By most accounts, Rembrandt Harmensz van Rijn was born in Leiden on July 15, 1606, as stated by the Leiden chronicler Jan Jansz Orlers in 1641. Recently, a few close reviews of the documentation have suggested that the date should be moved to 1607, but this revelation failed to stop the juggernaut already set in motion by museums eager to celebrate the four-hundredth anniversary of the artist’s birth. The “Rembrandt Year” of 2006 witnessed the staging of dozens of exhibitions across the world, both major loan shows and focused opportunities for museums to showcase their holdings of works by Rembrandt and his circle. (For an extensive list, see: www.codart.nl/rembrandt_2006.) Several mini-exhibitions shed new light on individual works, such as the charmingly incontinent Ganymede (1635) in Dresden and the mysterious, late Family Portrait (ca. 1667) in Braunschweig. A variety of museums bravely brought out their near-Rembrandts and paintings by his school, either to trace the history of the collection (Kassel) or to address the persistent challenge of distinguishing works by the master from the many adaptations and copies by his followers (Copenhagen, Moscow). The one major overview of Rembrandt’s career (Rembrandt: Quest of a Genius, Berlin/Amsterdam) juxtaposed well-loved masterpieces with new...