Few facts are more admirable in Rembrandt's checkered career than the noble struggle he maintained against misfortune and neglect. That he suffered there can be no doubt--the careworn face and whitening hair of the later portraits reveal it all too clearly,--but he stiffened his back and worked on undismayed.
Of 1659 there are six pictures fully dated, and two believed to have been, though in each the last figure of the date is missing. Both are "Portraits of Himself," one at Bridgewater House, and one at Cassel [No. 222], while a dated one, belonging to the Duke of Buccleuch, is a magnificent representation of the grave, strong face that had met and supported so much care. Three others are also portraits--"An Old Man," in the National Gallery [No. 243], the "Merchant," belonging to the Earl of Feversham, and "A Man in a Red Cloak," signed Rembran, in the collection of M. Maurice Kann at Paris. There are also two subject-pictures, both at Berlin, "Moses breaking the Tables of the Law" [No. 811], and "Jacob wrestling with the Angel" [No. 828].
To 1660 a large number of pictures is attributed, eighteen being portraits, and one, "Head of Christ," belonging to M. Maurice Kann, coming under the head of subject-pictures. Of these only four portraits are dated, and in two cases there is some doubt as to the last figure. Two of the dated portraits are of himself; one with the full date is in the Louvre [No. 2555], and one with a doubtful date belongs to Sir A. D. Neeld. Both are of extreme interest in their bearing on the personal history of Rembrandt. The portrait of the year before, belonging to the Duke of Buccleuch, shows us a man bearing some traces indeed of a struggle with adversity, but of a not altogether unsuccessful one. The character has been developed rather than shaken in the strife; the man is still strong in body, firm in mind; the hair, as far as it can be made out against the dark background, is still untouched by the hand of time; yet it is beyond question Rembrandt himself. In the two pictures now under consideration we find a change truly startling. The hair is thin and white, the face is wrinkled, the eyes weary. But it is in the character conveyed that the chief transformation is perceived; he has sunk suddenly into old age and weakness, the strength, the resolution of the man have gone out of him--he seems, stout as he was, to have broken at last. And yet in the next year he painted the finest work he ever did. There is nothing in his story to account for it. A severe illness seems the only possible explanation, followed by a remarkable, though brief, recuperation; but it is, perhaps, the greatest of the many great puzzles offered to us in the course of his history. Of the other two portraits, one, though fully signed and dated, is of a doubtful authenticity; while the date on "The Portrait of an Old Woman," belonging to Colonel Lindsay, is uncertain. The pictures painted about that year are numerous, and include a pair of portraits, husband and wife, belonging to Prince Jousoupoff; "The Capuchin," in the National Gallery [No. 166]; and two other figures in monks' robes, one belonging to Lord Wemyss, the other to Count Stroganoff; Captain Holford's portrait of a young man supposed to be "Titus"; "The Standard-Bearer," formerly at Warwick Castle but now transferred to America, and others.