The Hundred Guilder Print (Christ Healing the Sick), 1643-49

A Distinguished Line of Dutch Millers
The son of Harmen Gerritszoon was born into a family of millers, whose windmill was located on the outskirts of the Dutch university town of Leiden. It was the summer of 1606 and the child was the penultimate of nine. Though all of his elder brothers were apprenticed to tradesmen, his parents must have detected something special about the boy, as he was sent to the Leiden Latin School at seven, where he studied the classical curriculum till the age of 14, when he entered Leiden University, ostensibly to study public administration.

He soon left the university, however, as his genius lay elsewhere. He applied to study art with the local master, Jacob Isaacsz van Swanenburch. Swanenburch, just back from a 15-year stint in the great artistic centers of Italy, soon recognized that this lad was not just another college dropout seeking to learn a trade. He was, rather, an exceptional young artist with a "natural emotion" for drawing and painting. So the master admitted the young man, Rembrandt Harmenszoon van Rijn, into his workshop where he taught him painting and etching, including the lessons in artistic realism and chiaroscuro which he had himself learned in Italy with Caravaggio, Elsheimer and the Carraccis, stylistic elements which were to become part of Rembrandt's lifelong stock in trade.

Christ Preaching (The Small Tomb), 1652

Rembrandt's Debt to Hercules Seghers
Holland at the beginning of the 17th century was a hotbed of etching activity. The brothers Esaias and Jan van de Velde were busy creating the Dutch landscape school and other fine printmakers were also active, artists such as Adriaen van Stalbent, Pieter de Molijn and William Buytewech. Foremost among them was Hercules Seghers, whose uncommon creativity profoundly influenced the young Rembrandt, who owned some of Segher's prints and actually reworked some of his plates. "The Flight into Egypt" (1653), for example, is a rework of Segher's "Tobias and the Angel" of the same year.

Seghers' eclectic experimental approach opened new lines of pursuit for Rembrandt to follow. The older etcher experimented with combining several techniques on a single plate, printing with light ink on dark paper and hand coloring. The ragged quality of his etched lines have even led to speculation that he may have invented some form of sugar lift technique.

The Boy Who Would Be Rembrandt
The boy who was destined to become the Rembrandt we know today represented a formidable benchmark in the history of art. Besides becoming the acknowledged master painter of his day--one of the few artists to live to enjoy international renown--Rembrandt was the first artist to recognize and exploit fully the possibilities of the etching medium. Endowed with a prodigious vision and technical skills, Rembrandt's domination of the techniques was so thorough that, unlike other seminal artists, he left no school to follow in his footsteps; copiers yes, but no one to carry on his tradtion. It is as if he not only discovered the well, but drunk it dry.

Negress Lying Down, 1658

Abrahma Francen (Apothecary)

"I Can See Italians in Amsterdam!"
Rembrandt was well versed in the work of his predecesors--Dürer, Schongauer, van Leyden-- from whom he drew notions of composition and technique. From contemporaries like Segher he acquired an extraordinarily free and imaginative concept of the print. By the age of 21 (ca. 1627) the artist had mastered the techniques of painting and etching and was ready to return to Leiden and set up on his own. What of the young Dutch artist's obligatory period of apprenticeship in Italy, at the feet of Rafael and Michelangelo? Rembrandt didn't consider it necessary, pointing out to a contemporary that there was no shortage of Italian paintings to be seen in Holland.

Successful from the outset in Leiden, already with a respectable number of pupils and apprentices, the young artist left Leiden for the even-then vibrant, cosmopolitan city of Amsterdam. It was mid 1631 and by the end of the year he had already successfully executed two important commissions, establishing himself as Amsterdam's leading portrait painter. This position was soon reaffirmed when he was commissioned to paint "The Anatomy Lesson of Dr. Nicolaes Tulp," a painting which broke new ground in Dutch group portraiture.

The Anatomy Lesson of Dr. Nicolaes Tulp, 1631

"I Bid High So As to Dignify My Profession"
Auction records from 17th-century Amsterdam confirm the fact that the young Rembrandt was a prosperous and enthusiastic art collector, perhaps even a dealer. He had a reputation for making such bold first bids at auction that nobody would bid against him. His personal collection included an important painting by Rubens, as well as work by Dürer, Lucas van Leyden and Hendrik Goltzius.

Despite early sucess as an artist and businessman, Rembrandt's life was no bed of roses. He survived two wives and all of his children, and in mid life fell upon hard times, losing his big house, his art collection, his social standing and influential friends, though modern researchers do not believe he was ever reduced to penury and alcoholism, as some earlier investigators have suggested.

Three Trees

The Mistress, the Church, the Turmoil
Despite the ups and downs of his rocambolesque life, Rembrandt never ceased working. In 1649 he alienated his second, common-law, wife in favor of a 23-year-old servant girl, Hendrickjes Stoffels. This union was considered licit, or at leasted tolerated, by the Amsterdam civil and religious authorities until she became pregnant, when the painter incurred the wrath of the Dutch Reformed Church. In the end perhaps due to Rembrandt's prestige--and perhaps in consideration of his straitened circumstances--the child, Cornelia, was baptized and the painter's life went on as usual.

That is to say, with the usual tribulations. In 1656 Rembrandt was forced to declare bankruptcy and in 1663 his wife Hendrickjes died. In the midst of all this turmoil Rembrandt never stopped working. In 1653 he produced some of his finest prints and paintings, including "The Three Crosses," in drypoint and burin.

The Three Crosses

In fact, the year 1661 set the high-water mark for his production, painting the large "Conspiracy of Claudius Civilis" for the Amsterdam town hall (which was actually rejected), then the "Sampling Officials of the Drapers' Guild," as well as a series of memorable religious paintings, self portraits and etchings. After his wife's death the painter's volume of work subsided, but its quality and intensity augmened.

Conspiracy of Claudius Civilis, 1661

Sampling Officials of the Drapers' Guild, 1661

The Postumous Roller Coaster
Even after Rembrandt's death in 1669 his fortune continued on its roller coaster trajectory. Before the end of the century this artist, universally acclaimed during his lifetime, was considered "vulgar" by critics who accused him of taking nature as his model, instead of idealized classic models.

This critical disparagement in his own country continued well into the 18th century, where he came to be considered a virtual artistic outcast. It was outside of Holland, in France and Italy, where Rembrandt's reputation began to be reinstated. It was Sir Joshua Reynolds, who bought Rembrandt's work and copied his themes, who restored the Dutch artist's prestige in England.

Finally, it fell upon the 19th-century romantics to elevate Rembrandt's reputation to that of a genius and hero who prevailed in the face of the stifling Dutch protestant society to take the visual arts to a new plateau.