Rijksmuseum

De windmolen

Date

1641

Medium

paper

Institution

Rijksmuseum

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’.

The authoritative record is held by Rijksmuseum. LinkedCulture surfaces this object and its connections; it does not alter institutional metadata.