The conception of these women is early Italian rather than what one would associate with Dutch of the seventeenth century, and recalls the expression of Mantegna’s _Judith with the Head of Holofernes_. They suggest a sexless abstraction, moved by no active impulse, yet hauntingly fascinating in its young passionlessness. In the Berlin Gallery a _Study of a Man Praying_ is attributed to Fabritius, while in the Munich Pinakothek are two portraits of young men associated with his name. The bust portrait, No. 344, is definitely assigned to him, while the half-length, No. 345, once attributed to him, is now assigned to Rembrandt. It represents a young man with long hair parted in the center, who, holding a sheaf of paper and a pen, seems to have paused in his writing and is looking up and out of the picture with an expression of rapt meditation. In its different way it is akin to the expression of the _Salome_ in the other picture. That so gravely fine a picture should have passed for a Fabritius suggests the character of the estimation which hangs about the memory of this artist, who did not live to fulfil the promise of his youth. Moreover, what is known and what is conjectured about him suggests the value of his influence upon Jan Vermeer, whose own tendency to give his figures a concentrated absorption may possibly be traced to this source. GERBRANDT VAN DEN EECKHOUT EECKHOUT (1621-1674), the son of an Amsterdam goldsmith, was the first pupil to enter Rembrandt’s studio and one of his closest imitators. For example, in _The Woman Taken in Adultery_ of the Rijks Museum, the face of the lonely figure of Christ is the center of light amid the coruscation of rich coloring formed by the costumes of the scribes and Pharisees, while a quieter note of dignity appears in the fine green and plum draperies of the kneeling woman. The color is sonorous, yet its echo does not penetrate to the depths of the surroundings, the shadows of which are inclined to be opaque and unexplorable. Better in this respect, that its shadows are more luminous, is the _Christ with the Doctors_ of the Munich Pinakothek. Here the strongest light centers on the head of an old rabbi, so as to bring out the color of his turban and beard while leaving his face in shadow; a device which makes the little face of the Child Christ, though it is clearly illuminated, seem by comparison pathetically insignificant. Meanwhile the light touches here and there the other figures in the group and penetrates their environment of shadow. It is worth while to compare this picture with the series of Biblical subjects by Rembrandt in the same museum, particularly the _Adoration of the Shepherds_. In the Berlin Gallery Eeckhout is represented by _Raising of Jairus’s Daughter_ and a _Presentation of Christ in the Temple_. These pictures, particularly the latter, are wonderfully reminiscent of Rembrandt, finely composed in masses of light and shade and sumptuous in color. In a third example,