Rembrandt van Rijn

The towering figure of the Dutch Golden Age. Rembrandt revolutionized portraiture, group portraiture (The Night Watch, The Anatomy Lesson) and biblical narrative, but is perhaps most personally remembered for the more than forty self-portraits he made across his life — a private autobiography from confident young master to bankrupt, hollow-eyed old man. He died in poverty in Amsterdam after a series of personal and financial catastrophes; the public reputation he never quite recovered in his lifetime has only grown since.