The history of modern Rembrandt bibliography properly begins with the famous work by C. Vosmaer, "Rembrandt Harmens van Rijn, sa Vie et ses OEuvres." Vosmaer profited by the researches of Kolloff and Burger to bring out a book which opened a new era in the appreciation of the great Dutch master. It was first issued in 1868, and was republished in 1877 in an enlarged edition. This book was practically alone in the field until the recent work of Emile Michel appeared. In the English translation (by Florence Simmonds) edited by Walter Armstrong, Michel's "Rembrandt" is at the present moment our standard authority on the subject. It is in two large illustrated volumes full of historical information and criticism and containing a complete classified list of Rembrandt's works--paintings, drawings, and etchings.
The "Complete Work of Rembrandt," by Wilhelm Bode, is now issuing from the press (1899), and will consist of eight volumes containing reproductions of all the master's pictures, with historical and descriptive text. It is to be hoped that this mammoth and costly work will be put into many large reference libraries, where students may consult it to see Rembrandt's work in its entirety.
The series of small German monographs edited by H. Knackfuss and now translated into English has one number devoted to Rembrandt, containing nearly one hundred and sixty reproductions from his works, with descriptive text. Kugler's "Handbook of the German, Flemish, and Dutch Schools," revised by J. A. Crowe, includes a brief account of Rembrandt's life and work, which may be taken as valuable and trustworthy. For a critical estimate of the character of Rembrandt's art, its strength and weaknesses, and its peculiarities, nothing can be more interesting than what Eugene Fromentin, French painter and critic, has written in his "Old Masters of Belgium and Holland."
Rembrandt's etchings have been the exclusive subject of many books. There are voluminous descriptive catalogues by Bartsch ("Le Peintre Graveur") Claussin, Wilson, Charles Blanc, Middleton, and Dutuit. A short monograph on "The Etchings of Rembrandt," by Philip Gilbert Hamerton (London, 1896), reviews the most famous prints in a very pleasant way.
