works, and is
said to have been painted about 1658.]

For a little time the keen edge of trouble seems to have been turned.
One of Rembrandt's friends secured him the commission to paint the
"Syndics of the Drapers' Guild," and this is one of the last works of
importance in the artist's life, because his sight was beginning to
fail. To understand why this fresh trouble fell upon him, it is
necessary to turn for a moment to consider the marvellous etchings he
produced between 1628 and 1661. The drawings may be disregarded in this
connection, though there are about a thousand undisputed ones in
existence, but the making of the etchings, of which some two hundred are
allowed by all competent observers to be the work of the master, must
have inflicted enormous strain upon his sight. When he was passing from
middle age, overwhelmed with trouble of every description, it is not
surprising that his eyes should have refused to serve him any longer.

One might have thought that the immortals had finished their sport with
Rembrandt, but apparently their resources are quite inexhaustible. One
year after the state of his eyes had brought etching to an end, the
faithful Hendrickje died. A portrait of her, one of the last of the
master's works, may be seen in Berlin. The face is a charming and
sympathetic one, and moves the observer to a feeling of sympathy that
makes the mere question of the Church's participation in her relations
with Rembrandt a very small affair indeed.

In the next seven years the old painter passed quietly down towards the
great silence. A few ardent admirers among the young men, a few old
friends whom no adversity could shake, remained to bring such comfort as
they might. With failing sight and health he moved to the Lauriergracht,
and the capacity for work came nearly to an end. The lawyers made merry
with the various suits. Some had been instituted to recover money that
the painter had borrowed, others to settle the vexed question of the
creditors' right to Saskia's estate. In 1665 Titus received the balance
that was left, when the decision of the courts allowed him to handle
what legal ingenuity had not been able to impound.

In the summer of 1668, when he was about twenty-seven years old, Titus
married his cousin Magdellena, and this little celebration may be
supposed to have cheered the elder Rembrandt a little, but his pleasure
was brief, for the young bridegroom died in September of the same year,
an