Throughout his life, Rembrandt van Rijn (1606-1669) was considered an exceptional artist by contemporary art lovers. In this highly original book, Ernst van de Wetering investigates why Rembrandt, from a very early age, was praised by high-placed connoisseurs like Constantijn Huygens. It turns out that Rembrandt, from his first endeavours in painting on, had embarked on a journey past all the 'foundations of the art of painting' which were considered essential in the seventeenth century. In his systematic exploration of these foundations, Rembrandt achieved mastery in all of them, thus becoming the 'pittore famoso' that count Cosimo the Medici visited at the end of his life. Rembrandt never stopped searching for ever better solutions to the pictorial problems he saw himself confronted with; this sometimes led to radical decisions and alterations in his way of working, which cannot simply be explained by attributing them to a 'change in style' or a 'natural development'. In a quest as rigorous and novel as Rembrandt's, Van de Wetering shows us how Rembrandt dealt with the foundations of his art and used them to try and become the best painter the world had ever seen. His book sheds new light both on Rembrandt's exceptional accomplishments and on the practice of painting in the Dutch Golden Age at large Praise for van de Wetering's Rembrandt: The Painter at Work "Who would not have wanted to look over Rembrandt's shoulder while he painted? Among the countless books on Rembrandt, that by Ernst van de Wetering comes closest to conveying something of this experience." --Ernst Gombrich, author of The Story of Art "No one attempting to write about Rembrandt in the future will be able to do so without taking this fine work into account." --Simon Schama, author of The Embarrassment of Riches: An Interpretation of Dutch Culture in the Golden Age "This is a very rich book, a deeply felt analysis of an artist whom the author knows better than almost any other living scholar." --Times Literary Supplement