in the catalogue. It is a pity the catalogue to this gallery is not as complete as those of the Rijks Museum. To visitors they offer an abridged one, dated 1904.
Why, it would have taken our golfer three months just to read what has been written about one of Rembrandt's pictures that known as The Night Watch. He might have begun with Bredius and Meyer of Holland, and M. Durand-Greville of France, and would then have been only at the beginning of his task. People make the long journey to St.
The self-portrait of the painter is a favourite, though the much-vaunted feather in the head-gear is stiff; perhaps feathers in Holland were stiff in those days. But the painters flock to this portrait and never tire of copying its noble silhouette. The two little studies of the painter's father and mother are characteristic. One, of the man, is lent by Dr. Bredius.
Its type, judging from the head of a girl at The Hague, is not unlike The Geographer, in the collection of Viscount Du Bus de Gisegnies, Brussels. A Young Girl, collection of Jonkheer de Grez, Brussels. This last was discovered by Doctor Bredius in 1906, and is at the present writing in New York at the gallery of Mr. Knoedler.
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