The Proud Small Possessor

With the art market orbiting at ever higher prices, heading a small museum gets increasingly frustrating. The Denver Art Museum, for instance, has only $16,000 a year to spend on new acquisitions --a sum that would not even begin to buy a top De Kooning or an Andrew Wyeth, let alone an old master. Yet last week Denver was the proud possessor of a Rembrandt (see color), proving that all is not lost in the little league.

It was two years ago that Director Otto Karl Bach started his search for a painting that would fit in with his tiny cluster of top treasures, ranging from a Veronese and a Tintoretto to a Degas and a Renoir. He was not necessarily looking for a big name, but at the Wildenstein Gallery in Manhattan he happened to spot the Rembrandt in its marvelously fussy 17th century frame. The price for the painting was $95,000, but the gallery was willing to sell it on the installment plan. By last week the museum had collected from private gifts two-thirds of the purchase price, which gives it full possession. By order of the mayor, this week is "Rembrandt for Denver Week." The painting was done around 1632, one year after Rembrandt moved to Amsterdam. He took lodgings with a gentleman named Hendrick van Uylenburgh, whose orphaned young cousin Saskia charmed him. Saskia was of patrician background (her father had been a burgomaster), but the miller's son from Leiden successfully wooed her, and the two were married in 1634. Rembrandt painted Saskia several times, often in the role of a mythological heroine. As in many of his early works, Rembrandt used a small (17 1/4 in. by 14 in.) wooden panel for his Minerva. He was a long way from his matured genius, but the little painting still displays his love of rich textures, of sparkling jeweled effects and dramatic lighting.

The artist was 26 at the time of this painting, and for the next ten years he knew the greatest prosperity of his life.

Then Saskia died, and that same year Rembrandt suffered a professional calamity. He painted on commission The Shooting Company of Captain Frans Banning Cocq (better known as The Night Watch), in which he infuriated many of the patrons by hiding them in his brilliant interplay of shadows. After that, Rembrandt was to know bankruptcy and the death of one loved one after another, including his only son. The years of tragedy were upon him.

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