a fine little etching in which the plate has been bitten only to a
moderate depth and which requires a sensitive handling in the printing
to produce anything like richness. Yet the result is rich in the fullest
sense of the term. It depends for its quality not only upon the splendid
color-scheme formed by the dark red of the velvet hat and gown, the
white of the feather, the gold and gray and dull blue of the trimmings
and ornaments, the beautiful jewels, with which Rembrandt then as later
produced an appearance of great magnificence, the bright red-gold of the
hair falling lightly over the softly modeled brow, and the fair warm
tones of the flesh glowing as from living health and physical energy: it
depends as much upon the deep research into the expression that has
resulted in the intimate portraiture possible only to genius and seldom
found even in the work of the great masters, never, so far as the
writer's observation has gone, in the work of their later years. The
smile that hesitates at the corner of the whimsical little mouth, the
tender modulations of surface on the forehead and about the
straight-gazing honest eyes, the swift suggestions of movement and play
of mood in the flexible contours, the gaiety and sweetness and singular
purity of the girlish face, are evoked with magisterial authority and
precision. Never surely has there been a finer example of Dutch care and
thoroughness in the observation and rendering of minute detail united to
breadth of effect. The painting of the jewels and embroideries is
wrought to a singularly perfect finish. It is almost as though the
artist had set himself to extract the utmost beauty of which the
textures of stuffs and gems are capable, to prove how much more
enchanting was the beauty of the brilliant blond demure little face
daintily poised above them. Dr. Bode calls the picture "one of the most
attractive, not only of his early pictures, but of all his works."

[Illustration: Courtesy of Berlin Photographic Company.

SASKIA

_From a portrait by Rembrandt_]

To Rembrandt's early years also are ascribed certain careful studies of
old men's heads and several portraits of younger men. Among these are
one of the writing-master Coppenol and one of the poet Krul, the former
painted in 1632, the latter in 1633. The Krul portrait is the more
striking of the two, and the pictorial costume with the broad hat
casting its lucent shadow over the fine brow, the silken jacket with i