Masterful Dutch Golden Age Painter and print-maker. His best-known works include The Night Watch, Bathsheba at Her Bath, and numerous self-portraits.
In his youth, he was an apprentice to Painter Pieter Lastman.
He was commissioned in 1661 to produce work for the newly-constructed city hall.
He was the ninth child born into the upper-class family of Harmen Gerritszoon van Rijn and Neeltgen Willemsdochter van Zuytbrouck. He married Saskia van Uylenburg in 1634 and, in 1654, fathered a daughter named Cornelia with his maid, Hendrickje Stoffels.
He and Johannes Vermeer were two of the most prominent Painters of the Dutch Golden Age.
