Page:The American Cyclopædia (1879) Volume XIV.djvu/284

 268 REMBRANDT VAN RYN REMSCHEID possession in the freehold tenant also. The seisin which the grantor gives to the first taker is transmitted by him, and by each, to his suc- cessor, until it passes at last to the first re- mainderman. Each estate supports that which follows it. Hence arises another cardinal rule, that the remainder must vest in the grantee during the continuance of the partial estate, or on the instant that it is determined. Thus, if A and B be joint tenants for life, remainder to the survivor in fee, on the death of A the joint estate is severed; B becomea in the moment of A's death the designated remainderman, and the remainder is good. But if the limitation be to A for life, remainder to the son of B in tail, and A die and so his estate determine before B have a son, then the remainder fails. Remainders are either vested or contingent. They are vested when there is an immediate right of present enjoyment, or a present fixed right of future enjoyment, it being the present capacity of taking effect in possession if the possession were to become vacant, and not the certainty that the possession will become va- cant before the estate limited in remainder de- termines, that distinguishes A vested remainder from one that is contingent. Thus a limita- tion to A for years, remainder to B and the heirs of his body, gives B a vested remainder, for ho is capable of taking should the particu- lar estate fall in, though it is not certain that he will not die without heirs before A's death. A contingent remainder depends on an event or condition which may either never happen or be performed, or not till after the determi- nation of the preceding estate ; or, to use the definition of the New York statute, which Chancellor Kent commends for its brevity and precision, a remainder is contingent while the person to whom or the event upon which it is limited to take effect remains uncertain. An example of a remainder contingent as to the person would be a limitation to A for life, re- mainder to B's oldest son (as yet unborn) in tail. This last limitation is contingent, because it is uncertain whether a son will be born to B ; and if A dies before that happens, the re- mainder is gone. A case of contingency in respect to the event would be presented by a limitation to A for life, and in case B survives him, then to B in fee. Here the uncertainty of B's surviving A is that which renders the remainder a contingent one. The English doctrine of remainders, that is, the common law doctrine, remains unaltered in most of the United States. In one or two states slight changes, and in New York some which are quite material, have been made by statute. REMBRANDT VAN RYN, Panl Humus, a Dutch painter, born in Leyden, July 15, 1607, died in Amsterdam, Oct. 8, 1669. He was the son of a miller, and the suffix van Ryn was derived from his birth in a windmill on the bank of the Old Rhine (Oude Ryn). He was first placed with Jacob van Swanenburch of Leyden, and afterward studied under Pieter Lastman at Amsterdam. About 1623 he fitted up a studio in his father's mill. It is supposed that from noticing the effects produced upon surround- ing objects by the one ray admitted into the lofty chamber of the mill from the small win- dow which formed its ventilator, he derived those notions of color and powerful contrasts of light and shadow which made him the great master of chiaroscuro. He produced his first great work, a portrait of his mother, in 1628, and in 1630 he settled in Amsterdam. His pictures brought large prices, pupils flocked to him from all parts of northern Europe, for the instruction of each of whom he received 100 florins a year, and from his etchings, which he produced in great numbers and which were esteemed as highly as his paintings, his profits were also considerable. He married Saskia van Ulenburgh in 1634, and had four children, none of whom survived him. He mingled lit- tle in society, but passed hours at the ale house. A second marriage involved him in difficulties ; he was declared a bankrupt in 1656, and the remainder of his years were spent in pover- ty. As a historical painter Rembrandt held that the imitation of vulgar nature was pref- erable to the cultivation of ideal beauty ; and his manner depends upon the elaboration of a single element in art, that of light and shade. His merits and defects are equally striking. Among his portraits, that of " Nich- olas Tulp dissecting in the Presence of his Pupils," the Staalmeesters, or council of one of the guilds of Amsterdam, the " Ship Build- er and his Wife," the "Jew Merchant," and the " Night Watch " are most esteemed. Of his historical pictures the most remarkable are " Duke Adolphus of Gueldres threatening his Father," " Moses destroying the Tables of the Law," u The Sacrifice of Abraham," " The Woman taken in Adultery," " The Descent from the Cross," " The Nativity," " Christ in the Garden with Mary Magdalene," and " The Adoration of the Magi." His peculiar style is perhaps more strikingly displayed in his etch- ings than in his paintings. They were a great source of profit to him, and one, " Christ heal- ing the Sick," was called the " Hundred Guil- ders," from the fact that he refused to sell it for less than that sum. In 1868 a second-state im- pression of this plate was sold in London for 1,180. His paintings, of which 640 are speci- fied in Smith's Catalogue raisonne, are vari- ously valued at from $500 to $20,000. The best of them are still owned in Holland. The most authentic account of his life is in French by C. Vosmaer (2 vols., the Hague, 18(!9). See- also Rembrandt, discours sur sa tie et son genie, &c., translated from the Dutch of P. Scheltem* (Paris, 1866). REMONSTRANTS. See ARMINIANS. REMORA. See SUOKIJJO FISH. REMORINO. See RAMORINO. REHSCHEID, a city of Rhenish Prussia, 6 m. S. S. E. of Elberfeld ; pop. in 1871, 22,017. It is celebrated for manufactures of iron and