wo friends grew up. Rembrandt was
the son of a miller, and had his own way to make in the world. Jan Six
was surrounded from his earliest years with everything which tended to
the gratification of his natural taste for culture. Rembrandt's rare
talent, however, overbalanced any lack of early advantages, and made
him a friend worth having.

Six had come of Huguenot ancestry. His grandfather had fled to Holland
during the Huguenot persecution in France, and had become a resident
in Amsterdam in 1585. Jan's father, another Jan, had married a Dutch
lady of good family, whose maiden name was Anna Wijmer. It was in the
service of this good lady that we first hear of Rembrandt's connection
with the Six family. He was called to paint her portrait in 1641, and
must have then, if not before, made the acquaintance of her young
son, Jan. Jan united to a great love of learning a love of everything
beautiful, and was an ardent collector of objects of art. Paintings of
the old Italian and early Dutch schools, rare prints and curios of
various kinds, were his delight. He found in Rembrandt a man after his
own heart. Already the painter had gone far beyond his means in
filling his own house with costly works of art. So the two men, having
a hobby in common, found a strong bond of union in their congenial
tastes. We may be sure that they were often together, to show their
new purchases and discuss their beauty.

Rembrandt, as an older and more experienced collector, would doubtless
have good advice to offer his younger friend, and, an artist himself,
would know how to judge correctly a work of art. One record of their
friendship in these years is a little etched landscape which Rembrandt
made in 1641, showing a bridge near the country estate of the Six
family, a place called Elsbroek, near the village of Hillegom.

[Illustration: PORTRAIT OF JAN SIX
_Museum of Fine Arts, Boston_]

It was in 1647 that Rembrandt made this portrait of his friend, then
twenty-nine years of age. Six had now begun to make a name for himself
in the world of letters as a scholar and poet. He had already
published a poem on Muiderberg (a village near Amsterdam), and by this
time, doubtless, had under way his great literary work, the tragedy of
Medaea. Many were the times when Rembrandt, coming to his house to talk
over some new treasure-trove, found him in his library with his
head buried in a book, and his thoughts far away. It was in such a
moment that he