This is the eighth instalment of a journey of exploration starting from a 1636 Rembrandt etching, Self Portrait with Saskia. In the previous part we heard of their first year or so of marriage, and left them together in their first grand house enjoying the fruits of Rembrandt’s success. It is now time to return to the starting point, and consider the etching in the context of its creation.

The etching has often been reproduced, and is usually given as the principal representation of this important period in Rembrandt’s life. It does not ever seem to have been given full consideration in the light of its specific context. They were married in 1634 and the truth is that there has been a chronological elephant lumbering about in this room for nearly four hundred years and no-one, at least in the recent literature including Simon Schama’s monumental Rembrandt’s Eyes of 1999, the National Gallery of Scotland’s Rembrandt’s Women of 2001, Ben Broos’s Saskia: De Vrouw van Rembrandt of 2012 or most recently the Fries Museum’s Rembrandt & Saskia: Love and Marriage in the Dutch Golden Age from 2019, appears to have seen it.

Through 1635 Rembrandt enjoyed growing success and the couple lived very well. Saskia’s pregnancy ran its full and evidently happy course, and she was delivered of a baby boy in December 1635. He was named Rombertus after Saskia’s father and baptised on December 15 in the Oude Kerk, the principal church in Amsterdam. Johannes Sylvius, the pastor of the city of Amsterdam, and his wife, Saskia’s cousin Aejlte Uylenburgh were the witnesses. The event must have seemed to cement the bonds that had been forged between Rembrandt and the Uylenburgh family over the previous few years.

Rembrandt van Rijn Portrait of Johannes Sylvius, 1633 Etching on paper, 166 x 141 mm Morgan Library, New York, RvR 357 Image courtesy of the Morgan Library To see the image in the Morgan Library online catalogue click on the following link, and use your browser’s ‘back’ button to return to this page: https://www.themorgan.org/rembrandt/print/179837

Portrait of Aeltje Uylenburgh Rembrandt Harmensz. van Rijn (Dutch, 1606–1669) 1632 Oil on panel * Rose-Marie and Eijk van Otterloo Collection * Reproduced with permission. * Courtesy Museum of Fine Arts, Boston

The blessing inscribed in naming the boy after Saskia’s distinguished father – the former mayor of Leeuwarden, proved little protection against the age’s wanton destruction of infant souls. Rombertus died at scarcely two months old. The cause of death is not known. Infant mortality rates were extraordinarily high during these times and Amsterdam seems to have been swept by disease with grim regularity.

Simon Schama (p.369) describes 1635 as ‘the worst plague year in living memory, more horrifying than any Amsterdammer could recall. One in five of the population perished in the contagion. Those who could fled to the countryside. Those who could not waited for the angel of death to pass and prayed that their groins and armpits would not begin to mark with fatal purple, like the stain of sloes. The littlest were the most vulnerable of all. Rembrandt and Saskia’s first child, named Rombertus, after Saskia’s father, survived barely two months. He was buried by his father and mother in the Zuiderkerk, close by Hendrick’s house, on February 15, 1636, just another baby to add to the hecatomb of innocents taken by the monstrous epidemic.’

One source says 20,000 perished in Rembrandt’s home town of Leyden, and others that in 1636 there were major outbreaks in Newcastle, Hull and London. A fifth of the population of Amsterdam as estimated by Schama could have numbered 30,000 souls. Poor little Rombertus took his place in a massacre of thousands of infants taken in a single year. Saskia carried the child in a period which for her was one of household independence and prosperity. She and her husband must have planned the nursery in the new house, engaged a nurse, bought crib and layette, hangings and baby lace, organised the baptism in the city’s grandest church, and thought about how the child would carry history into the future by bearing the name of his illustrious maternal grandfather.

The date tells us only that it was made in the year of their loss, but the expressions suggest immediate proximity. Saskia looks distracted, introspected, her eyes focused on something not in this world: Rembrandt’s face lacks all animation except for a set jaw, and his eyes pierce through a mask of shade.

In the most substantial recent critical biography, Rembrandt’s Eyes, 1999, Simon Schama does not make any direct connection with the bereavement, but does consider the more general situation (p.369): ‘Once again, Rembrandt threw convention to the winds, or at least reinvented it. For the etching has no precedent and no successor.. The compositional novelty was to align husband and wife not parallel to the picture plane but at near right angles to it. On the one hand this preserved the customary hierarchy of the marriage portrait, with Saskia notionally seated ‘behind’ her husband. Yet, not least because of the brilliant lighting that falls on her rather solemn features.. Saskia can also be read as seated opposite Rembrandt on the far side of the table. The visual implication is that once he is done with his work, he will turn to face her. For the moment, however, the work is everything. And the alignment of arm and head at right angles to each other also has the additional, all-important effect of engaging a third party – the beholder – in this work. Rembrandt’s sketching arm, cropped at the bottom, is pushed so far forward to the picture space that his whole presence seems to project through it, through the looking glass on which his stare is intensely concentrated as he works, his hand moving in ‘blind’ obedience to the instinctive instruction of the eye. It is as though we were behind a two-way mirror, with the artist staring simultaneously at us and at himself. Surreptitiously the beholder becomes both observer and object of observation; and Rembrandt’s wife looks (from an angle) at us looking at him looking at us. This is as intimate as it gets.’

The complexities of the composition are perhaps greater that even Schama intimates. He is obviously right that a mirror is being invoked. The etching is unusual in having a thick bounding line which is surely intended to represent the edge of a mirror. But Schama’s idea that the composition situates us behind a two-way mirror, looking through it to the artist at work is a very contemporary conceit. Rather, however, the composition is the direct representation of the mirror itself. We know that Rembrandt was right-handed, and he appears here reversed, exactly as he would have appeared to himself drawing his own reflection.

One item in the exhibition of Rembrandt and Saskia: Love and Marriage in the Dutch Golden Age, that I visited in Leeuwarden in January (see part #1) was a mirror dating from 1638. The involvement of a mirror in the Self-Portrait with Saskia is made all the more striking by the realisation that flat glass mirrors were a relatively recent invention. The technique of making glass of sufficient evenness and clarity; blemish-free and without colour cast, coupled with the alchemy of coating it with an immaculate coat of reflective silver was perfected only in Venice in the sixteenth century. The cognitive allure of such self-examination proved irresistible, and demand for Venetian mirrors boomed throughout Europe. It seems to have swept the continent like a mania. Venice guarded its secrets on pain of death, and mirrors became some of the most coveted items in the world. Mirrors of course flooded into Amsterdam, but were extraordinarily high value items at the time of this portrait and indeed remained so throughout the century.

The composition has yet another layer of complication. Were this a drawing it could straightforwardly be a transcription – however brilliant – of what was seen in the reflection. Because it is an etching, the printing process has reversed the image. In short, if Rembrandt had drawn his etching direct from the reflection, he would appear right handed in the print. So to produce an etching of a mirror image requires some thought and planning: It is literally a double-take.

Under the circumstances, this was quite an occasion for self-reflexivity. An artist with inflated ideas of what he might be: A velvet hat, ostrich feather, fur robes, a twirled moustache and flowing locks. His subject is a decent woman of patrician class, sober and demur. Neither is a great beauty. The artist is hardly a Rubens or a Van Dyck or even a Frans Hals, still less a Caravaggio, Titian or Leonardo. Both, rather, are denizens of the contemporary ordinary, making what they can of themselves, within the constraints of the real. They had money, possessions, situation, profession, and life, but towards what purpose? These two are caught between their pretensions and their reality. It as if Rembrandt has taken the characters flaunting their good fortune in the Dresden portrait, and unseated them with the tribulations of existence and self-doubt. The etching does not need to acknowledge the private circumstances of its making, at least in terms of the death of Rombertus, but instead it transmutes those circumstances into public questions of the human condition and purpose. To confront and represent that condition was always the ambition of Rembrandt’s art, no matter at how dear a cost fate supplied his materials.

This is the seventh instalment of a journey of exploration starting from a 1636 Rembrandt etching, Self Portrait with Saskia. In the last we heard of Rembrandt’s betrothal to Saskia Uylenburgh and their subsequent wedding. Here we hear of their early married life.

Following their wedding in St Annaparochie in Friesland on 22 June 1634, Rembrandt and Saskia set up home in the house of Saskia’s cousin Hendrick Uylenburgh in the Breestraat in Amsterdam. Rembrandt had lived there since late 1631 or early 1632, working as chief artist for Uylenburgh’s art business. During this time Rembrandt had established himself as one of the leading portraitists in the city, one of the most sought after masters with whom to study, but most importantly a burgher of the city and a member of the Guild of St Luke, his passport to practising as an independent artist in the city.

Conditions must have been a little cramped in the Uylenburgh household. The building had to accommodate the proprietor’s successful and diversified art dealership, selling old master and contemporary art, copies, etchings, drawings, valuations and appraisals, besides housing studios for the chief artist, Rembrandt and his pupils and assistants. Uylenburgh himself housed a sizeable family. His wife, Maria van Eyck was head of the household, and besides the complications of managing a building containing multifarious activities, stock, and property, she had to maintain the reception areas for customers, sort linen, laundry and kitchen and servants, and also had six children of her own to look after, all under nine years of age.

It was perhaps less than ideal circumstances in which to establish a role as Rembrandt’s wife, but thankfully Saskia had grown up in a busy household full of children, and was used to occupying a subordinate position to an established matriarch, as she had when living in her sister’s household at Sint Annaparochie. It was also a family affair. The proprietor and his new household member, were, after all first cousins.

Best viewed full size. Click on image to enlarge.

It was not a situation that anyone can have expected would subsist for long, especially when, within a few months, the new bride discovered that she was expecting. They must have planned for the eventuality for she was barely at eight weeks when on 1 May 1635, the couple rented their own house not far away in the Nieuwe Doelenstraat.

The new house stood a couple of blocks away from the Breetstraat. It was a new build in a prestigious location overlooking the Amstel river, one of two houses developed by the city grandee, Willem Boreel. He was no less than the city pensionary – secretary and chief legal counsel – and one of the most powerful men in the city. The house must have been just as grand as Uylenburgh’s – the rent was similar at 600 guilders per year – and it must have seemed to Rembrandt and Saskia that they had truly arrived in Amsterdam society. When Rembrandt announced his move to one influential patron, he described the address as ‘next door to the Pensionary Borel’. What could possibly be finer?

Their cornucopia was flowing. The house has long since been redeveloped but it is pleasing to find the site currently occupied by one of Amsterdam’s liveliest and most cosmopolitan cafes, the Café Jaren. When we were there last summer it was thronged with young professionals, couples and parties of all description, from all over the world, taking drinks and sustenance, chatting, enjoying the view over the Amstel, taking in the ambience, or reading the papers, books and magazines that were provided.

Image source: By Rembrandt – fAFXpfS8tdF_Eg at Google Cultural Institute maximum zoom level, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=21963240

And Rembrandt and Saskia appear to have lived life to the full. It must surely be from their first months in the house during 1635 that Rembrandt painted his great Self-Portrait with Saskia at Dresden. It is said by most scholars to represent ‘The Prodigal Son with the Whore’, and whilst there are related drawings that do obviously explore that theme, this is much more nuanced and ambivalent a subject. It is certainly a scene of pleasurable indulgence. A man who has everything that his heart could possibly desire, and a woman in the midst of that calmly content to play her part.

At first impression this is surely no more than anyone might desire. How close to this Rembrandt and Saskia’s life together might have been we do not know, but they certainly had all the trappings and the means. On the other hand the more one thinks about the picture, the more it begins to undo its own desirability. Rembrandt is inanely drunk, and leers stupidly at the viewer, his features slack and florid. Whatever of character, nobility, ability, and collectedness that sustains his gentlemanly status is lost. All except for Saskia, who stares out of the composition with some detachment and calmness. Content, it seems to be there, but with all her wits and patience about her. Just about happy enough for the time being, but evidently in control, certainly of herself, and to the extent that she can be, of him. If this is about Rembrandt and Saskia, it is about her having to put up with his weaknesses. If it is, as Rembrandt’s paintings always are, about something more general, it is about the duality of our carnal and aspirant natures, and how much better it might be to admit the one whilst in pursuit of the other. It seems plain that in Rembrandt’s life he thought he had found someone to save him from himself.

TO BE CONTINUED

This is the sixth instalment of a journey of exploration starting from a 1636 Rembrandt etching, Self Portrait with Saskia. Here we hear of their engagement and wedding.

By 1633 Rembrandt, working under Hendrick Uylenburgh’s management and in his house on the Breestraat, was quite the brightest star in the Amsterdam firmament. Commissions poured in and Rembrandt responded with one masterpiece after another. Nonetheless, as is all too frequently the case, even for those with real gifts, there is room for self-doubt, introspection and anxiety. In a succession of self-portraits Rembrandt paused to look askance at himself, and to wonder who and what he might be, where it might all be trending, and most worryingly, whether any of it might have any real value. Almost always his own reflection suggests that his role is at best being moulded from ordinary human clay, and at worst guilty of imposterism and in a state of panic. In a self-portrait etching of 1633 the shade over his eyes contrives merely to accentuate the sense of anxiety, rather than to mask it.

His first portrait of Saskia suggests an altogether more collected mood.

To see the image in the museum’s online catalogue click here.

The drawing marks a particularly happy point in their relationship: The portrait is inscribed:
‘dit is near mijn huysvrou geconterfeyt
Do sy 21 jaer oud was den derden
Dach als wij getroudt waeren
Den 8e Junijus
1633’

My Dutch is almost non-existent, but this might be given as: ‘This is a portrait of my housewife/ who is 21 years old [taken] on the third/ Day after our betrothal/ 8th June/ 1633’

I think we should let Simon Schama [‘Rembrandt’s Eyes’, p.365] describe the drawing for us;
Saskia’s face and upper body are caught in a fresh, early summer light. She sits at a table, her elbow resting on an inclined surface that looks much like an artist’s sketching support, leaning forward toward he betrothed, self-consciously the love object. Her features are lightly but exactly described, as if by fingertip exploration. Intimate details are quickly traced with the attentiveness of a lover carefully registering an inventory of small treasures: a wisp of hair lying against her right cheek; the puppy-fat folds at the throat circled by a pearl necklace..; the slight rise of bone at the tip off he retroussé nose; the gathered fabric of her blouse, filled with the bosom that rests on her right arm; the faint pressure of her tapered index finger against her left cheekbone, the underside of her thumb propping up he head. And at the centre, dramatized by the dashing sweep of the wide-brimmed straw hat, is Saskia’s heart-shaped face with its faintly snob nose; its Cupid’s-bow mount, the shaded join between the upper and slightly drooping lower lip exactly described, sketched; and its almond-shaped eyes, amused, flattered, good-humoredly tolerating the examination. Flowers encircle the crown of her hat; another is held by the stalk, its head drooping slightly. She is his bloom, a child of nature, the Frisian meadow girl, the bringer of springtime fertility, bright and dewy. Dit is near mijn huysvrou geconterfeyt do sy 21 jaer oud was den derden dach als wij getroudt waeren den 8 Junijus 1633’… readshis inscription. But it seems less a statement of possession than of amazed declaration. See this. This schatje, this precious little piece of work; she is my wife-to-be, my great good fortune’.

It is almost as if Rembrandt had to write the fact down in order to begin to process it. What is clear to sense is that staring into Saskia’s face melted away every scratch of self-doubt and anxiety that had written itself into his self-portrait. He seems to be looking at no less than his salvation.

Betrothal was a serious business and a social contract. It involved family, inquisitions into property, prospects and propriety. Recent research by Ben Broos into the betrothal of Rembrandt and Saskia has established that it took place at a significant gathering of the Uylenburgh clan in Sint Annaparochie. The occasion was the baptism on 2 June 1633 of the third child of sister Hiskia and her husband, Gerrit van Loo. The little girl was named Sophia in the presence, as was customary, of a gathering of the wider family. Rembrandt presumably waited until the family festivities were concluded, and was then invited to present himself for examination. Questions would have been asked, perhaps even suspicions harboured, but the inquisition seems to have proved satisfactory, for on 5th June, by inference from the inscription on the portrait, their betrothal was sealed.

The exhibition at the Fries Museum, Leeuwarden of ‘Rembrandt & Saskia: Love and Marriage in the Dutch Golden Age’, illustrates how serious a business this all was.

I found the whole thing fascinating, but a few things stick in my memory. In particular the betrothal hearts that open and close the exhibition. In Rembrandt and Saskia’s day it was common for a (presumably well-connected) suitor to present his intended with something like this. Often they contained a special small gift or message, and subsequently hung over the marital bed. Rembrandt would certainly have known craftsmen that specialised in such objects.

I also especially liked the mid-century bridal crown from the Amsterdam museum. One can certainly imagine Saskia wearing something like this at her own wedding.

Rembrandt had a whole year to wait after the betrothal in June 1633 before their wedding in June 1634. The portrait drawing must have been kept prominent in his apartments so that he could reflect on his pledge, and keep he picture bright in his mind. Amidst his many commissions he found time to bring her image to life on his easel. One of the principal products of this period is a splendid portrait at the Rijksmuseum.

And the Fries Museum at Leeuwarden has a close variant of this

The latter version is currently attributed to Govert Flink, I have no doubt for good reason. But I do have to say that seeing in the exhibition at Leeuwarden, next to an undoubted Self-Portrait of Rembrandt from the Burrell collection in Glasgow

I could see no obvious qualitative reason to doubt an attribution to Rembrandt. In fact quite the reverse; it is quite one of the best pictures in the whole exhibition.

During the year between their betrothal and the wedding ceremony, there was legal business to sort out with regard to Saskia’s share of the family inheritance. Saskia went to help out in Frankener when her sister died suddenly and left her husband, Professor of Theology Johnannes Maccovius, bereft with a young son. Her presence in the household might not have been altogether proper, were it not for the fact that she was publicly betrothed to Rembrandt. The artist also had arrangements to make. There were formalities to observe with church and law, and also with his own family.

One particularly thought-provoking exhibit at Leeuuwarden, was a document from the archives at Leiden. It was bound in a large vellum volume displayed in a a case beneath a portrait of Rembrandt’s mother, and records her giving formal permission for her son to marry. It was something of a surprise to me to learn that this was quite normal at this time, even well after the usual age of majority. The document certainly underlines the importance of marriage as a social political contract in this age. Accordingly within a few days of the artist going to register his legal intentions in Amsterdam, his mother went to a notary in Leiden to have a formal document drawn up of her consent.

Today, 14 June 1634, before me, Adriaen Paedts, notary public, and the witnesses mentioned below, appeared the Hon. Neeltgen willemsdr. van zuijtbrouck, widow and legatee of the property of Harman Gerritsz van Rhijn, citizin of this city, well-know to me, the notary, and declared that she has voluntarily given her consents, permits, and does by this [instrument] – for her son, the Hon. Mr. Rembrandt Harmansz van Rhijn, painter to marry the Hon. Saskia v. Uylenburch, a young maiden from Lieuwerden in Vrieslant. And [Rembrandt], who for this purpose has made known and announced his wedding banns at the appropriate place and which meets with his approval, will subsequently proceed with the civil marriage and its solemninzation.
Assisted by her son, Adriaen Harmansz van Rhijn, the guardian chosen for this purpose, the deponent promise to fulfull, live up to, and sustain her consent and permission at all times according to law.
Furthermore, she hereby declares to give her irrevocable consent and approval of her aformentioned son Rembrant van Rhijn’s registration and announcement of his marriage without evidence of her consent with the Commissioners of Marital Affairs in Amsterdam, which pleaser her immensely.
On account of this, the deponent expresses her thanks to the Hon. Commississioners and begs them to treat her voluntary consent with equal weight, as if she were present personally.
And she has requested me, the notary, to draw up and deliver a formal document of this so that it can be used whenever required.
All this was done and transpired in good faith and without malice. Enacted and passed after it had been read clearly and entirely to the deponent, on the day, month and year mentioned above, at my, the notary’s, house, located her in Maerssemanssteech, in the presinhabitants of this city, as reliable witnesses requested herefore apart frome me, the notary. this is the mark made by Neeltgen Willemsdr. herself.
C.A. Paedts, 1634
Frederick de Quade, 1634
what I confirm:
A. Paedts, notary public signed.
[in the upper left margin] this document has been transcribed formally

It is interesting that she could not write. The document says that it was read to the deponent, and she signed it with a mark that had to be witnessed by the notary. These were very different families, the van Rijns and the Uylenburghs. The millers and bakers from Leiden were of the tradesmen’s stock; the Uylenburgh literate, Latin-educated, lawyers and burghers. Rembrandt was transcending a social divide. Through his own Latin education and cultural investment, he was the living representative of new possibilities of social mobility. To put it in academic terms he had learned to operate, even excel, in the cultural discourse of the established classes.

With the formal preparations completed, events progressed apace, and on 2 July the Uylenburgh clan assembled again in Sint Annaparochie, to walk with Rembrandt and Saskia to the little church and witness the wedding ceremony. None of Rembrandt’s family appear to have been present.

The sculpture of Rembrandt and Saskia outside the church at Sint Annaparochie does the pleasant service of giving them a tangible presence in the place. But it is sentimental and naïve in a manner far removed from the considerations the were really at play in their marriage. Saskia was indeed special. In marrying her, Rembrandt publically secured a position in cultured, literary and established society. He would soon have served his three years as an Amsterdam resident and could join the guild. He might still have carried some shadow of his background about him, but he would at least have a decent platform on which to build his reputation. It must have seemed to him as if he had at last entered upon his hard-earned estate.

I’m away now for a short while, so this is perhaps a good opportunity to let Rembrandt and his bride enjoy their married life together in peace. We will consider the etching of Self Portrait with Saskia in the light of all this upon my return..

This is the fifth instalment of a journey of exploration stimulated by a 1636 Rembrandt etching, Self Portrait with Saskia. Here we further explore the context of their relationship.

Hendrick Uylenburgh’s house was on the corner of the Breestraat and Zwanenbuurgwal immediately right of that in the centre of the image above that Rembrandt would later buy for himself, and which is now the Rembrandt House Museum.

Saskia Uylenburgh had connections even in Amsterdam. Her cousin, Hendrick Uylenburgh ran a significant art dealership from a large house in the Breestraat. He was the son of Uncle Gerrit, brother of Saskia’s father, who had emigrated to Krakow to become furniture-maker to the King of Poland. Hendrick’s brother Rombout became painter to the King. For a while, Hendrick became a significant broker of art in Poland and shipped quantities of major works from the Low Countries to the Royal Court and its circles. In 1625, however, he decided to adventure it all in the markets of Amsterdam.

Hendrick quickly discovered Rembrandt in Leiden. He knew his business well, and saw an opportunity to do business with the prodigious young talent. A remarkable deal was struck. We don’t know the exact terms, but in 1631 Rembrandt paid Hendrick Uylenburgh 1000 florins. This was a VERY large sum of money for a twenty-five year old, the equivalent today, perhaps, of a hundred thousand pounds. Rembrandt had without doubt tasted some success in his early career in Leiden, but to be able to invest so much is quite extraordinary. And what could Hendrick Uylenburgh have offered that could possibly have been worth so much?

To see this image in the Morgan Library online catalogue click here.

Perhaps he did not yet occupy the role of gentleman artists quite comfortably in this self-portrait from the year that he struck his deal with Hendrick Uylenburgh; perhaps he never did, but Rembrandt certainly wanted to make it as an artist of standing and repute. Something like the success of Rubens might suit, and the place to achieve this was obviously Amsterdam. The city was the mercantile centre of the Netherlands, and possibly the most dynamic cultural hub in the entire western world. The trouble, however, was that an artist could not practice independently in the city without being a member of the Amsterdam guild, and to be eligible for the guild you had to be resident for two years. Here was the basis of a substantial bargain, worth almost everything to Rembrandt, and a huge boon, meanwhile, to Hendrick’s business. So late in 1631 or early in 1632, Rembrandt moved from Leiden to Amsterdam to take up residence as protegee and chief artist in Hendrick Uylenburgh’s art studio and dealership.

One of the great pleasures on this particular journey was to read Simon Schama’s monumental book ‘Rembrandt’s eyes’. One of the standout passages in the book is his description of Amsterdam in five senses that begins this part of the story. At Hendrick Uylenburgh’s house, Rembrandt made an immediate impact. Commissions for portraits flowed in, pupils paid to work under Rembrandt’s tutelage, the business gained a reputation for adventure and quality, and the value of its stock, both intellectual and in trade, rose.

Image source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Portrait_of_a_62-year-old_Woman,_possibly_Aeltje_Pietersdr_Uylenburgh

There was another Uylenburgh family association in Amsterdam. Another cousin, Aeltje, fourteen years older even than Hendrick, the daughter of a second brother of Saskia’s father, had moved there in 1610 with her preacher husband Johannes Cornelisz Sylvius.

He was appointed Amsterdam city pastor in 1621, and by the early 1630s was a senior figure in the Amsterdam church. Rembrandt painted both their portraits in 1632 whilst working for Hendrick. That of Aejlte (Private collection loan to Boston Museum of Fine Arts) is especially fine. Aejlte would certainly have known of Saskia’s situation in Friesland, and had opportunity while sitting for the portrait to observe closely the probity and prospects of cousin Hendrick’s protegee. Broos proposes that Saskia came to stay in Amsterdam with Aejlte and Sylvius in 1633. Sadly, there is no documentation of any such visit, but there seems no doubt that some serious match-making was going on.

TO BE CONTINUED..