Many were the painters whose
portraits had already achieved distinction. De Keyser was busy in
Amsterdam; a far greater genius, Franz Hals, but fifteen years
Rembrandt's senior, was creating his masterpieces in The Hague and
Harlem. It was as inevitable that Rembrandt should turn to
portraiture, as that he should find commissions less numerous in
Leyden than in Amsterdam. Often in the latter town his services were
required; so often, indeed, that at last, about 1631, when he was just
twenty-five, he settled there permanently and set up a studio of his
own.

Success was his from the start. Sitter after sitter sought him out in
his house on the Bloemgracht; the most distinguished men in the town
hastened to patronize him. His work was liked by the burghers whom he
painted, its strength was felt by artists, whose canvases soon showed
its influence. Admirers crowded to his studio. He had not been in
Amsterdam a twelvemonth when, before he was yet twenty-six, he was
entrusted with an order of more than usual importance. This was the
portrait of Dr. Tulp and his class of surgeons: the famous "Lesson in
Anatomy" now in the Gallery at The Hague. The subject at the time was
very popular. Many artists, De Keyser among others, had already, in
painting prominent surgeons, placed them around the subject they were
dissecting; indeed, this was the arrangement insisted upon by the
surgeons themselves, and, as there seems to have been no limit to
their vanity, "Lessons in Anatomy" were almost as plentiful in Holland
as "Madonnas" in Umbria. Rembrandt in his composition was simply
adhering to accepted tradition. It is true that he instilled life into
a group hitherto, on other painters' canvases, stiff and perfunctory;
but, though the picture was a wonderful production for a man of his
years, it is not to be ranked with his greatest work.

Commissions now poured in still faster. It was at this time he painted
several of his best known portraits: the "Master Shipbuilder and his
Wife," at present in Buckingham Palace; that simply marvellous old
woman at the National Gallery in London, made familiar to everyone by
countless photographs and other reproductions; the man in ruff and
woman in coif at the Brunswick Museum; and a score of others scarce
less important. With increasing popularity, he was able to command his
own prices, so that only a part of his time was it necessary for him
to devote to the portraits which were his chief source