REMBRANDT
BY
MORTIMER MENPES
WITH AN ESSAY ON THE LIFE AND WORK
OF REMBRANDT
BY
C. LEWIS HIND
LONDON
ADAM AND CHARLES BLACK
1905
PREFACE
Although I am familiar with Rembrandt's work,through photographs and black and white reproductions,I invariably experience a shock from the colourstandpoint whenever I come in touch with one of hispictures. I was especially struck with that masterpieceof his at the Hermitage, called the Slav Prince, which,by the way, I am convinced is a portrait of himself;any one who has had the idea suggested cannot doubtit for a moment; it is Rembrandt's own face withoutquestion. The reproductions I have seen of thispicture, and, in fact, of all Rembrandt's works, are sopoor and so unsatisfactory that I was determined,after my visit to St. Petersburg, to devise a meansby which facsimile reproductions in colour of Rembrandt'spictures could be set before the public. Theblack and white reproductions and the photographs Iput on one side at once, because of the impossibilityof suggesting colour thereby.
Rembrandt has been reproduced in photograph[vi]and photogravure, and by every mechanical processimaginable, but all such reproductions are not onlydisappointing, but wrong. The light and shade havenever been given their true value, and as for colour,it has scarcely been attempted.
After many years of careful thought and considerationas to the best, or the only possible, mannerof giving to those who love the master a work whichshould really be a genuine reproduction of his pictures,I have adapted and developed the modern process ofcolour printing, so as to bring it into sympathy withthe subject. For the first time these masterpieces,with all the rich, deep colouring, can be in the possessionof every one—in the possession of the connoisseur,who knows and loves the originals but canscarcely ever see them, and in that of the novice,who hardly knows the emotions familiar to thosewho have made a study of the great masters, but isdesirous of learning.
At the Hermitage in St. Petersburg I wasspecially privileged—I was allowed to study thesepriceless works with the glass off and in moments ofbright sunlight—to see those sweeps of rich colour, sofull, so clear, so transparent, and broken in places,allowing the undertones to show through.
I myself have made copies of a hundred Rembrandts[vii]in order to understand more completelyhis method of work. And in copying these picturescertain qualities have been revealed to me whichno one could possibly have learnt except by thismeans. Rembrandt worked more or less in twostages: first, by a carefully-painted monochrome,handled in such a way as to give texture as well