Rembrandt in the Blood: An Obsessive Aristocrat and Rediscovered Paintings

Geert Mak, a Dutch author who wrote a history of the Six family, told me that some of the earlier Jan Sixes had an extraordinarily acute visual sense, which guided them as they amassed their collection. The picture that the younger Six sketched was of an inward-looking father who is trying to preserve a legacy by keeping the world at bay, who comes to realize over time that he also has to do battle with a gregarious and extroverted son who feels that the way to preserve that legacy is precisely by sharing it with the wider world. Some of the great paintings in the collection, including the “Portrait of Jan Six,” have ornamented gilded frames, which were put on them by 19th-century Sixes when showiness was in fashion.

Source: www.nytimes.com