Episode Details

Rembrandt van Rijn was the most sought-after painter in the Dutch Golden Age — commanding enormous fees, collecting art and curiosities obsessively, and living far beyond his means. Then the commissions dried up, the creditors closed in, and he was forced into a humiliating bankruptcy that stripped him of his house, his collection, and his reputation. He kept painting, and the late works produced in poverty are now considered his greatest.

This episode traces Rembrandt from his Leiden miller's son origins through his Amsterdam triumph, the Night Watch controversy, his financial collapse, and the late self-portraits that turned personal ruin into the most honest paintings in Western art.

• Rembrandt's rapid rise as Amsterdam's most fashionable portrait painter
• The Night Watch and the legend that it destroyed his career
• The bankruptcy, the auction of his collection, and the humiliation of insolvency
• The late self-portraits — painted in poverty — and why they are considered his supreme achievement