the Hermitage Gallery, with that touch of red so artfully and fittingly
peeping out from between the folds of her white scarf, we feel that he can
say nothing more about old age, sad, quiescent, but not unhappy; when we
look at the portrait of _An Old Lady_ in the National Gallery (No. 1675) we
feel that he can tell us no more about old age that still retains something
that is petty and eager; but in the portrait of his mother at Vienna,
Rembrandt, soaring, gives us quite another view of old age. It is the
ancient face of a mother painted by a son who loved her, who had studied
that face a thousand times, every line, and light, and aspect of the
features, and who stated all his love and knowledge upon a canvas.

Rembrandt was always inspired when he painted his own family. There is a
quality about his portraits of father, mother, Saskia, Titus, and
Hendrickje, yes! and of himself, that speaks to us as if we were intimates.
It is a personal appeal. We find it in every presentment that Rembrandt
gives us of another figure which constantly inspired his brush--the figure
of Christ. In _The Woman taken in Adultery_, it is His figure that is
articulate: it is the figure of Christ in the Emmaus picture that amazes:
it is the figure of Christ that haunts us in a dozen of the etchings.

Slowly the child, now become a man, began, as he thought, to understand
Rembrandt. Why did _The Singing Boy_ at Vienna, apart from the quality of
the painting, and the joy depicted on that young smiling face, make a
personal appeal to him? Because he is Rembrandt's son, Titus; or if Titus
was not actually the model, the features and the smile of Titus hovered
between the father and the canvas.

[Illustration: AN OLD WOMAN IN AN ARM CHAIR, WITH A BLACK HEAD-CLOTH

1654. The Hermitage, St. Petersburg.]