i JAN STEEN 71 230. THE ALCHEMIST. With an emphatic gesture he points out to his starving wife a passage in an open book. In the background is the crucible on the furnace. To the right are crying children, among them the familiar types of the artist's own children. The picture is fine in colour. The woman is dressed in a yellow skirt and red jacket with a purple front. Signed in full in the right-hand bottom corner and dated 1668 ; panel, 28^ inches by 22| inches. Formerly in the Manfrin Gallery. Now in the Accademia, Venice, 1895 catalogue, No. 1 80. 230*7. The Alchemist. Remarkable and true to life. Sale. Gerard van Sypes (should be " Everard van Sypestein "), Utrecht, April n, 1714, No. 1 8 (80 florins). 231. The Alchemist. 42 inches by 32 inches. Sale. Sir R. Strange, London, 1771 (36 : 155., Lord Clive). 232. The Alchemist. Sm. 128 ; W. 375. To the left sits a thin and wretched woman with a child at her breast. A hungry child beside her is scraping out the fragments of food from an earthenware pan. A third child and an aged woman are near her. On the right the alchemist is watching his crucible on a furnace. His companion stands behind him, leaning on the back of a chair. In the background are three other persons, one of whom is scratching his head. Panel, 22^ inches by 18 inches. Sales. J. van Bergen van der Grijp, and others, Soeterwoude, June 25, 1784, No. 44 (199 florins, Van Aken). Madame J. Ph. de Monte, Utrecht, July 4, 1825, No. 4 (2005 florins, Louf). W. A. Verbrugge, The Hague, September 27, 1831, No. 59 (1105 florins, Hagens). 233. THE RHETORICIANS. Sm. 175 ; W. 199. To the left is an open window, before which stand some peasants. They listen with an amused air to a man leaning on the casement, who reads to them from a paper. In the foreground a peasant with a fool's cap embraces a girl sitting on a bench. At the back are a standard-bearer, a peasant with a pipe in his mouth, and two citizens. On the right a man is reckoning on his fingers for another man. Behind them a man, with his back to the spectator, drinks from a jug. Through the curtained window is seen in the background a house among trees. From the ceiling hangs a wreath of flowers, in the midst of which is a sheet of paper inscribed, " In liefde vry " ("Free in love"), with a four-lined stanza, of which only these few words are legible : . . . poeten fyn Maer moet er eeten syn. The full signature comes beneath the stanza ; canvas, 34 inches by inches.
