Page:Great Men and Famous Women Volume 8.djvu/84

 246 ARTISTS AND AUTHORS is too sad a s.tory to tell in detail. Perhaps the beginning was when he bought a house for which he had not the ready money to pay, and borrowed a large sum for the purpose. More and more involved became his affairs. In time his credi- tors grew clamorous, and at length the blow fell when, in 1657, he was declared bankrupt. The collection of years, the embroidered mantles and draperies, the jewels with which Saskia had been so gayly decked, the plumes and furs and gor- geous robes in which he himself had masqueraded, the armor and plate, the en- gravings and pictures which had filled his house — all were sold. He, the master, had, at the age of fifty-one, to begin life anew as if he were still but the apprentice. In the midst of his troubles and losses, Hendrickje Stoffels, whose portrait hangs in the Louvre, was the friend who cheered and comforted him. She had been his servant ; afterward she lived with him as his wife, though legally they were not married. To Titus, as to her own children, she was ever a tender mother, and Titus, in return, seems to have loved her no less well. In the end, they together took Rembrandt's business interests into their own hands, the son, probably, using his inheritance in the enterprise. Renting a house in their own name, they became his print and picture dealers. But as time went on, Rembrandt's work brought lower and lower prices, and he, himself, the last two years of his life, was almost forgotten. Though he still lived in Amsterdam, the town from which he had so seldom journeyed, and then never far, he had fallen into such obscurity, that report now established him in Stockholm as painter to the King of Sweden, now in Hull, or Yarmouth. In his own family nothing but sorrow was in store for him. Hendrickje died, prob- ably about 1664, and he was once more alone ; and next he lost Titus, who then had been married but a few short months. Fortunately for Rembrandt, he did not long survive them. In 1669, at the age of sixty-two, his release came. He was buried in the West Church, quietly and simply. Thirteen florins his funeral cost, and even this small expense had to be met by his daughter-in-law. When an inventory of his possessions was taken, these were found to consist of nothing but his own wardrobe and his painter's tools. But better than a mere fortune, his work he left as an heirloom for all time ; his drawings, not the least among them without the stamp of his genius ; his prints, still unsurpassed, though it was he who first developed the possibilities of etching ; his pictures, " painted with light," as Fromentin has said. His subjects he may have borrowed from the fashions and traditions of the time ; certain man- nerisms of technique and arrangement his pupils may have copied. But for all that, his work belongs to no special school or group ; like all the world's great masterpieces, whether produced in Spain by a Velasquez, in Venice by a Titian, in England by a Whistler, it stands alone and supreme. Gt^t^, CL&eZf/frfa^stftcda