The devoted love of Rembrandt won the happy-hearted, refined Saskia.
They were married June 5, 1634, when she was twenty-one and Rembrandt
twenty-seven, and went to live in his pleasant home in Amsterdam.
The next eight years were given to arduous work, blessed by the
well-nigh omnipotent influence of a seemingly perfect love. In his
marriage year he painted "Queen Artemisia," now in Madrid; "The
Incredulity of St. Thomas," now at the Hermitage; "Repentance of Peter,"
"Judas and the Blood Money;" a larger "Descent from the Cross," now at
St. Petersburg; "Rev. Mr. Ellison and Wife of the English Church at
Amsterdam," sold in London, in 1860, for about nine thousand dollars;
several portraits of himself and several of Saskia. In the large "Jewish
Wife," in "Bathsheba receiving David's Message," in the long lost
"Vertumnus and Pomona," Saskia, the beloved Saskia, is always the model.
At the same time were made five sketches and sixteen engravings, the
most notable being "The Annunciation to the Shepherds." "This," says
Professor Mollett, "is a night effect, with a mass of trees on the
right hand, and a distance in which a city is seen, with its factories
and bridges in a nest of foliage, and fires reflected in water. In the
foreground the shepherds and their flocks are alarmed by the sudden
appearance of the celestial glory, in the luminous circles of which
thousands of cherubim are flying; an angel is advancing, and, with the
right hand raised, is announcing the news to the shepherds. The whole
composition is wonderful for the energy it displays, and appears as if
it had been thrown on the copper with swift, nervous, inspired touches,
but always accurate and infallible."
In 1635 a son was born to Rembrandt and Saskia, named Rombertus, after
her father, but the child soon died, the first shadow in the famous
artist's home. This year he painted "Samson menacing his Father-in-law,"
now in the Berlin Museum; the "Rape of Ganymede," now at Dresden;
"Christ driving out the Money-changers;" "The Martyrdom of St. Stephen;"
in all, eight portraits, seven other paintings, nine designs, and
twenty-three etchings. One of the most attractive of the pictures about
this time is Rembrandt at home, with Saskia, life-size, and full of
happiness, seated upon his knee.
Three scenes from the history of Tobias follow. The first, the blind
father awaiting his son's return, is in the Berlin Museum; the second
contains Tobias and his wife seated in a chamber; the third illustrates
Tobias restoring sight to his father.
In 1636 he painted "The Entombment," "The Resurrection," and "The
Ascension," companion pictures to the "Crucifixion" painted for Prince
Frederick Henry four years previously; "The Repose in Egypt," now at
Aix-la-Chapelle; "The Ascension," in the Munich Pinakothek; "Samson
blinded by the Philistines, with Delilah in Flight;" and "St. Paul," in
the Vienna Belvidere, besides three portraits and ten etchings.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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