With respect to his treatment of Biblical subjects, two older writers, Kolloff and Guhl, accord him an honour which, as we shall see, Kugler gives to Duerer a century earlier, namely that of being the painter of the true spirit of the Reformed Church. Though it is certain, Kugler admits, that no other school of painting in Rembrandt's time--neither that of Rubens, nor that of the Carracci, nor the French nor Spanish schools--rendered the spiritual import of Biblical subjects with the purity and depth exhibited by the great Dutch master. Here the kindly element of deep sentiment combines most happily with his feeling for composition, as in the _Descent from the Cross_, at Munich, in _The Holy Family_, in the Louvre, and above all in _The Woman taken in Adultery_, in the National Gallery. In this last, a touching truthfulness and depth of feeling, with every other grand quality peculiar to Rembrandt, are seen in their highest perfection. Of hardly less excellence, also, is our _Descent from the Cross_. Endowed with so many admirable qualities, it follows that Rembrandt was a portrait painter of the highest order, while his peculiar style of lighting, his colouring and treatment, distinguish his portraits from those by all other masters. Even the works of his most successful pupils, who followed his style in this respect, are far behind him in energy of conception and execution. The number of his admirable portraits is so large that it is difficult to know which to mention as most characteristic. No other artist ever painted his own portrait so frequently, and some of these may first be mentioned. That in the Louvre, dated 1633, represents him in youthful years, fresh and full of hope. It is spiritedly painted in the bright tone of his earlier period. Another in the same gallery, of the year 1660, painted with extraordinary breadth and certainty of hand of that later period, shows a man weighed down with the cares of life, with grey hair and deeply furrowed forehead. [Illustration: PLATE XXVII.--REMBRANDT PORTRAIT OF AN OLD LADY _National Gallery, London_] The one at Hertford House, already mentioned, and two in the National Gallery, fall between these extremes. Of other portraits we have already mentioned the two Pellicorne groups in the Wallace Collection; and another of this earliest period, the very popular _Old Woman_, in the National Gallery, dated 1634. This is of greater interest as showing, if anything does, whether it is fair to attribute any of his training to the influence of Hals. At any rate this picture is a highly important proof that at the early age of twenty-six, the painter was already in the full possession of that energy and animation of conception, and of that decision of the "broad and marrowy touch" which are so characteristic of him. Of his later period--probably about 1657--a fine example is _The Jewish Rabbi_, and of his latest the _Old Man_, both in the National Gallery. III PAINTERS OF GENRE