9 Oud Holland 2021 - 1 volume 134 Since the publication of Scheltema in 1866, the life of Rembrandt van Rijn (1606-1669) has received considerable attention, including his financial demise in the 1650s. 1 Over the past years, Rembrandt’s filing for ‘bankruptcy’ (‘cessie van goede’) in July 1656 has been re-examined. The facts surrounding this episode, in connection to Rembrandt’s behaviour towards his creditors in general, are commonly analysed as indicators of the painter’s intentions, not to mention his personality. In doing so, many scholars have corroborated the conventional image of the individualist and non-conformist character of the artist. In 2006, Paul Crenshaw was the first to devote an entire monograph to Rembrandt’s insolvency. 2 His book extensively addressed the legal aspects of Rembrandt’s debt management and the insolvency proceedings. From the archival materials, Crenshaw drew a picture of Rembrandt as reluctantly fulfilling obligations and pushing beyond the boundaries of what the law or custom allowed. 3 More recently, Michiel Bosman reassessed Rembrandt’s bankruptcy and interpreted it as being part of a scheme that purported to shield his house from his creditors. Bosman stresses that Rembrandt was taking care of his family and contrasts this view to the traditionally negative approaches to evaluating the artist’s actions. 4 This article takes yet another look at Rembrandt’s financial troubles. It will be argued that the legal dealings of this master artist did not usually go beyond the norms of his day, but that the artist was very well aware of the legal rules and exploited them to their limits. The core argument is that Rembrandt was a meticulous entrepreneur who used the legal rules in a strategic fashion, without breaching them. This overall image of Rem- brandt’s legal actions is evident when they are scrutinized against the background of the law of the city of Amsterdam and the Roman-Dutch legal doctrine. This analysis leads to the conclusion that Rembrandt could not in fact have brought his house outside the reach of his creditors. Moreover, the filing for ‘cessie van goede’ was not part of a master- plan but, rather, a last straw that allowed for retaining some control within a context of imminent legal actions from frustrated creditors. The artist’s estate and business in the 1640s and early 1650s In June 1642, Rembrandt’s wife Saskia van Uylenburgh (fig. 1) passed away. In her will, which was made shortly before her death, it was stipulated that Titus (fig. 2), Rembrandt’s and Saskia’s son who then was less than one year old, was the heir of her half of the matrimonial property. However, her husband remained entitled to possess (i.e., to hold) and have usufruct in (i.e., to receive profits from) that half for as long as he lived or until a second marriage. 5 At Saskia’s death, Rembrandt received the other half in ownership, in compliance with the Roman-Dutch rules relating to the division of the matrimonial community when one of the spouses deceased. 6 The inheritance estate encompassed the one half which Saskia had bequeathed to her son, in combination with the conditional usufruct for Rembrandt. DAVE DE RUYSSCHER & CORNELIS IN ’T VELD Rembrandt’s insolvency: The artist as legal actor © DAVE DE RUYSSCHER and CORNELIS IN ’T VELD, 2021 | DOI: 10.1163/18750176-13401002 This is an open access chapter distributed under the terms of the CC BY 4.0 license. Downloaded from Brill.com02/20/2022 06:32:13AM via free access