Rembrandt House Museum

Rembrandt bought this house in 1639 for thirteen thousand guilders, which was a fortune he didn't have. The painter was at the peak of his fame — he'd just completed The Night Watch — and the grand house on Jodenbreestraat was supposed to reflect his status. Instead, it reflected his terrible financial management. He filled the rooms with art, curiosities, armor, shells, and antiquities that he used as props for paintings, spending recklessly while commissions dried up. By 1656, he was declared insolvent. The creditors seized the house and sold it, along with everything inside, for eleven thousand guilders in 1658. The detailed bankruptcy inventory they compiled is the reason we know exactly what was in every room.

That inventory is also why the museum can reconstruct Rembrandt's living and working spaces with remarkable accuracy. His studio is set up as it would have been: the easel positioned near the window for north light, the etching press in the corner, pigments ground on a stone slab. The museum holds nearly the complete collection of Rembrandt's etchings — 250 out of 290 known works — making it the definitive place to see his printmaking genius.

The house itself, built around 1606 and renovated circa 1627 under the possible supervision of Jacob van Campen, was in poor condition by the early 20th century. During the Rembrandt Year of 1906, enthusiasm for the painter peaked, the municipality purchased the building in 1907, and Queen Wilhelmina officially opened it as a museum in 1911. A modern annex was added in 1998.

Step into the art cabinet and you understand Rembrandt's obsessions — the exotic objects, the play of shadow and texture — in a way that no painting in a gallery can convey.