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Everyone knows that Rembrandt van Rijn was the greatest Dutch painter. Not everyone knows that before he became “Rembrandt of Amsterdam,” he was “Rembrandt of Leiden” — a miller’s son from a small university city 40 kilometres to the south, where he was born, apprenticed, and painted his first masterpieces before moving north to make his name.
Leiden isn’t a famous stop on most Netherlands itineraries. It should be. It’s a stunning canal city, older than Amsterdam, home to the country’s oldest university, and the place where the Dutch Golden Age effectively began.
The miller’s son
Rembrandt was born in 1606 in a house on the Weddesteeg, just off the Rhine (the Dutch branch of it, at least). His father owned a windmill on the nearby Witte Poort, the city’s western gate — the mill gave the family its surname, “van Rijn” meaning “of the Rhine.” You can still stand in the spot where the mill used to turn. There’s a small plaque, not much else. The mill itself is long gone; the family home was demolished in the 19th century.
He went to Leiden’s Latin school. He briefly attended the university, then dropped out to become an apprentice painter. By his early twenties he was already producing work that was technically brilliant and strangely, psychologically modern — portraits of old men that looked, somehow, like they knew something. He had his own studio in Leiden before he was 25. He moved to Amsterdam around 1631 for the money and the commissions.
What to see
De Lakenhal museum — Leiden’s municipal museum, housed in a gorgeous 17th-century cloth hall. It has a small but lovely collection of works from Rembrandt’s early period, plus paintings from his Leiden contemporaries and followers. Start here.
Pieterskerk — the Gothic Pieters Church, where Rembrandt was baptised. It’s also famous for housing the grave of John Robinson, spiritual leader of the Pilgrims, whose community lived in Leiden for 12 years before sailing to America on the Mayflower. Two pieces of extraordinary history in the same building.
The canals themselves. Leiden has more canals per square metre than almost any Dutch city. Walk the Rapenburg — the widest and most elegant of them — and look at the 17th-century facades. This is the world Rembrandt grew up in, and it’s remarkably preserved.
Leiden is 35 minutes from Amsterdam by direct train. Do it as a day trip, or — better — stay a night and see the city when the students are out on the canals and the afternoon light is slanting across the 400-year-old brick facades. It’s one of the great quiet pleasures of the Netherlands.