Roeland Savery is an artist whose name, we confess, was not known to us until we saw his work in the Rijks.  The rich pate and bouquet-like quality of his colour recall Monticelli.  His compositions are composed, like Monticelli’s, but much more spirited than the latter.  A stag hunt, a poet crowned at the feast of animals, Elijah fed by the ravens, and the fable of the stag among the cows prove the man’s versatility.  He was born about 1576 and died at Utrecht, 1639.  A pupil of his father, he first worked in Courtrai.  The Bronzino Judith holding the head of Holophernes is a copy, the original hanging in the Pitti Palace.  At Vienna there is a replica.  Among the Bols (Cornelis, 1613-66) the portraits of Roelof Meulenaer and his wife, Maria Rey, attract because of their vitality and liberalism.  Then we come across the oft-engraved Paternal Advice, by Gerard ter Borch (1617-81).  Who doesn’t remember that young lady dressed in white satin and standing with her back to you?  The man in officer’s uniform, admonishing her, is seated next to a woman drinking from a wine-glass.  The texture of the dress and the artfully depicted glass are the delight of amateurs.  As a composition it is not remarkable.  The man is much too young to be the father of the blond-haired lady, and if the other one is her mother, both parents must have retained their youth.  The portrait of Helena van der Schalcke is that of a quaint Dutch child standing; a serious little body carrying a basket on her right arm like a good housewife.  It is a capital Ter Borch.  Two beautiful Albert Cuyps are painted on the two sides of a copper panel.  On one side two merchants stand at a wharf; on the other two men sit sampling wine in a cellar.  The colour is singularly luminous.

Let us pass quickly the Schalckens and Gerard Dous.  Dou’s self-portrait is familiar.  He leans out of a window and smokes a clay pipe.  The candle-light pictures always attract an audience.  Govert Flinck (1615-60, pupil of Rembrandt) is a painter who, if he lived to-day, would be a popular portraitist.  Wherever you go you see his handiwork, not in the least inspired, but honest, skilful, and genial.  Look at the head of the tax-collector Johannes Wittenbogaert, covered with a black cap.  So excellent is it that it has been attributed to Rembrandt.  Boland, we believe, engraved it as genuine Rembrandt.  Gerard van Honthorst’s Happy Musician is another picture of prime quality, and a subject dear to Hals.  Hoogstratten’s Sick Lady is an anecdote.  The young woman does not seem very ill, but the doctor gravely holds up a bottle of medicine and you feel the dread moment is at hand.  How to persuade the patient to swallow the dose?  She is stubborn-looking.  The Pieter de Hoochs are now in the same gallery with Rembrandt’s Jewish Bride.  These interiors, painted with a minute, hard finish, lack the charm and the colour quality of Vermeer.  With sunlight Hooch is successful, but his figures do not move freely