Rembrandt van Rijn at Dulwich Picture Gallery

We are home to three extraordinary Rembrandt paintings — each from a different chapter of his career.

From the fine detail of his early portrait of friend Jacob de Gheyn III to the loose brushwork and lifelike charm of The Girl at a Window (aka the Mona Lisa of London) to the powerful, expressive final years in his portrait of his son, Titus, Rembrandt constantly reinvented his style — and each painting here tells part of that brilliant story.

Watch below to find out more.

The Mona Lisa of London, the girl at a window. Happy birthday, Rembrandt. Here at Dulwich Picture Gallery, it feels like Rembrandt Day every day because we have three works by the great Dutch master.

Here we have a little portrait made early on in Rembrandt's career in 1632 when he was based in Leiden and it's a portrait of his friend Jacob de Gheyn III who was an engraver. I always think it's interesting when artists paint other artists. There must be some sort of competition or certainly a conversation between the two while the portrait was being made. But here, Rembrandt is showing off his fine attention to detail. Look how closely he paints the brush strokes on the rough to really give a sense of the material. This was him in his fine painting stage when he was teaching other artists like Gerrit Dou and showing them how to paint in this really precise detail so that the works look jewel-like.

Throughout his career, Rembrandt changed. In 1645, he painted his great masterpiece. I call it the Mona Lisa of London, the girl at a window, which shows such confidence of expression. And Rembrandt's brush strokes have changed. He loosens up his style. You still get a sense of the attention to detail. For instance, there's a tan line there. This is somebody who has been outside in the sun, and there are little insect bite marks on the girl's arms. But the way that he applies the paint to the canvas here is much freer and much more expressive.

And that continues because our third Rembrandt is painted the year before the artist died. And it shows his son Titus. And in this he is completely at home with the medium. He is painting with such thick impasto, thickly applied paint which really gives an expression of character and it really feels as if this painting might at any moment come alive and Titus might speak to us. What variety in one artist, what skill to paint three works in such different ways to challenge himself throughout his career. A true genius indeed.