European Trip 33: Amsterdam (3), Holland

Thursday 24th October 2024 (day 41)

Today, we spent almost all of our time in the city, in the Rijksmuseum.

The place is huge and houses many great works of art, by many of the greatest artists presented from a Dutch viewpoint. One of the most famous paintings, is The Nightwatch by Rembrandt Van Rijn. A humorous version of this was in the central atrium, featuring Donald Duck and friends:

The real painting is undergoing some cleaning and restoration work. It can still be seen, but from behind a glass screen and it has a scaffolding platform in the way. I did manage to photograph a small part of it though:

A woman explained that it could take many years to fully restore the work. They clean the surface, then remove the old varnish as far as possible, then apply a modern clear varnish which does not age, to protect it. They will then re-apply a coat of the original type of varnish, which has a yellow tint, because when Rembrandt painted it, he would have taken into account the aging process in choosing his colours.

There were many other paintings by Rembrandt there, including:

The way Rembrandt used light in his portraits is superb:

There were also many other famous works:

Some paintings seem to have a message behind them, particularly regarding drinking and its consequences:

There are also many sculptures:

A lot of Pottery:

Some amazingly detailed, large dolls houses:

Cabinets and ornate furniture”

Model ships:

And even, on the 3rd floor, an aeroplane:

After leaving the Rijk Museum, we visited the Royal Coster diamond cutting workshop to see how it is done.

Obviously the agenda would be to get us to purchase one, but we resisted the temptation. They were beautiful, but also not cheap.

Thats all from Amsterdam. Tomorrow we move further south. TTFN. See you later.