On May 5th, 1660, we get another glimpse of the law proceedings when Heertsbeeck was ordered to pay back the 4200 florins which the Court had formerly awarded him, though Witsen was allowed to retain his 4180. On December 15th of the same year Hendrickje made a final effort to restore to some extent the prosperity of the household. With all proper circumstance, she entered on that day into partnership with Titus, legalising an association between them, informally established two years before, for the purpose of dealing in pictures, engravings, and curiosities. Both he and she contributed everything that they possessed to a common fund, and each was to be entitled to a half share of the stock. Rembrandt, partly, no doubt, from his proved incompetency for business, partly, perhaps, to keep out of the clutches of the creditors, was allowed no share whatever in the profits. As, however, it was necessary that Hendrickje, who knew nothing of such matters, and Titus, who was not yet of age, should have aid and assistance in the venture, and as no one was more capable of giving this than Rembrandt, it was provided that he should make himself as useful as possible in furthering the interests of the firm, and in return should have board, lodging, and certain allowances.
It was, perhaps, as judicious an arrangement as could be made for Rembrandt's sake, but it is not wonderful that the creditors, who saw all chances of their getting anything further vanishing into thin air, should have been fierce in their protests. How far the association prospered we do not know. Probably not too well, for Dr Bredius has gathered together a mass of evidence to show that a large proportion of the art-dealers in Amsterdam at that period came to disastrous financial ends. It served, at any rate, to keep a roof over their heads, and the wolf from the door, for we find them again settled down, this time in the Rozengracht, in a house opposite a pleasure garden called the Doolhof.
In 1661, an old friend again came to his support; for it was probably van de Cappelle, who was a dyer as well as a painter, who procured for him the commission to paint "The Syndics of the Drapers' Guild," which he so splendidly achieved. By this time there is some reason for supposing that yet another trouble was coming upon Rembrandt. As far as we know, he never executed any etchings after 1661, and M. Michel suspected that this might have been due to failing sight. A study, moreover, of the portraits painted from that time onwards, reveals the fact that a large majority of them, if not actually all, were conspicuously, some even enormously, larger than life, and that would in all probability be a symptom of the same misfortune. These two facts cannot, of course, be considered as furnishing absolute proof, but they certainly go to create a probability; nor can we regard the supposition that the overstrained nerves were giving way at last as in any way unlikely when we reflect how incessantly Rembrandt had worked his eyesight, and how minutely finished had been much of his work, especially among the etchings, many of which were undoubtedly executed by artificial light, after his day's painting was ended. It would be but one more burden of distress laid upon those heavily-laden shoulders.