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50 free Rembrandt trivia questions with answers — trivia quiz, new questions added Aug 2026.
This Rembrandt trivia quiz covers the painter, the printmaker and the man who lived beyond his means. It starts in Leiden with a miller's ninth child who enrolled at university and left for a painter's studio, the shared workshop with Jan Lievens, the statesman who found him court commissions, and the move to Amsterdam that made him the city's most fashionable portraitist. It covers Saskia, the four children of whom only Titus survived, the house on the Breestraat whose mortgage sank him, and the nurse he had committed to a house of correction. From there the questions cover The Night Watch and what it is not, the Anatomy Lesson, the Hundred Guilder Print, Hendrickje's summons before the church, the insolvency and the sale of his collection, the town-hall painting cut down to a quarter, the Medici visitor, the rented grave in the Westerkerk, the added 'd' in his name, the Mughal miniatures he copied, and the modern arguments over which paintings are really his. Difficulty runs from easy to expert and is shown on every question. Every answer was checked against a reference page and each question carries its citation. Try our Claude Monet and Michelangelo quizzes next.
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Q 01In which Dutch city was Rembrandt born in 1606?
Leiden
He was the ninth child of a well-to-do family; his mother was Catholic and his father Dutch Reformed.
Q 02What was the trade of Rembrandt's father?
Miller
The surname 'van Rijn' indicates the family lived near the Rhine.
Q 03After leaving university in 1620, Rembrandt spent three years apprenticed to which painter?
Jacob van Swanenburg
He had attended a Latin school as a boy but was always more inclined towards painting.
Q 04Rembrandt's brief but important six-month apprenticeship in Amsterdam was with which history painter?
Pieter Lastman
Lastman's influence dominates his small, detail-rich early paintings of 1625 to 1631.
Q 05With which friend did Rembrandt share his first studio in his home town from 1625?
Jan Lievens
He began taking pupils in 1627, among them Gerrit Dou.
Q 06Which statesman 'discovered' Rembrandt in 1629 and won him commissions from the court in The Hague?
Constantijn Huygens
Prince Frederik Hendrik kept buying his paintings as a result; Rembrandt's only surviving statement of artistic aims was written to Huygens.
Q 07On moving to Amsterdam in 1631, Rembrandt lodged with which art dealer, whose cousin he later married?
Hendrick van Uylenburgh
He married Saskia van Uylenburgh in 1634 without any of his own relatives present.
Q 08Saskia's father Rombertus had been burgomaster of which Frisian city?
Leeuwarden
He was a lawyer; the couple wed at St. Annaparochie.
Q 09How much did the Breestraat house Rembrandt bought in 1639 cost, saddling him with a ruinous mortgage?
13,000 guilders
The neighbourhood was becoming the Jewish quarter, and he often asked Jewish neighbours to model for Hebrew Bible scenes.
Q 10How many of Rembrandt and Saskia's children survived into adulthood?
One
Three died within weeks of birth; only Titus, born in 1641, lived to grow up.
Q 11Saskia died in 1642, probably of what?
Tuberculosis
His drawings of her on her sickbed and deathbed are among his most moving works.
Q 12Geertje Dircx, Titus's nurse and Rembrandt's lover, sued him in 1649 for what?
Breach of promise
She pawned Saskia's diamond ring to pay her lawyer; Rembrandt later had her committed to a house of correction in Gouda.
Q 13Hendrickje Stoffels, who became Rembrandt's partner in 1649, had first come to the house as what?
His maid
She was 23; in 1654 the Reformed Church summoned her for living 'as a whore with Rembrandt the painter' and barred her from communion.
Q 21Which grand duke visited Rembrandt twice and took a self-portrait home to Florence?
Cosimo III de' Medici
By then Rembrandt was working on The Jewish Bride and struggling with rent arrears.
Q 22Where was Rembrandt buried after his death in October 1669?
In a rented grave in the Westerkerk
He had outlived both Hendrickje and Titus.
Q 23Rembrandt's daughter Cornelia emigrated in 1670 to which colonial city?
Batavia
She went with an obscure painter and her mother's inheritance; Titus's estate passed to his only child, Titia.
Q 14Why did Rembrandt never marry Hendrickje?
He would have lost access to Titus's trust under Saskia's will
Their daughter Cornelia was born in October 1654.
Q 15Which 1654 nude, now in the Louvre, did Rembrandt paint the year Hendrickje was summoned by the church?
Bathsheba at Her Bath
Hendrickje is generally thought to have been the model.
Q 16In what year did Rembrandt declare insolvency and surrender his assets?
1656
He sought a court arrangement called cessio bonorum; the bankruptcy was not forced and he had already transferred the house to Titus.
Q 17How many items were on the 1657-58 sale list of Rembrandt's possessions?
363
They included Old Master drawings by Raphael and Mantegna, busts of Roman emperors, two globes, armour, two lion skins and a bird of paradise.
Q 18What was Rembrandt permitted to keep after his insolvency so he could earn a living?
His tools
He lost guardianship of Titus, and the family moved to modest lodgings on the Rozengracht in 1658.
Q 19After the bankruptcy, Hendrickje and Titus set up what to let Rembrandt keep working?
A dummy art-dealing company
He received board and lodging from it; in 1661 it won a major commission for the new town hall.
Q 20What happened to Rembrandt's town-hall painting The Conspiracy of Claudius Civilis?
The mayors rejected it and he cut it down to a quarter of its size
The surviving fragment is in Stockholm; it was his last secular history painting.
Q 24Roughly how many paintings does modern scholarship credit to Rembrandt?
About 300
Early 20th-century connoisseurs had counted well over 600; his prints are stable at just under 300.
Q 25Why were about 90 paintings once counted as Rembrandt self-portraits, since reduced to just over 40?
His students copied them as part of their training
He also etched 31 self-portraits, some in fancy dress, some pulling faces.
Q 26In a Rembrandt portrait, which feature nearly always marks the line between light and shadow?
The ridge of the nose
A Rembrandt face is 'partially eclipsed', with the nose thrusting into the halftones.
Q 27Rembrandt's dramatic use of light and shadow derives from which Italian painter?
Caravaggio
The technique is called chiaroscuro; Rembrandt never went abroad himself.
Q 28Rembrandt's 1632 group portrait for the Amsterdam surgeons is called The Anatomy Lesson of Dr…?
Nicolaes Tulp
It hangs in the Mauritshuis in The Hague, painted with occasional help from Uylenburgh's workshop.
Q 29Which 1636 painting shows Rembrandt emulating Rubens with a scene of a hero losing his eyes?
The Blinding of Samson
Belshazzar's Feast and Danaë date from the same high-contrast, large-format years.
Q 30What is the formal title of The Night Watch?
The Militia Company of Captain Frans Banninck Cocq
It was commissioned for the new hall of the Kloveniersdoelen, the musketeers' branch of the civic militia.