The Windmill, Rembrandt van Rijn, 1641
etching, h 145mm × w 205mm More details
Rembrandt’s father was a miller in Leiden, and this mill was long assumed to have belonged to the Van Rijn family. However, it was actually located on the De Passerdeer bulwark in Amsterdam. The chamois leather workers’ guild used it to soften leather with cod-liver oil. The stench this produced earned the mill its nickname, the ‘little stink mill’.
