We continue to see and to feel as we did before, but we admire the honest work, the pleasant colour, and the efficiency of the painters.

In default of Raphaels, Giorgiones, and Titians, we should be pleased to hang upon our walls works such as those.

But towering above the other artists of Holland, great and small, was one Dutchman, Rembrandt, who holds his own with the greatest of the world.
He was born in 1606, the son of a miller at Leyden, who gave him the best teaching there to be had.

Soon he became a good painter of likenesses, and orders for portraits began to stream in upon him from the citizens of his native town.

These he executed well, but his heart was not wrapped up in the portrayal of character as John Van Eyck's had been.