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1 Introduction
From 1631 onwards, Rembrandt (1606-1669) led a turbulent life in Amsterdam that would span a period of thirty years. He reached the top of his professional field, producing many portraits and of course the famous Night Watch in 1642. But by the 1650s, he was facing financial problems. He and his life companion Hendrickje Stoffels were forced to leave the large house and studio in the Jodenbreestraat. Rembrandt would continue living and working in a much smaller house on the Rozengracht in Amsterdam, where he died in 1669. What was his professional life like in his final decade?
2 Post-insolvency
A logical step in his insolvency proceedings in the second half of the 1650s was the ‘liquidation’ of the insolvent estate. It meant that the assets of the estate could be sold and therefore turned into cash through a sales process. Afterwards, the incoming money was distributed among Rembrandt creditors.
Sales of items from the inventory most likely took place from November 1656, more than three months after the inventory had been drawn up. These sales continued until February 1659. As far as can be established from documents, there were six sales in total.
[Announcement by the administrator of the insolvent estate of Rembrandt of
a public auction in the ‘Keizerskroon’ in the Kalverstraat, Amsterdam;
Public sale placard, collection British Museum]
His large house in the Jodenbreestraat, which had been bought in 1639 for 13,000 guilders, was sold publicly at an auction 19 years later for 11,218 guilders. Next – still a rather logical step in Dutch insolvency liquidation proceedings – a ‘distribution’ took place in which the proceeds of the liquidation sales were distributed among the creditors in accordance with their ranking – the place their claims occupied according to the legal system. The grand finale to this financial-legal process was the distribution of the proceeds themselves. The amount of Rembrandt’s debts totalled slightly more than 15,175 guilders, of which Rembrandt was unable to settle just over 6,437 guilders. In December 1660, the role of the Chamber of Abandoned and Insolvent Estates came to an end. There were, however, still some skirmishes with creditors after 1660, but I’ll leave these after-effects from his cessio bonorum period for now. They’ve been discussed in my book.
3 A company
Also in December 1660, with retroactive effect to 1658, Rembrandt’s life companion Hendrickje Stoffels and Rembrandt’s son Titus, aged 19 at the time, established and commenced an art dealing business (a ‘compagnie’). Formally a third party to this agreement, Rembrandt was given a particular position in the agreement. It’s a remarkable contract if one analyses certain provisions. For example, the duration of the contract lasting only six years, the ‘capital’ contributions, its agreed retroactive effect, and Rembrandt’s strongly protected position who was not a party to the contract himself. What was the rationale behind the agreement and the purpose of this business set up by Hendrickje and Titus? Was the company – avant la lettre – a phoenix company, i.e. a company rising from the financial collapse of Rembrandt’s one-man business, set up to trade seamlessly with professional activities similar to those in his former business? Perhaps it was in substance, but not in form. I think that most of the obligations in the contract, if they had been subjected to court review, would not have been found to be legally valid. We should note here, once again, that facts and circumstances available from day-to-day life at that time are too few, too incomplete, or too fragmented to conclude that the wording of the document was lived up to either way – to the advantage or to the disadvantage of Rembrandt.
To summarise: by the early 1660s, Rembrandt had entered a new period in his professional life. The difficult period of his insolvency was largely behind him. His wife – on paper – is the owner of an art company founded in 1660 together with Titus. They were living on the Rozengracht, more than 1000 metres west of the former Amsterdam City Hall. This is now the Royal Palace on Dam Square, but it was built in the 1640s and opened as Amsterdam’s new town hall in 1655.
I’ll leave aside whether Rembrandt in his professional work was acting as a representative of this alleged company or just on his own behalf. I’ve found no documents in which this ‘company’ is mentioned.
4 Rembrandt’s health
In the letter of 12 February 1662, Rembrandt indicated that he had been unable to deliver the drawings of ‘Cacrachi’. That looks like a phonetically written name for the Italian Annibale Carracci (1560-1609). As a reason for the non-delivery, Rembrandt mentions that he had hurt his leg and had been in bed with it throughout January. He had now sent the drawings with a skipper from The Hague and ‘hope that yours truly will be pleased to send me the money’ (‘… hope dat ue sal gelieven om het gelt te senden’).
How much is this amount? Rembrandt requested the amount that he himself had paid for it: ‘… I should not give these drawings for less than 100 guilders, the price and the expenses involved’. There’s no proof of the payment or a receipt of the amount, nor of the costs mentioned.
[Saskia van Uylenburgh’s grave, Old Church Amsterdam]
5 Selling Saskia’s grave
Nine months later, on 27 October 1662, Rembrandt sold the plot of Saskia’s grave. He and Pieter van Gerven, the warden of the Oude Kerk, went to a young notary in Amsterdam, Willem van Veen (1634-1669), to arrange this. Rembrandt declared that he had sold and transferred to Van Gerven a single cemetery plot. It was located in the church in the Veerkoper Chapel, in the fourth tier as recorded in the ledger of the church under Rembrandt’s name. Strauss and Van der Meulen submit that Rembrandt’s poor financial situation had forced him to sell Saskia’s cemetery plot. There’s no mention of the purchase price in the document.
6 Landlord Van Leest
The landlord of the Rembrandt family’s home on the Rozengracht (now no. 184) was Jacques van Leest. He had owned the location since 1622. Van Leest’s son, Jacob van Leest, was most probably one of the many victims of the plague that swept through Amsterdam in those years.
On 26 July 1663, Van Leest Senior called on Rembrandt and another person (Jeuriaen Voskuyl) to act as witnesses when an inventory was drawn up of the estate of Van Leest’s son, Jacob, who had died a month before on 26 June 1663. Van Leest Senior made playing cards and was also a paper merchant. Towards the end of his working life, he had become quite wealthy. He owned a number of houses and must have had a good relationship with Rembrandt, who rented a house from him from 1658 or 1660 onwards. According to his will, the estate of landlord Van Leest Senior included: ‘… half of a rear house, to be entered in the hallway, next to the house where Rembrandt lives’. This was a small corridor-like street, the ‘Roomolengang’, leading to two small houses and an inner-garden.
Various explanations have been given in the literature for the fact that Rembrandt wanted to act as a witness when this inventory was drawn up. Possibilities that have been mentioned are: (i) Rembrandt wished to be seen in high esteem in the neighbourhood;
(ii) Van Leest Senior needed Rembrandt to prove that his son owned only a small portion of the property on the Rozengracht; or (iii) his involvement merely indicates that Rembrandt was happy to be paid for his services as a witness (Hofstede de Groot). It is unknown whether the Amsterdam custom was to pay a witness for his services at the time a notarial deed is passed.
More than three years later, in 1666, Rembrandt’s landlord Van Leest Senior himself passed away. His heirs sold various types of paper, playing cards, lacquers, card maker’s tools, etc. The ‘Inventory of Inheritance’ which was drafted, included outstanding debts for rent arrears: an ‘… action against Rembrant van Rijn for rent which cannot be settled on the basis of the net amount. It appears that Rembrandt had considerable rent arrears in 1666 and was just not able to provide the necessary cash.
In the State of Holland at that time, the general rule was that lease takes precedence over sale (‘huyr gaat voor koop’). This rule applied to buyers of the rented property. The landlord’s heir, therefore, was obliged to continue an existing rental agreement. Jonathan Bikker, curator at the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam, is baffled by the fact that Rembrandt still owed the rent for the Rozengracht house at a time when he had just received, or was about to receive, at least a thousand guilders from an Italian client!
7 Rembrandt’s output
In this period after 1660, Rembrandt had not been idle. His professional, artistic life continued. He delivered his most well-known works, including portraits like The Denial of St. Peter in 1660, Jacob Trip and his wife Margaretha de Geer in 1661, and the Syndics of the Drapers Guild (‘De Staalmeesters’) in 1662, The Jewish Bride (‘Het Joodse bruidje’), which was painted around 1665-1669, and several of his self-portraits. Rembrandt would continue to paint until shortly before his death in October 1669. Three self-portraits are known which he worked on in the last year of his life. The interpretation of his last self-portrait (see below) is that in the last months of his life, one should not look at signs of age on his face. Rather, Rembrandt is seen as giving the impression of physical and mental vitality (see Manuth and De Winkel (2024), p. 160). The cited authors reject the assumption that this self-portrait had been left unfinished on the easel in Rembrandt’s workshop when he died.
[Self-portrait, 1669;
The Hague, Museum Mauritshuis]
8 The Syndics of the Drapers Guild (‘De Staalmeesters’)
Rembrandt’s The Syndics of the Drapers Guild (‘De Staalmeesters’) of 1662 has other names too. The testers of the Amsterdam clothmakers guild (‘De waardijns van het Amsterdamse lakenbereidersgilde’) or The Sampling Officers of the Drapers’ Guild are two of them.
[De Staalmeesters / The Syndics of the Draper Guild, 1662;
Amsterdam, Rijksmuseum]
A cloth trade and industry had existed in Amsterdam since the 14th century, providing work for spinners, combers, dyers, fullers, weavers, dryers, diggers and persons finishing the work (‘opreders’). Production and trade were in the hands of the drapers. Cloth producers, tailors, dryers and cloth buyers were organized in the Sint-Nicolaas Guild. You may remember that eight of the eighteen musketeers in the Night Watch were active in the cloth trade.
Two years before the Night Watch was finished, in 1640, Amsterdam city council decided that all fabrics, after they had been painted, were to be inspected in the Cloth hall (‘Lakenhal’). If a sheet (‘staal’ or ‘stofmonster’) was found to be in order, it was awarded a quality mark, which was a piece of lead (‘lakenloodje’). In order to prevent fraud and deception with raw materials for paints used for cloth, new ordinances were issued in 1641 to check the dyeing of substances.
On the painting Syndics of the Drapers Guild, the signature of Rembrandt dates from 1662 and it was painted on the tablecloth. On the right, above the panelling, the name of Rembrandt can also be found, but with the year 1661. This signature is false, which was discovered during a major repair in 1991.
The portrait portrays a group of men; not regents, but five gentlemen of the cloth guild who were responsible for the inspection of the cloth, so-called cloth testers or masters (‘waardijns’ or ‘keurmeesters’). Behind them, without a hat, but with a solideo, stands their servant. The testers, from left to right, are: Jacob van Loon (1595-1674), Volckert Jansz. (1605/10-1681), cloth painter Willem van Doeyenburg (1616-1687), cloth merchant Aernout van der Meye (1625-1681) and cloth seller Jochem de Neve (1629-1681). The servant is Frans Hendricksz. Bel (1629-1701). The latter had access to a service residence at the Staalhof (Cloth court), the location on the Staalstraat, where the syndics checked the quality and colour of the cloth offered. The Staalhof on the Staalstraat is across the canal from the Kloveniersdoelen, the building we know as the original location of the Night Watch.
The cloth, dyed either blue or black, was a plain woollen fabric that became dense and warm with a sheen finish through a long process. In order to compare the quality of different batches, they used samples (‘stalen’), test pieces, which explains the name of the function of these persons. Being a cloth tester or sample master was an unpaid honorary function. The appointment was valid for a period of one year, each time from Good Friday until the next Good Friday. Each year, five cloth masters were selected to inspect the fabrics offered in the hall. They met three times a week. The persons mentioned in Rembrandt’s painting performed their duties from Good Friday 1661 until Good Friday 1662.
Van Doeyenburg functioned as the chairman of the group. The open book in the painting was probably the Guild’s bookkeeping. The person on the right is holding two gloves and not – as was previously assumed – a bag with stamps. Van Eeghen (1957), 80ff., writes, in ecstasy: ‘Where do we see Amsterdam in the 17th century pictured in a better way? There they are: the servant-inventor, the two Roman-Catholic cloth buyers, who both housed a conventicle (‘schuilkerk’) in their house, the Baptist cloth merchant, who brought together a famous collection, the Remonstrant-minded cloth maker, sprung from a patrician family, and the Reformed cloth buyer of considerable decent, who did not devote himself to the city government, but to commerce and industry. It is not a piece of regents, but rather the opposite, a group of very diverse birds, who in the middle of the 17th century could sit around a table brotherly only in our Republic’.
Today, the painting is indeed used to show that religious tolerance existed across the whole of the Republic. There was no barrier to interaction with others: ‘This willingness not to pay attention to differences and to put aside one’s own prejudices was the lubricant that allowed the richly varied social life in the Republic to function smoothly.’ (Kooi (2001), p. 279).
As with the Night Watch, the question here is who the ultimate client was in giving the commission to Rembrandt. And what did the gentlemen pay to Rembrandt as a fee? The Rijksmuseum (Baarspul (2023)) reports that it is generally assumed that this would have involved the payment of 60 guilders per person. Rembrandt would then have received 300 guilders for the whole. The amount for the servant would have been paid by the other syndics. A drawing also exists of Jacob van Loon and it is certainly possible that drawings were also made of the others and that the painting was ultimately finalized in its final group form in Rembrandt’s workshop.
The amount mentioned is striking because three years earlier, two musketeers had declared that 17 years before they had paid Rembrandt 100 guilders each. I don’t think it would be in Rembrandt’s character to settle for a lower amount. On the other hand, his agreement may have been partly caused by the modest financial position he found himself in at the time. The fact that his traditional style had fallen out of fashion may also have played a role. Mind you, looking at the painting, it’s clear that his style was looser and the contrast between dark and light was less pronounced. As the portrait was to be hung high over a fireplace in the building, Rembrandt had painted it from a low viewpoint. Most remarkable is the sense of the board meeting suddenly being interrupted, as we see Volckert Jansz. half seated, half rising. This strengthens the idea that the spectator is completing the painting through their presence.
9 Rembrandt’s finances
Now that we’ve touched on his finances, how was Rembrandt doing financially in the final decade of his life? It seems that a lack of money as well as other financial troubles were present on a day-to-day basis. These problems included: (i) a conflict with Italian client Ruffo about the price for a painting and the actual canvas; (ii) the settlement of a loan from Harmen Becker, involving statements from several witnesses and conflicts that came close to litigation in court, but ultimately ended in a settlement; and (iii) two years later, another conflict between Becker and Rembrandt – this time related to a delayed payment.
In addition to these conflicts, there was the sale of an emotional asset (Saskia’s grave) and not keeping up with rent payments. These problems have been discussed in my book.
During these latter years of his life, it’s been claimed in the literature that Rembrandt was financially down-and-out and a misunderstood artist who spent his life in poverty without work. For instance, his most recent biographer Blom (2019), 23, claims that Rembrandt died lonely and destitute in a rented house on Amsterdam’s Rozengracht. It is the romanticized picture of the unsung artist – the tragedy of a person having had many applauded traits that earned him the sympathy of a large crowd, but also a person with character flaws who had made mistakes that ultimately led to his downfall.
I wonder whether this is a representative picture. Again, we only have limited pieces of written evidence. The picture presented, however, does not rhyme with some of the paintings he made in that period; either based on commissions or at his own free will. I would include as examples the prominent inhabitants of Dordrecht, Jacob Trip and Margaretha de Geer, and the Syndics of the Drapers Guild from 1662. I would also include The Jewish Bride (‘Het Joodse bruidje’), painted in the second part of the 1660s, and several self-portraits in the final years of his life. So, was Rembrandt’s financial situation really weak?
After Rembrandt’s death in October 1669, an inventory was drawn up of his belongings. We know from this that he had in his possession paintings, drawings, curios, antiques, and other objects (‘… de vordere goederen soo van schilderijen, teyckenen, rariteyten, antiquiteyten en anders’). These were located in three separate rooms throughout the house on the Rozengracht. The notary who made the inventory reported that he locked the doors of these three rooms. And if you’ve listened to my earlier podcast, you’ll know that certain caution is required here. After all, it’s not known whether Rembrandt also had access to other places, perhaps storage space or some other place where works made by Rembrandt were being transported to.
An assessment of all circumstances doesn’t provide a clear picture. It’s difficult to give an exact picture of Rembrandt’s financial position during the last ten years of his life. As is often the case, specific documents are missing. It doesn’t seem right to me to regard Rembrandt as an unrecognized genius who spent his life in poverty due to a lack of work. He received various commissions, which his paintings testify to. We know the results of some of them. That said, it’s undeniably true that he had allowed debts to arise. The best known is the failure to make rent payments for his house on the Rozengracht. Apparently, he often had acute liquidity problems. He solved this problem to some extent by shamelessly taking money from his daughter Cornelia’s purse. So on the one hand, we see a continuation of his production of paintings; on the other hand, we know he was a compulsive collector. This is evident from the inventory drawn up of his home at the time of his death. One recent conclusion seems not too far away from reality (and translated in my own words): ‘Apparently he was not clever with money. He borrowed from Peter to pay Paul and he was a compulsive collector who deposited large amounts of money for art.’, according to Manuth et al. (2019), 385.
10 Rembrandt’s death and funeral
‘On 4 October 1669 my cousin Rembrandt van Rhijn, painter, died’ (‘Den 4 8b[er] is overleeden neeff Rembrant van Rhijn schilder’). This statement and the date of death was given in a note by a relative of Rembrandt, Nicolaes Sebastiaensz Vinck. Nicolaes Vinck was an apothecary residing in a house called ‘De Sonnebloem’ (The Sunflower) in Amsterdam. He was a distant relative of Rembrandt on his mother’s side (for more background, see https://www.rembrandthuis.nl/nl/kronieken/new-light-on-family-ties-rembrandt-vinck-van-swanenburgh/).
Rembrandt’s funeral took place four days later in the Westerkerk, on 8 October 1669. The Orphan Chamber Register of Deaths notes: Rembrant van Reyn painter Rose gracht 8 October – – -2 [children]’ These two children were Cornelia, his daughter by Hendrickje Stoffels, and his grandchild Titia, the daughter of Titus, his deceased son, with his wife Magdalena van Loo. The cause of Rembrandt’s death is unknown.
The exact location of his grave is also unknown; it is not indicated in the records of burial plots, or in the Register of Deaths. Bredius (1921), 585, with a sense of drama, notes that only a few people stood by Rembrandt’s deathbed: ‘The question is whether even his daughter-in-law was present. A widow, Rebecca Willems, who nursed him, and his daughter were perhaps the only ones who surrounded him. On 5 October he blew out his last breath, and on 8 October he was brought to earth in the Westerkerk with subtle simplicity.’ The date mentioned in the quote must be a slip of the pen.
Rembrandt was carried to his grave in the Westerkerk by sixteen bearers. The grave was rented and had no headstone. Bredius (1921), 585, continues: ‘It was not until 1906 that a memorial mark was placed there, indicating the resting place of our greatest artist, one of the greatest among the great, who made the world happy with the immortal wrought of their minds.’ The word ‘there’ means the house at Rozengracht 184. The year 1906 marked Rembrandt’s year of birth, at that time 300 years ago.
11 Rozengracht 184
These days, Rozengracht 184 is an inconspicuous building. Above the middle window of the first floor, a simple, almost square facing brick with a round cartouche in 17th century form is attached to the wall. In six lines it says: Here / was / Rembrandt’s / last / house †4:10•1669 (‘Hier / stond / Rembrandt’s /laatste / woning / †4:10•1669’).
Amsterdam’s historic ‘canals-book’ (see https://www.amsterdam-monumentenstad.nl/database/grachtenboek_objecten.php?id=10010) notes about the location: ‘Nos. 186-190 do not exist because on the left of Rembrandt’s house there was an overbuilt corridor, the Roomolengang, that led to three indoor houses. This shows that the famous painter lived in a relatively poor part of the city in his last years.’
The date that this memorial stone was installed is unknown. Van Eeghen (1969e), describing the house, its owner and its tenants, does not mention its existence. From her description, it is known that in 1909 the façade of the house was modernized and took its current form with the balcony on the first floor. Boas (1939), 3, is likely the first one to have made a reference, though incomplete, to the memorial stone and its text. The most probable date seems to be 1919, the year when it was 250 years after Rembrandt had died at the current address. Since 2013, the ground floor of the house has housed a tattoo shop.
12 The inheritance
As already mentioned, Rembrandt’s possessions were found in several places throughout his house on the Rozengracht (the parlour, the entrance hall, the inner chamber, the rear kitchen, and the small back room). The inventory contained a list of 50 entries, including a mirror, an old mirror with a clothes rack, an etching press and 26 mostly unfinished paintings. Gerrit Steeman, the notary in charge, also added a declaration:
‘The remaining property, including paintings, drawings, curios, antiques and other objects have been placed in three separate rooms, the doors of which have been locked by me, the notary; in addition, this door has been sealed with my signet and the keys have been taken into my custody. All this has been done at the request of Mrs Magdalena van Loo, the widow of Titus van Rijn and Mr Christiaen Dusart, the guardian of Cornelia van Rijn, with the explicit stipulation, voiced in our presence, the notary and witnesses, that they did not yet wish to declare themselves legatees of the deceased, but wanted to reserve the right and [decide] later on’. Cornelia is the young daughter of Rembrandt and Hendrikje Stoffels. In 1669, she was around 15 years old. Since Rembrandt and Hendrikje were not married, their child Cornelia was – in legal terms – illegal.
Strauss and Van der Meulen point out that due to fire damage, the details of the last parts of the document are no longer fully legible. They submit that it appears that Magdalena van Loo (Titus’ wife) and Cornelia’s guardian, Christiaen Dusart, were reluctant to accept the legacy, and would only do so if they could recover sufficient funds to pay for the funeral expenses. But I suspect that Magdalena and Dusart were worried that Rembrandt still had outstanding debts which they (i.e. the children under their custody) would not be able to cover. Crenshaw (2006), 108, notes that there may have been problems regarding the division of the estate; Cornelia being legally entitled to her mother’s share of the estate, whereas Titus’ daughter Titia is the full legal heir. To complicate things, the Orphan Chamber would not have the authority to intervene on Cornelia’s behalf, given her illegitimacy. But that’s not all – Magdalena van Loo would die just 13 days after Rembrandt.
However, perhaps the rules related to the guardianship itself may have been the reason for Dusart’s restraint. De Groot (1631) notes some 30 provisions concerning guardianship. Initiating questionable court cases (‘twijffelachtige zaken’) could only be done with the approval of the Orphan Chamber (B.I.D.8, par. 4).
In any case, all these people would benefit from a closer look at family relationships. That will be the focus of my next podcast. I hope to meet you again.
References
References cited available through Sources in www.rembrandtsmoney.com.
Baarspul, Marie et al., Rijksmuseum in detail, 5th revised edition, Amsterdam, Rijksmuseum 2023.
Kettering, Alison McNell, Rembrandt’s Group Portraits, Zwolle: Waanders Publishers, 2006.
Kooi, Charlotte, Religieuze tolerantie, in: Helmers, H. J., G. H. Janssen, & J. F. J. Noorman (red.), De Zeventiende Eeuw, Leiden University Press 2021, p. 271ff.
Manuth, Volker, and Marieke de Winkel, Rembrandt. The Complete Self-Portraits, Taschen 2024.