REMBRANDT Van Rhin, a Flemish painter and engraver of great eminence, was born in 1606, in a mill upon the banks of the Rhine, whence he derived his name of Van Rhin. This master was born with a creative genius, which never attained to perfection. It was said of him, that he would have invented painting, if he had not found it already discovered. Without study, without the assistance of any master, by his own instinct alone, he formed rules, and a certain practical method for colouring; and the mixture produced the designed effect. Nature is not set off to the greatest advantage in his pictures; but there is such a striking truth and simplicity in them, that his heads, particularly his portraits, seem animated, and rising from the canvass. He was fond of strong contrasts of light and of shadow. The light entered into his working-room only by a hole, in the manner of a camera obscura, by which he judged with greater certainty of his productions. This artist considered painting like the stage, where the characters do not strike unless they are exaggerated. He did not pursue the method of the Flemish painters, that of finishing his pieces. He sometimes gave his light such thick touches, that it seemed more like modelling than painting. A head of his has been shown, the nose of which was as thick of paint as that which he copied from nature. He was told one day, that by his peculiar method of employing colours, his pieces appeared rugged and uneven; but he replied that he was a painter, and not a dyer. He took a pleasure in dressing his figures in an extraordinary manner; and with this view he had collected a great number of eastern caps, with ancient armour and drapery long since out of fashion. When he was advised to consult antiquity in order to attain a better taste in drawing, in which he was usually heavy and uneven, he took his counsellor to the closet where these old vestments were deposited, saying, by way of derision, that these were his antiques.

Rembrandt, like most men of genius, had many caprices. Being one day at work, painting a whole family in a single picture, word was brought him that his monkey had died; and he was so affected by the loss of this animal, that, without paying any attention to the persons who were sitting for their pictures, he painted the monkey upon the same canvass. This whim could not fail to displease those for whom the piece was designed; but he would not efface it, choosing rather to lose the sale of his picture than to act like a rational being.

This freak will appear the more extraordinary in Rembrandt, when it is considered that he was extremely avaricious, a vice which daily grew upon him. He practised various stratagems to sell his prints at a high price. The public were very desirous of purchasing them, and not without reason. In his prints the same taste prevails as in his pictures; they are rough and irregular, but picturesque. To heighten the value of his prints, and increase their price, he made his son sell them as if he had purloined them from his father; others he exposed at public sales, and went thither in disguise in order to bid for them; sometimes he even gave out that he was going to leave Holland and to settle in another country. These stratagems were successful, and he got his own price for his prints. At other times he would print his plates half finished, and expose them to sale; after which he would finish them, and then they became fresh plates. When any of them wanted retouching, he made some alterations; which promoted the sale of his prints a third time, though they differed but little from the first impressions.

His pupils, who were not ignorant of his avarice, one day painted some pieces of money upon cards; which Rembrandt no sooner saw than he was going to take them up. He was not angry at the pleasantry; but it had no effect in checking his avarice. He died in 1674.