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In 1639, Rembrandt bought a house where he lived with his wife Saskia. Their son Titus was born there two years later. The property also accommodated his studio, his office and art shop, as well as his training facilities for pupils. It was also where he sold his own work and that of his pupils and works of other masters. After Saskia’s death in 1642, Rembrandt continued to live in the house with their son Titus and the nanny Geertje Dircx.
1 House in the Jews Broad Street
The purchase price for the house was 13,000 guilders. It was a large house according to the measurements at that time. It was four windows wide, two rooms deep and four storeys high. From his Uylenburgh years, Rembrandt would have already known the area of the Breestraat (‘Broad Street’), presently Jodenbreestraat (‘Jews Broad Street’) and the advantages of being located there. It seems likely that the large house was bought because it had enough space for an art studio, where several students could be taught at the same time. The neighbourhood of the Breestraat may have been decisive too, in a central location where since the beginning of the 17th century painters, framers, pigment sellers and art dealers (such as Uylenburgh) were within close reach. Mutual contacts in the area would have allowed Rembrandt to follow developments in the market more easily. Also, the reliability of potential customers could be better assessed, new attributes for painting could be spotted sooner and young talent would be available in the neighbourhood looking for jobs as painters’ assistants.
[The Rembrandt House Museum]
Currently, the location is the site of the Rembrandt House Museum. Much renovation work, sometimes major, has been carried out during these almost 400 years since the time Rembrandt bought the house.
[Two stoneware pots, found in 1997 in Rembrandt’s cess-pit, with remnants of painting materials on the inside; Courtesy of Amsterdam, Archeologische Dienst and the Rembrandt House Museum]
However, with its carefully decorated and imitated rooms, it is the only place in the world where you can experience how Rembrandt once lived. In the homely setting of the museum, you can imagine how the person behind the art must have walked around and felt when working and living there. By visiting the Rembrandt House Museum, you can get even closer to Rembrandt and be inspired by the stories I am telling you here.
[Entry; Courtesy of Rembrandt House Museum]
[Little bookkeeping office behind entry. On the oocasion of presenting my book – december 2021 – to the (then) director of the Rembrandt House Museum, Lidewij de Koekkoek. Courtesy Wolters Kluwer publishers]
The investment in the house, including the studio, was Rembrandt’s largest expenditure by far. Many art historians regard the purchase price as extremely expensive – the financial ‘nail in his coffin’, a millstone around Rembrandt’s neck, and other such qualifications. But, let’s take some distance and try to put things into perspective.
In March 2024, the ‘calculator’ of the International Institute of Social History (IISG) says that fl. 13,000.00 (guilders or florins) in 1639 would have a ‘purchasing power’ of fl. 372,382.09 (€168,979.62) in 2021, that’s around 182,000 US dollars.
In 2019, Bikker (Bikker (2019), 76) wrote that 13,000 guilders in today’s money is €2,600,000. However, Bikker does not disclose the source used for his calculation. Many other authors use the same or a comparable amount.
In this podcast, I will briefly sketch the history of the house, the owners who sold it to Rembrandt, and Rembrandt’s neighbours. Then I will examine the sales contract and, finally, provide an answer to the question whether Rembrandt’s purchase of the house was indeed money down the drain.
2 History of the house
In 1639, the house and its close surroundings were an interesting example of urban development. They illustrate the rather smooth integration of southern Flemish and Brabant immigrants in Amsterdam.
The house was built in 1606. According to the conditions for issuing land, no narrowing into slums or alleys was allowed to take place on these plots of land. Also, no crafts could be used in the property which required using an anvil (a metalworking tool), unless with the permission of the Mayors (‘Burgemeesteren’). This condition was one of the protective measures to uphold and maintain the prominent character of the Breestraat (Meischke (1956), 3ff.).
The construction of the larger ‘art district’ in this area (the area around the Nieuwmarkt and the Zuiderkerk) started in 1603 and was completed in 1614. It was a neighbourhood like all others in the old town with a mix of housing, traffic and industry, including breweries. For example, residential and industrial buildings stood along the wide canal on the Kloveniersburgwal. These included breweries and also a large glass factory which was built in 1601.
In the early 17th century, the Breestraat was an exception to this layout; it had generous houses on both sides where merchants lived. Houses were not turned into businesses or factory buildings, but became storage space for merchants (such as tobacco or jewel merchants) and houses for professionals such as painters. After the completion of the St. Anthoniesluis (a sluice) in 1602, the eastern part of the Breestraat could be developed further.
The premises on the south side of the Breestraat were 60 feet (i.e. 17 metres) deep. They bordered to the rear on the plots of the Houtkopersgracht. It was generally a very varied development of warehouses, sugar bakeries, gardens and residential houses.
The Breestraat at that time was home to a different kind of resident and included several painters. This can be explained by the spacious houses and possibly by the presence of art dealers in this neighbourhood (Amsterdam’s 17th century ‘art mile’).
At the start of the 17th century, the sharp increase in the population of Amsterdam made it necessary to extend the city to the east. In a previous podcast, I spoke about one important explanation for the growth of the population: migration. The Breestraat would become one of the more important streets in the area with its impressive commercial (merchant) houses.
3 Former owners of the house
Rembrandt purchased the house in 1639. After more than three decades since it was built, the house already had an interesting history, situated in an area that was in gradual decline.
The sellers were the families Belten and Thijs. Their descendants were Pieter Belten Jr. and Christoffel Thijs, in the name of his wife Magdalena Belten, who sold their jointly owned house on the St. Anthonybreestraet to Rembrandt on 5 January 1639.
Who are these two sellers? Pieter Belten acted on behalf of the joint heirs of Pieter Belten Sr. who had died a few years before. Christoffel Thijs (who died in 1680) was the other seller. For some twenty years, he would be confronted with dealing with Rembrandt and his arrears on the house, which was never fully paid for.
Having bought the house on 5 January 1639, Rembrandt had to pay the ‘verponding’ in the city of Amsterdam. This was a forerunner of what is now real estate or property tax. From 1585 onwards, this type of tax was introduced in Holland by the States of Holland: 12% (12th penny) on the income from real estate. In Amsterdam, in Rembrandt’s days, it was known as ‘the eighth penny’ or 12.5 percent.
The family of the sellers, Belten and Thijs, belonged to the large influx of Flemish people who had moved to Amsterdam and settled in the new city districts, in this case the Breestraat area in the first decade of the 17th century. Belten and Thijs were among the very rich merchants to move to the area. Following the construction of the large canal belt (the ‘grachten’), in the 1630s and 1640s, however, the richest people left the Breestraat to settle in a new canal house. They were replaced in the Breestraat by a different kind of resident, including several painters who were attracted to these large houses for their work and also the presence of art dealers in the neighbourhood.
The most important change in the character of the area, however, was that the Breestraat became the preferred place to live for the growing number of Jews who settled in this part of the city and who succeeded the departing original owners. This part of the Breestraat therefore also became known as the ‘Jodenbreestraat’ (‘Jews Broad Street’) before the end of the 17th century. ln 1639, the Portuguese Jews were permitted to build their first public synagogue, just behind the houses of the Breestraat, on the Houtgracht. As I told you in a previous episode of the podcast, a small African community also lived in the neighbourhood.
4 Rembrandt’s neighbours
When Rembrandt moved in, his neighbours on the east side were Salvador Rodriques and on the west side Nicolaes Eliasz. Pickenoy (1588–1653/56).
[Nicolaes Eliasz. Pickenoy, Portrait of a Woman, 1626
Museum of Fine Arts, Budapest]
Pickenoy was a Dutch portrait painter and the son of a seal cutter from Antwerp. He had lived in the former house and art studio of Uylenburgh since 1637, first renting the location from young Nicolaas Pauw, son of nobleman and diplomat Adriaen Pauw. The latter was prime minister (‘raadpensionaris’) of Holland from 1631 to 1636 and again from 1651 to 1653. At some moment Nicolaes had purchased the house, but because he could not pay the purchase price, he sold it in 1645 to Daniel Pinto, a Portuguese dealer in tobacco and other goods (Knotter (2024), p. 51). Pinto embarked on radical renovation work to the house and this led to a hefty quarrel with his neighbour Rembrandt. But that’s another story.
Rembrandt’s neighbour on the east side, Salvador Rodrigues (ca. 1600–1654), was a Portugues-Jewish jewel merchant. He was around 40 years old when Rembrandt became his neighbour. Rembrandt was 33 years old. Rodrigues had bought his house in 1933 from Anthonie Thijs for 12,000 guilders. We will meet Thijs when explaining the background to the sale of Rembrandt’s house. Salvador paid the purchase price partly with jewels. In 1637, after losing his first wife, he married Rachel Aboab, from Venice, who was 20 years old. In all, Salvador had two daughters and four sons, who all became jewellery merchants. Salomon was an active member of the Sephardi Jewish community (Knotter (2024), p. 47ff.).
[Source: Knotter and Leguit. Nr. 8 Former residence of Hendrick Uylenburg, as from 1637 Nickolaes Eliasz Pickenoy, as from 1645 Daniel Pinto; Nr. 9 Former owners/residents Belten and Thijs, as from 1638 – 1658 Rembrandt (and Saskia, Titus, from 1641/1642 til around 1649 Geertje Dircks, from app. 1647 – 1658 Hendrickje Stoffels, plus from appr. 1654 daughter (of Rembrandt and Hendrickje) Cornelia. And at Nr. 10 as from 1633 Salvador Rodrigues and (after 1654) his heirs]
5 The sales contract
The contract of sale for the house is documented in a deed dated 5 January 1639.
It contains the names of the parties, a description of the house and the location (the boundaries of the plot) as well as a statement that the property is sold as it is, in its present state of woodwork. It was sold free, clear and unencumbered (‘vrij ende onbelast’). The purchaser was to take possession on 1 May 1639, on which date the parties would exchange instruments of transfer, and this for the sum of 13,000 guilders of 20 stuivers each.
The amount was to be paid as follows: upon taking possession 1,200 guilders; on 1 November 1639, another 1,200 guilders; and on 1 May 1640, another 850 guilders. These three payments totalled one quarter of the aforementioned purchase price. The buyer was allowed to pay the remaining three quarters within five or six years as he pleased (‘in viff off ses iaren nae sijn believen’), however interest at the rate of 5% was to be paid during that period on the unpaid sum. The contract also provided that it was understood that Rembrandt was free to extend or to shorten the due dates according to his wishes (‘… dat hem vrij sall staen de terminen so groot en soo veel corter te maecken, nae sijn goetvinden’).
To summarize: of the purchase price of 13,000 guilders, 1,200 guilders was to be paid upon taking occupation, a further 1,200 guilders on 1 November 1639, and 850 guilders on 1 May 1640, together making up one quarter of the total price, to be paid within one year. The remaining three quarters (9,750 guilders) could be paid by the buyer over the next five or six years, as he wished. An annual 5% interest was to be paid on the unpaid amount.
6 The house: A financial millstone around Rembrandt’s neck?
As I said, the purchase price of Rembrandt’s house has been a topic that has preoccupied the minds of many authors and has led to just as many assumptions and assessments. It is said that the house was a waste of money (‘miskoop’), in a neighbourhood where the living conditions had gradually deteriorated. The house was far too expensive, and Rembrandt could simply not afford it. Crenshaw claims: ‘No other artist in the Republic during the seventeenth century is known to have paid as much for a home as Rembrandt’s fee of 13,000 guilders’. His book ‘Rembrandt’s bankruptcy’ (2006) is nearly the only source that is used by art historians use to describe Rembrandt’s financial situation.
To make his case, Crenshaw refers to a study on house prices in another city, Delft, during the same period where the highest price in 1644 was 6,000 guilders. Although Delft was roughly the second largest city in Holland at the time, it had only half the number of inhabitants compared to Amsterdam. And although it had flourishing industries, including Delft porcelain and tapestry weaving, it lacked international trade and a growing prosperous class of merchants. It was actually a city showing signs of economic decline. Crenshaw’s comparison with Amsterdam, therefore, is rather unconvincing. He submits that Rembrandt ‘… was forced to scramble to meet the initial payment deadlines’. Recently, Nadler (Nadler (2023), p. 253; Dutch version) has also sided with Crenshaw by claiming that Rembrandt indeed could not afford the house.
7 Looking at the house from three angles
I have discussed this theme and why I disagree with the conclusions of these authors in quite some detail in my book. Here, I will focus on three separate, though connected, angles:
- the purchase price of the house in 1639;
- the value of the house in 1639; and
- Rembrandt’s earning capacity.
7.1 Purchase price of the house in 1639
First, I already mentioned the misunderstanding that exists about the value of 13,000 guilders in 1639 in contemporary money, in my case euros. According to current standards, the purchase price of 13,000 guilders represents a value of €169,000. The Dutch historian Bosman (Bosman (2019), 77), also uses the website calculator of the International Institute of Social History, as does Peters (Peters (2019), 114). The latter indicates that in April 1642, a house in the Hertenstraat in Amsterdam was transferred for 11,475 guilders, with a current value of around €142,849, 70.
Rijksmuseum curator Bikker writes that 13,000 guilders in today’s money is €2,600,000. He suggests that Rembrandt was driven by sentimentality as the house was built in the year he was born and this may have clouded his judgement (Bikker (2019), 76). With all due respect, this claim is just a shot in the dark. In addition, the ‘house’ is not only a private home; the house and its surroundings constitute company premises to a large extent. According to today’s standards, the purchase price of around €169,000 does not seem much for a house for your family as well as your rather (be it intended) vast business as a painter/etcher.
Of course, I must be careful not to fall into my own trap. A calculator is an arithmetic mechanism. It says nothing about value. When I was a student, an old car, an Opel Kaptain was worth 100 guilders, or at least that was the sales price in 1970. Today, you wouldn’t give a cent to have it in your possession. But, according to the classified advertising website ‘Marktplaats’, today the value of such a car is between almost nothing and €30,000!.
7.2 The value of the house in 1639
Second, as is common knowledge nearly all over the Western world: the value of a house is determined by many factors. In Rembrandt’s case I would mention these factors:
(i) the location (here, the ‘art district’ in the Breestraat versus the opinion that the neighbourhood was in decline);
(ii) a previously known asking price used by Belten and Thijs (in 1636 there was no interest in the house, then priced at 12,000 guilders);
(iii)) the house’s dimensions (size of rooms to be able to live and work in);
(iv) the possibility of building an extension;
(v)) the incidence of light (in this case with north facing windows; good light being essential for a painter);
(vi) the condition of the wooden stairs (to the top floor, 4 stories high);
(vii) the design of the kitchen (did it have water drains?); and
(viii) the number of rooms for housing students (on the top floor).
Other factors could also be of influence. For example, the urgency to buy the house (had the lease contract expired for Rembrandt and Saskia’s house in the Nieuwe Doelenstaat?) or the fact that the sellers – in popular jargon – couldn’t get shot of the big house. They may have been just happy to have found a buyer, whom they perhaps understood had no fixed income and so they agreed to flexible payment terms. In this case: 3/4 of the remainder of the price could be paid within five or six years in accordance with Rembrandt’s wishes, albeit that the associated risk will have been translated into a somewhat higher price. Mind you, there was no demand for houses from foreigners or expats as we are seeing in Amsterdam today.
Another factor to consider is the development of house prices in the vicinity, data on which is lacking. In the absence of house prices in the neighbourhood – Crenshaw’s contention that the house was ‘above the market value of the house’ is rather meaningless.
7.3. Rembrandt’s earning capacity
Third, as to Rembrandt’s earning capacity, Crenshaw (Crenshaw (2006), 44) also contends: ‘An impartial observer may have questioned his ability to pay for such a home.’
If my analysis is limited to Rembrandt’s income (including his profits), then it is necessary to determine his earning capacity. Concentrating on two sources of income (the sale of paintings and etchings and income from pupils), it must be noted that in 1639 Rembrandt had taken up portraiture again.
For example, in 1639 he sold two paintings for 600 guilders each to Prince Frederik Hendrik in The Hague. Also in 1639, he charged 500 guilders for the full-length painting of the wealthy regent Andries de Graeff. From 1640 to 1643 he would paint pendant portraits, including the ones of Nicolaes van Bambeeck and Agatha Bas in 1641, probably for 500 guilders each. In 1642, the income from the Night Watch was at least 1,600 guilders. It is likely that the persons paying would have been asked to pay in advance.
[Portrait Andries de Graeff, 1639; Gemäldegalerie Alte Meister,
Museum Schloss Wilhelmshöhe, Kassel, Germany]
Another source is a private one – his family. One month after his mother died in 1640, Rembrandt sold his right in her inheritance for an amount of 2,606 guilders. It was worth the amount of 3,565 guilders to be paid out in yearly instalments of 300 guilders.
And pupils? Would he be able to attract, or did he already attract, so many pupils that he needed the larger space? I note that Rembrandt charged 100 guilders a year for each pupil, but he did not provide for their lodging and boarding. The Guild of Saint Luke in Amsterdam allowed for three pupils per master, but estimations in literature about the number of Rembrandt’s pupils vary between three and 25(!) at the same time. Acting as master to at least five pupils a year for the next twenty years would mean another 500 guilders in income each year.
All in all, these developments and expectations may have given Rembrandt (and his wife Saskia at that time) confidence that he could afford the house; also in view of the payment schedule spread over at least six years. Crenshaw, however, assumes that his income from painting alone was not sufficient to cover the costs of the house. He needed cash. Indeed, in his last letters to Huygens, from 1639, Rembrandt urgently insists on payment as soon as possible. One year later, in March 1640, Rembrandt sold a real estate asset located in Leiden that he still owned. The need for cash – Crenshaw contends – resulted in Rembrandt taking ‘a loss’ by liquidating this asset for cash (Crenshaw (2006), 47). Did Rembrandt take a loss in order to obtain cash? In 2019, the historian Bosman demonstrated that on a present value basis (‘contante waarde’) of the right in mother’s inheritance, the sum of 2,639 guilders would be the purchase price. He concludes that a selling price of 2,606 was not such a bad deal.
In my book I consider other details too, concluding that the day-to-day reality is much more varied than what can be deduced from a simple calculation. Unrelated to the question of whether the phenomenon of inflation or decline in value existed in the Dutch Golden Age, it should be noted that in 1679, twenty-one years after the auction sale of Rembrandt’s house, it was worth 13,000 guilders (again).
8 A final word on the Thijs family
As to a family affair, half of Belten’s house belonged to his son Pieter and half to his daughter Magdalena. Both children married shortly after the death of Belten Senior. Pieter Belten Jr married Constantia Coijmans in 1627, the daughter of the wealthy Fleming Balthasar Coijmans, who had Jacob van Campen build his house on the Keizersgracht in 1625. In 1627,
Magdalena married her guardian Anthonie Thijs who was then 32 years old and a widower.
Anthonie Thijs and his wife Magdalena went to live in the house in the Breestraat.
Anthonie Thijs’s ancestor was Christoffel Thijs, a jewel merchant, who left Antwerp in 1585. His son Hans, who also traded in jewels, settled in Dantzig (Poland), where Anthonie was born in 1595. He later moved to Amsterdam. A child of the first marriage of Anthonie (with Elisabeth Bacher) was Johan Thijs (1622–1653), sometimes known by his latinized name Thysius.
Anthonie Thijs and his wife Magdalena would only live on the Breestraat for a short time. Anthonie died on 25 January 1634. Magdalena Belten remarried in the same year to a cousin of her husband, Christoffel Thijs. This marriage was concluded under the legal system of community of property, which was rather unusual since there were children from the first marriage. As a result, Christoffel Thijs owned half of the house on the Breestraat.
Around 1633, Anthonie and Magdalena bought the Saxenburg house on the Keizersgracht which had been renovated. After her second marriage, Magdalena Belten continued to live in the Saxenburg house on Keizersgracht, which she had taken over for 14,000 guilders from the estate of her first husband. The Saxenburg house was the most important house that was built on this part of the Keizersgracht between the Westermarkt and Reestraat after the issue of yards in 1614. The name of the house refers to the German origin of the first homeowner. The house itself was four windows wide, with a gate on the north side that gave access to four homes in the back yard. The Saxenburg stable was located on the Prinsengracht, now number 321, the upper part of which was rented out as a warehouse. The Saxenburg house is now part of the Pulitzer Hotel in Amsterdam. Christoffel Thijs and Magdalena Belten lived only a short while in the house on the Breestraat, the one that was purchased by Rembrandt in 1639. However, it appears they remained in contact afterwards as Rembrandt later immortalized Thijs’s country estate in Bloemendaal, also called Saxenburg.
[Bibliotheca Thysiana library, Rapenburg 25, Leiden]
The son of Anthonie’s first marriage is a well-known Leiden lawyer and the founder of the Bibliotheca Thysiana library, located on Rapenburg 25 in Leiden. The library is owned and managed by the Bibliotheca Thysiana Foundation. Thysius determined in his will of 1653 that his books should be kept in a library for the public service of study. The Foundation’s objective is to maintain for the benefit of the public, in particular for study purposes, the Bibliotheca Thysiana in Leiden, both with regard to the building on Rapenburg 25 in Leiden and with regard to the associated collection of books and furniture. Where possible, it also provide scholarships to less wealthy students.
This is what I enjoy the most – the legal and financial tales related to Rembrandt, his network of contacts and the traces they left behind, often still visible today. If you walk through Amsterdam or Leiden, you’ll find out more if you visit the Rembrandt House Museum, drink a cup of coffee in the Pulitzer Hotel on the Prinsengracht or when you walk across the Rapenburg in Leiden, coming across the Bibliotheca Thysiana and of course, a little further, the Leiden University’s Academy Building.
References
International Institute of Social History (IISG) https://iisg.amsterdam/en/research/projects/hpw/calculate.php
Mirjam Knotter, Rembrandt and His (Jewish) Neighbors. A Stroll Through the Neighborhood, in: Mirjam Knotter, Gary Schwartz (eds), Rembrandt Seen Through Jewish Eyes, Amsterdam University Press 2024, 45ff
Mirjam Knotter and Guido Leguit, Map with residents and owners of houses in and around the Jodenbreestraat in Rembrandt’s time (ca. 1625–1658), in: Mirjam Knotter, Gary Schwartz (eds), Rembrandt Seen Through Jewish Eyes, Amsterdam University Press 2024, between 50 and 51.
Steven Nadler, De portretschilder. Frans Hals en zijn wereld, Amsterdam/Antwerpen, Uitgeverij Atlas Contact 2023.