LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

1.  Portrait of a Slav Prince Frontispiece

2.  Portrait of a Woman of Eighty-three

3.  A Rabbi Seated, a Stick in his Hands and a High Feather in his Cap

4.  The Holy Family with the Angels

5.  Portrait of a Savant

6.  An Old Man with a Long White Beard, Seated, wearing a Wide Cap, his Hands folded

7.  Rembrandt leaning on a Stone Sill

8.  Reconciliation between David and Absalom

9.  An Old Woman in an Arm Chair, with a Black Head-cloth

10.  Minerva

11.  Titus in a Red Cap and a Gold Chain

12.  Portrait of an Old Lady, Full Face, her Hands folded

13.  Portrait of an Old Lady in a Velvet Hood, her Hands folded

14.  Flora with a Flower-trimmed Crook

15.  The Descent from the Cross

16.  A Young Woman in a Red Chair holding a Pink in her Right Hand

The illustrations in this volume have been engraved and printed at the Menpes Press.

REMBRANDT

CHAPTER I

THE RECOVERERS OF REMBRANDT

Imagine a man, a citizen of London, healthy, middle-aged, successful in business, whose interest in golf is as keen, according to his lights and limitations, as the absorption of Rembrandt in art.  Suppose this citizen, having one day a loose half-hour of time to fill in the neighbourhood of South Kensington, remembers the articles he has skimmed in the papers about the Constantine Ionides bequest:  suppose he strolls into the Museum and asks his way of a patient policeman to the Ionides collection.  Suppose he stands before the revolving frame of Rembrandt etchings, idly pushing from right to left the varied creations of the master, would he be charmed? would his imagination be stirred?  Perhaps so:  perhaps not.  Perhaps, being a man of importance in the city, knowing the markets, his eye-brows would unconsciously elevate themselves, and his lips shape into the position that produces the polite movement of astonishment, if some one whispered in his ear—­“At the Holford sale the Hundred Guilder Print fetched L1750, and Ephraim Bonus with the Black Ring, L1950; and M. Edmund de Rothschild paid L1160 for a first state of the Dr. A. Tholinx.”  Those figures might stimulate his curiosity, but being, as I have said, a golfer, his interest in Rembrandt would certainly receive a quick impulse when he observed in the revolving frame the etching No. 683, 2-7/8 inches wide, 5-1/8 inches high, called The Sport of Kolef or Golf.

[Illustration:  Portrait of A woman of eighty-three

1634.  National Gallery, London.]