Your report on the news that the UK is to be treated to the largest ever exhibition exploring Rembrandt’s early years mentions that one of the paintings to be included – Let the Little Children Come to Me – was first spotted as a Rembrandt by the Dutch art dealer Jan Six (Newly discovered Rembrandt to feature in biggest ever show of artist’s early work, 22 October).
Your report doesn’t mention the intriguing fact that this Jan Six – Jan Six XI – is the descendant of the cloth merchant and art connoisseur Jan Six, who was a friend of Rembrandt’s and the subject of one of his greatest portraits, which remains to this day in the Six Collection. One of the highlights of the Ashmolean’s Rembrandt exhibition will therefore be a possibly unique example of a direct link to a great 17th-century painter through the living descendant of a man the artist considered one of his closest friends.
David Head
Peterborough, Cambridgeshire
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