Rembrandt Was Here

May 26, 2012

It was so pleasant walking around the city that we decided to return the next day to see the Hermitage Amsterdam Museum and visit Rembrandt’s house.  The original Hermitage Museum began in the 1700s when the Tsarina Catherine the Great started collecting art as a demonstration of power and influence. Currently there are over 3 million art objects in the museum and only around 65,000 can be on display at any given time. In a remarkable partnership, the city of Amsterdam provided a beautiful venue for a rotating series of exhibits of works from the Hermitage.

Great art—and no visa needed! The Amsterdam museum is in the former Amstelhof, which itself has an interesting history as a former charity home for old women. We saw an exhibit of Flemish baroque painters from the 1600s, including Rubens and his pupil, van Dyck.

Readers may remember that a few years ago, when visiting Antwerp, I went to Rubens’ home. Van Dyck was an incredible portrait painter, including many paintings of British royalty.





After the Hermitage we walked to Rembrandt’s home, where he lived from 1639 until 1656 when he failed to make his mortgage payments. Because he had to reduce his debts he had to sell his possessions at auction. The inventory of his home was completely recorded,  and that document was used to recreate the home in the actual building.

What was really interesting was that there were living artists recreating Rembrandt's etchings with a historically-accurate printing press in the actual room where he made his prints. There was also an exhibit on how science can uncover hidden secrets within paintings to document or dispel their authenticity.

Rembrandt's house 1639-1656