Rembrandt Harmenszoon van Rijn (1606 – 1669) was a Dutch painter and etcher. He is generally considered one of the greatest painters and printmakers in European art history and the most important in Dutch history.

Rembrandt was born on July 15, 1606 in Leiden, the Netherlands. He was the ninth child born to Harmen Gerritszoon van Rijn and Neeltgen Willemsdochter van Zuytbrouck. His family was quite well-to-do; his father was a miller and his mother was a baker's daughter. As a boy he attended Latin school and was enrolled at the University of Leiden, although according to a contemporary he had a greater inclination towards painting; he was apprenticed to a Leiden history painter, Jacob van Swanenburgh, with whom he spent three years. After a brief apprenticeship of six months with the famous painter Pieter Lastman in Amsterdam, Rembrandt opened a studio in Leiden in 1625, which he shared with friend and prodigy Jan Lievens. In 1627, Rembrandt began to accept students, among them Gerrit Dou.