f piquant, roguish
smiles. The doctor's face seems to say, "I think I understand;" the
invalid's, "Something more than your prescriptions are needed;" the
duenna's, "I know what she wants." Other pictures of home-life by
Schaleken, Tilborch, Netscher, William van Mieris represent kitchens,
shops, dinners, and the families of the artists.

Landscape and marine painting are represented by beautiful gems from
the hands of Ruysdael, Berghem, Van de Velde, Van der Neer, Bakhuisen,
and Everdingen. There are also a large number of works by Philips
Wouverman, the painter of horses and battle-pieces.

There are two pictures by Van Huysum, the great flower-painter, who
was born at a time when Holland was possessed with a mad love of
flowers and cultivated the most beautiful flowers in Europe. He
celebrated this passion with his brush and created it afresh in his
pictures. No one else has so marvellously rendered the infinite
shades, the freshness, the transparency, the softness, the grace, the
modesty, the languor, the thousand hidden beauties, all the
appearances of the noble and delicate life of the pearl of vegetation,
of the darling of nature, the flower. The Hollanders brought to him
all the miracles of their gardens that he might copy them; kings asked
him for flowers; his pictures were sold for sums that in those days
were fabulous. Jealous of his wife and his art, he worked alone,
unseen by his fellow-artists, lest they should discover the secret of
his coloring. Thus he lived and died, glorious and melancholy, in the
midst of petals and fragrance.

But the greatest work in the gallery is the celebrated "Lesson in
Anatomy" by Rembrandt.

This picture was inspired by a feeling of gratitude to Doctor Tulp,
Professor of Anatomy at Amsterdam, who protected Rembrandt in his
youth. Rembrandt portrays Tulp and his pupils grouped round a table on
which is stretched a naked corpse, whose arm has been dissected by the
anatomist's knife. The professor, who wears his hat, stands pointing
out the muscles of the arm with his scissors, and explaining them to
his pupils. Some of the scholars are seated, others stand, others lean
over the body. The light coming from left to right illuminates their
faces and a part of the dead man, leaving their garments, the table,
and the walls of the room in obscurity. The figures are life-size.

It is difficult to describe the effect produced by this picture. The
first sensation is a feeling of h