Rembrandt "Danaë", 1636), seeking to emulate the baroque style of Rubens. With the occasional help of assistants in Uylenburgh's workshop, he painted numerous portrait commissions both small ("Jacob de Gheyn III") and large ("Portrait of the Shipbuilder Jan Rijcksen and his Wife", 1633, "Anatomy Lesson of Dr. Nicolaes Tulp", 1632). By the late 1630s Rembrandt had produced a few paintings and many etchings of landscapes. Often these landscapes highlighted natural drama, featuring uprooted trees and ominous skies ("Cottages before a Stormy Sky", c. 1641; "The Three Trees", 1643). From 1640 his work became less exuberant and more sober in tone, possibly
Dirck Tulp had been used for dying silk since 1603. The silk was imported from Persia, and shipped, either through Archangelsk or the Strait of Gibraltar. A pair of fashionable Flemish ladies had headed it, its activities occurring in its light and airy attics. Over the years, the operation was largely moved to the Jordaan. When Tulp and his wife began building-work in 1652, they had the building embellished with stucco and the floor laid with marble. The Kloveniersburgwal was an attractive site for the rich, being close to the nerve center of the VOC, in which Tulp was appointed as delegate.