For such a relatively small country, the Netherlands packs a powerful punch in its contribution to art and culture. This, after all, is the land that has given us masters of their craft including Rembrandt, Bruegel, Bosch, Hals, Vermeer and Van Gogh down the ages. As a result, Amsterdam is rife with world-class galleries and museums showcasing major masterpieces from the Dutch Golden Age and beyond, as well as several smaller museums celebrating the life and work of Dutch high achievers, Rembrandt and Van Gogh among them. The epic Rijksmuseum and Museum Het Rembrandthuis (Rembrandt House Museum) are two of the very best. But how do these titans of the Amsterdam art scene measure up? It’s smocks and palettes at dawn as we pit Rembrandt's House vs the Rijksmuseum…
Museum Rembrandt House vs the Rijksmuseum: Vital Statistics
Size: One is the national museum of the Netherlands, and the country’s largest; the other the 17th-century home of Rembrandt van Rijn, then a moderately successful painter and etcher. So yeah, the Rijksmuseum (pronounced ‘rikes’, in case you were wondering) is significantly larger, with 1.5 kilometers of galleries across four floors to the relatively modest canalside townhouse that contains the Rembrandt House Museum. Visitors tend to spend 1-2 hours at Rembrandt’s House vs more like 4-5 in the Rijksmuseum
Number of artworks: We continue our David and Goliath battle with the news that the Rijksmuseum owns an astonishing one million items, of which around 8,000 are on display at any one time, from Dutch Golden Age masterpieces to the Hague School, European art, historical artifacts and Asian pieces. The Rembrandt House Museum’s collection is significantly smaller, focusing on a loving recreation of what Rembrandt’s living and working quarters might have looked like, illustrated by the use of carefully curated contemporary 17th-century furnishings. There’s a near-complete collection of Rembrandt etchings here, plus pieces by his contemporaries and students, and two pots used by Rembrandt himself.
Annual visitors: The Rijksmuseum pulls in around 2.2 million art fans every year, making it one of the Netherlands’ most-visited museums. Rembrandt House attracts a relatively modest 250,000.
The Rijksmuseum vs Rembrandt House: Highlights
Neither museum could be accused of being a slouch. The Rembrandt House Museum’s meticulous recreation of the place Rembrandt called home between 1639 and 1658 is a work of art in itself. You get a real feel for how the painter and his family (not to mention his various lovers) would have lived, thanks to the authentic 17th-century decor furnishings and paintings that adorn the living rooms, bedroom, studio and art room. Some of the unmissable highlights here include a cabinet containing rotating selections of the maestro’s etchings, plus relics such as Rembrandt’s funeral medallion and a pair of pots he used to mix quartz and clay in when preparing his canvases. You can also view works by other Golden Age painters, including Rembrandt students Govert Flinck and Ferdinand Bol and Rembrandt's teacher Pieter Lastman.
But, in honesty, the Rembrandt House Museum is kind of an amuse bouche to the Rijksmuseum’s epic main course. We’re talking, of course, about some of Rembrandt’s best-known works. Indeed, so important is The Night Watch to the history of Dutch Art that it commands its own entire gallery at the Rijksmuseum. Other Rembrandt masterpieces you can ogle here include his most celebrated exercise in chiaroscuro, Self Portrait with Disheveled Hair, and Jeremiah Lamenting the Destruction of Jerusalem. Other non-Rembrandt highlights of the Rijksmuseum include other Golden Age classics like Johannes Vermeer’s The Milkmaid, The Serenade by Judith Leyster and The Merry Drinker by Frans Hals. You can also check out a series of elaborate 17th and 18th century dolls’ houses and Karel Appels eye-popping abstract painting, Square Man. Meanwhile, the vaulted ceilings, hand-painted walls, stained-glass windows and soaring spiral staircases in the museum’s vast Cuypers Library are an Instagrammers’ dream, and worth the price of entry alone.
Rijksmuseum or Rembrandt House: Which is Better?
First the good news: both of these top-flight Amsterdam art museums are included with Go City’s Amsterdam attractions pass, which means… you can visit both and save money at the same time. The pass allows you to tick off multiple Amsterdam tours, activities and attractions if you’re in town for a few days, including the Rijksmuseum and Rembrandt House Museum, as well as Madame Tussauds, the Heineken Experience, canal cruises, the Van Gogh Museum and more. Find out more and choose your Amsterdam pass here.
But if we did have to choose… which would it be? Well, it’s a difficult one because these two truly complement rather than compete with each other. Put it this way: scholars of Rembrandt’s life and work will find much to enjoy at the Rembrandt House Museum. But you can’t really go to the maestro’s house, admire his etchings, replica bed and painting paraphernalia and then not also go to see The Night Watch, Self Portrait et al in the flesh at the Rijksmuseum. On the other hand, if your interest in Dutch art and culture is more general, and not confined to the work of Rembrandt alone, then the Rikjsmuseum, with its vast collection of Dutch and international art (one million pieces, remember?) is probably going to be sufficient enough for you, without also spending additional time at Rembrandt’s old gaff.
Rembrandt House and the Rijksmuseum: Fun Facts
Did you know? The Rijksmuseum is the world’s only museum to have a public road running through it. Thankfully now closed to motorized traffic, cyclists and pedestrians are free to pass through.
Did you know? Rembrandt was better known as an etcher in his lifetime, largely because this kind of art was easier to reproduce in print form than paintings. He created around 290 intricate etchings, of which the Rembrandt House Museum is in possession of the vast majority: 260, to be precise.
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