Saskia van Uylenburgh

[1] Saskia was born in Leeuwarden, Friesland, the youngest of the eight children of Sjoukje Ozinga and Rombertus van Uylenburgh, a top lawyer, a town burgomaster, and one of the founders of the University of Franeker.

Supposedly she met Rembrandt at the home of her first cousin, Hendrick van Uylenburgh, a painter and art dealer who had emigrated from Friesland to Kraków in Poland with his parents but decided in 1625 to move to the Dutch Republic, where there was growing tolerance after the death of Maurice of Orange.

Saskia was raised by her sister Hiskje and her husband, Gerard van Loo, a lawyer and secretary in the grietenij Het Bildt.

[4][5] In turn Rembrandt travelled to Leeuwarden, where he was received by the painter Wybrand de Geest, who had married Saskia's niece.

That Saskia fell in love with an artist who was socially no match for the daughter of a patrician and that she pressed for a speedy betrothal against all conventions certainly shows that she was a very strong and independent character.

[7] In 1635 the couple moved to one of the most desirable addresses in Amsterdam, the Nieuwe Doelenstraat, with prominent neighbors and a view of the river Amstel.