Raymond Chandler & Rembrandt

Rembrandt - 1660 - The Louvre

They had Rembrandt on the calendar that year, a rather smeary self-portrait due to imperfectly registered colour plates. It showed him holding a smeared palette with a dirty thumb and wearing a tam o’shanter which wasn’t any too clean either. His other hand held a brush poised in the air, as if he might be going to do a little work after a while, if somebody did the down payment. His face was ageing, saggy, full of the disgust of life and the thickening effects of liquor. But it had a hard cheerfulness that I liked, and they eyes were as bright as drops of dew.

I was looking at him across my office desk at about four-thirty when the phone rang and I heard a cool supercilious voice that sounded as if I thought it was pretty good. It said drawlingly, after I had answered:

‘You are Philip Marlowe, a private detective?’…

He hung up and that was that. I thought Mr. Rembrandt had a faint sneer on his face. I got the office bottle out of the deep drawer of the desk and took a short drink. That took the sneer out of Mr. Rembrandt in a hurry.

Farewell My Lovely – Raymond Chandler

American Noir & Raymond Chandler 
Raymond Chandler - Just About Perfect