Jun 2, 2007

Museum Het Rembrandthuis

We continued walking along the canals... passing some more pretty sights.




Next destination was Museum Het Rembrandthuis (Rembrandt House Museum). No artwork were on display here... it's basically just the great painter's house from 1606 which provides a glimpse into the artist himself.

Bought by Rembrandt in 1639 when he was Amsterdam's most fashionable portrait painter, the three-story house, which has 10 rooms, is a shrine to one of the greatest artists the world has ever known. In this house, Rembrandt's son Titus was born and his wife Saskia died. Due to his extravagant lifestyle, the artist was bankrupt when he left it in 1658. Not until 1906 was the building rescued from a succession of subsequent owners and restored as a museum.

More recent restoration has returned the old house to the way it looked when Rembrandt lived and worked there, complete with a ground-floor kitchen and the maid's bedroom. It was most interesting to observe that katil orang dulu-dulu was quite pendek. Apparently they used to sleep semi-seated in the past... lying fully horizontal is too akin to being dead. Well, that's according to the audioguide lah.

On the upper floors were his studio where he used to maintain an academy to teach his students. The stairs were very narrow and steep. I can't imagine macam mana the maids would bring up the food from the kitchen into the dining room. Also upstairs was a room which stores some of Rembrandt's collection of curiosities.

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