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Updated: May 9, 2025
He painted Titus over and over again looking like a young prince. In these later years the portraits of himself increase in number, as if because of the lack of other models. When we see him old, haggard, and poor in his worn brown painting-clothes, it hardly seems possible that he can be the same Rembrandt as the gay, frolicking man in a plumed hat, holding out the pearls for Saskia.
She never tired of posing for him, nor he of painting her now simply as Saskia, now as Delilah feasting with Samson, as Susanna surprised by the Elders, as the Jewish Betrothed at her toilet. Sometimes he represented her alone, sometimes with himself at her side; once, in the famous Dresden portrait, on his knee, as if to proclaim the love they bore for one another.
At Amsterdam he soon found favour with wealthy patrons, and his happiness and success were completed by his marrying Saskia van Ulenburgh, the sister of a wealthy connoisseur and art dealer, with whom Rembrandt had formed an intimate friendship.
In 1642 the beloved Saskia died, leaving an only child, Titus, whose features are familiar to us in the portrait at Hertford House. As though this were not affliction enough, Rembrandt had the mortification of offending his patrons over the commission to paint Captain Banning Cocq's Company.
Nevertheless one misses the precious quality of the earlier craftmanship as it shines in such lovely paintings as the "Saskia" and the "Portrait of a Young Woman." In these the painter shows that he was still young, that he had arrived at a skill of hand that permitted him to use his medium with ease and certainty, but that he had not yet ceased to attempt what lay just beyond his powers.
From the tender explicit craftsmanship of the wonderful Saskia to the golden mist enveloping the figure of Nicholas Bruyningh, is a long step, but not longer than many a painter has taken in his progress from youth to maturity.
The jewels have been restored to Saskia, but this is one of her own which she has bestowed upon Dickson as a parting memento. He opens the case and reveals a necklet of emeralds, any one of which is worth half the street. "This is a present for you," he says bashfully. Mrs. McCunn's eyes open wide. "You're far too kind," she gasps. "It must have cost an awful lot of money."
Saskia had said that he had a devil's brain, and Dickson, as he stared at him, saw a fiendish cleverness in his straight brows and a remorseless cruelty in his stiff jaw and his pale eyes. He achieved the bravest act of his life. Shaky and dizzy as he was, with freedom newly opened to him and the mental torments of his captivity still an awful recollection, he did not hesitate.
The flare blazed up again as the flame caught a knot of fresh powder, and once more the place was bright with the uncanny light.... The hall was empty save for the pale man who was in the act of turning. He looked back. "If I go now, I will return. The world is not wide enough to hide you from me, Saskia." "You will never get her," said Alexis.
The features may be disguised a little, but it is the same fine, bright, charming, petite young woman. Before six months had passed he painted several more portraits of Saskia; and in one of these she has a sprig of rosemary the emblem of betrothal held against her heart.
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