Indian Sculpture and Painting, Illustrated by Typical Masterpieces, with an Explanation of their Motives and Ideals c11.111

c11.111

It appears that in 1631 Rembrandt resided at Amsterdam, then the headquarters of the Dutch East India Company, and a great centre of European trade with the Orient. Rembrandt's paintings reveal him as a mystic at heart, in spite of his environment, and he took a great interest in everything connected with the East. In 1642 he painted the portrait of Abraham Wilmerdonks, director of the East India Company, who had a considerable oriental collection. Rembrandt himself collected oriental costumes, wood-carving, and paintings. In the inventory of his effects made after his bankruptcy in 1656 there is an entry of “a book of curious miniature drawings,” which may have been the Mogul miniatures from which he made the pen-and-ink studies referred to.