Day 5: A Full Day at the Rijksmuseum

 I start with a face:

I know this girl. I forget her name, but she attended Christian school in Ontario, California. I met her at Hi-Camp in Mt. Hermon as a teenager. The same face, eyes, the same satisfied smile and small cleft in the chin. It is unnerving to see her in a 16th century portrait. 

The Dutch portraits scattered throughout various exhibits and time periods in the Rijksmuseum often look familiar to me. They are the faces of my childhood—fellow Dutch-American students at Ripon Christian, children I babysat, elders and deacons at the Christian Reformed Church, elderly women in the Ladies’ Aid Society. Here is a woman who reminded me strongly of my dear Auntie Anne:

But let me start at the beginning. We breakfasted at eight o’clock, sneaking out fruit and cheese and rolls for our lunch, then caught the #7 tram to the Rijksmuseum, arriving precisely at 10:00, the time of our reservation (which you do need to get in—no ticket purchases at the door). The museum is an imposing building, to say the least.

Just across the street and canal are the most beautiful houses in Amsterdam:

We used headphones for the audio tour, which led us to the highlights of the museum’s regular collections. Starting on the third floor, we wandered through the famous paintings of the 17th century, including Vermeer, Rembrandt, deHooch, and others. 

It was difficult to move away from any of the paintings, each one with a story to tell. It felt like trying to read hundreds of novels all at once. Each painting had an informative plaque on the wall, and many had added audio information. After a while, our brains began to go on overload. 

We stepped for a moment into the art history library.

All of these were books on art history. And, though there were thousands here, these were only one-fifth of the museum’s collection of art history books. I can’t imagine.

On display were some magnificent, hand-illustrated books on botany and wildlife. Here is an owl from that collection:

We were also treated to a doll house—something very popular with wealthy ladies in the 1600s. It stood about five feet high and was furnished with miniatures of authentic items from that period, including cupboards full of linens embroidered with the owner’s initials, mahogany and marble floors, Persian carpets, miniature china pieces ordered from the East India Company, silver candlesticks, and so on. The doll house actually cost as much to build as some of the mansions built along Amsterdam’s canals during the same period. (Just like today, some people didn’t know what to do with all their wealth.)

In contrast, a seven-panel painting from the 15th century (originally in a medieval hospital, later hung in a church) illustrated the good deeds that wealthy Christians are called to do for the poor: giving bread and drink to the hungry, burying the dead, showing hospitality to strangers, clothing the poor, and ministering to those in prison. In each panel the figure of Christ appears among the poor. In the panel below, Christ is the one looking directly at us, the viewer, as if to say, “This is what I am calling you to do.”

There was much more, but I will end with a tribute to a strong Dutch woman who became a legend in her own time. The plaque in formation explains why Kenau Simonsdr Hasselaer has figured prominently in Dutch history.

We left the museum about 4:00, after six hours of absorbing history and art and a bewildering array of artifacts. There was time for a cup of tea in our room, a short nap, and then a very filling dinner at our favorite Turkish restaurant, one overlooking a canal behind our hotel. This is our last night at this hotel; tomorrow evening we fly to Venice!

I forgot to add that as we were leaving the museum, we were treated to an amazing virtuoso accordion rendition of Vivaldi’s Four Seasons. I will try to attach the video as well as a photo.