The Rijksmuseum () is the

national museum A national museum is a museum maintained and funded by a national government. In many countries it denotes a museum run by the central government, while other museums are run by regional or local governments. In other countries a much greater numb ...

of the Netherlands dedicated to Dutch

arts The arts are a very wide range of human practices of creative expression, storytelling and cultural participation. They encompass multiple diverse and plural modes of thinking, doing and being, in an extremely broad range of media. Both ...

and

history History (derived ) is the systematic study and the documentation of the human activity. The time period of event before the invention of writing systems is considered prehistory. "History" is an umbrella term comprising past events as well ...

and is located in

Amsterdam Amsterdam ( , , , lit. ''The Dam on the River Amstel'') is the capital and most populous city of the Netherlands, with The Hague being the seat of government. It has a population of 907,976 within the city proper, 1,558,755 in the urban ar ...

. The museum is located at the Museum Square in the

borough A borough is an administrative division in various English-speaking countries. In principle, the term ''borough'' designates a self-governing walled town, although in practice, official use of the term varies widely. History In the Middle Ag ...

of Amsterdam South, close to the

Van Gogh Museum The Van Gogh Museum () is a Dutch art museum dedicated to the works of Vincent van Gogh and his contemporaries in the Museum Square in Amsterdam South, close to the Stedelijk Museum, the Rijksmuseum, and the Concertgebouw. The museum opene ...

, the

Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam The Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam (; Municipal Museum Amsterdam), colloquially known as the Stedelijk, is a museum for modern art, contemporary art, and design located in Amsterdam, Netherlands.

, and the

Concertgebouw The Royal Concertgebouw ( nl, Koninklijk Concertgebouw, ) is a concert hall in Amsterdam, Netherlands. The Dutch term "concertgebouw" translates into English as "concert building". Its superb acoustics place it among the finest concert halls in ...

. The Rijksmuseum was founded in

The Hague The Hague ( ; nl, Den Haag or ) is a city and municipality of the Netherlands, situated on the west coast facing the North Sea. The Hague is the country's administrative centre and its seat of government, and while the official capital o ...

on 19 November 1798 and moved to Amsterdam in 1808, where it was first located in the

Royal Palace This is a list of royal palaces, sorted by continent. Africa * Abdin Palace, Cairo * Al-Gawhara Palace, Cairo * Koubbeh Palace, Cairo * Tahra Palace, Cairo * Menelik Palace * Jubilee Palace * Guenete Leul Palace * Imperial Palace- ...

and later in the

Trippenhuis The Trippenhuis is a neoclassical canal mansion in the centre of Amsterdam. It was built in 1660–1662 for the wealthy Amsterdam weapons traders Louis and Hendrick Trip. Many references to weaponry can be seen on its facade. Since 1887 it has be ...

. The current main building was designed by

Pierre Cuypers Petrus Josephus Hubertus "Pierre" Cuypers (16 May 1827 – 3 March 1921) was a Dutch architect. His name is most frequently associated with the Amsterdam Central Station (1881–1889) and the Rijksmuseum (1876–1885), both in Amsterdam. ...

and first opened in 1885.The renovation
Rijksmuseum. Retrieved on 4 April 2013. On 13 April 2013, after a ten-year renovation which cost

€ The euro sign () is the currency sign used for the euro, the official currency of the eurozone and unilaterally adopted by Kosovo and Montenegro. The design was presented to the public by the European Commission on 12 December 1996. It consists o ...

375 million, the main building was reopened by

Queen Beatrix Beatrix (Beatrix Wilhelmina Armgard, ; born 31 January 1938) is a member of the Dutch royal house who reigned as Queen of the Netherlands from 1980 until her abdication in 2013. Beatrix is the eldest daughter of Queen Juliana and her husban ...

."Rijksmuseum set for grand reopening in Amsterdam"
''BBC News''. 4 April 2013. Retrieved 4 April 2013."The Rijksmuseum reopens: A new golden age"
''

The Economist ''The Economist'' is a British weekly newspaper printed in demitab format and published digitally. It focuses on current affairs, international business, politics, technology, and culture. Based in London, the newspaper is owned by The Eco ...

'' (London). 13 April 2013. Retrieved 14 April 2013. In 2013 and 2014, it was the most visited museum in the Netherlands with record numbers of 2.2 million and 2.47 million visitors.Jaarverslag 2013
(in Dutch), Rijksmuseum. Retrieved 23 January 2017. It is also the

largest Large means of great size. Large may also refer to: Mathematics * Arbitrarily large, a phrase in mathematics * Large cardinal, a property of certain transfinite numbers * Large category, a category with a proper class of objects and morphisms (o ...

art museum in the country. The museum has on display 8,000 objects of

art Art is a diverse range of human activity, and resulting product, that involves creative or imaginative talent expressive of technical proficiency, beauty, emotional power, or conceptual ideas. There is no generally agreed definition of wha ...

and

, from their total collection of 1 million objects from the years 1200–2000, among which are some masterpieces by

Rembrandt Rembrandt Harmenszoon van Rijn (, ; 15 July 1606 – 4 October 1669), usually simply known as Rembrandt, was a Dutch Golden Age painter, printmaker and draughtsman. An innovative and prolific master in three media, he is generally cons ...

Frans Hals Frans Hals the Elder (, , ; – 26 August 1666) was a Dutch Golden Age painter, chiefly of individual and group portraits and of genre works, who lived and worked in Haarlem. Hals played an important role in the evolution of 17th-century grou ...

, and

Johannes Vermeer Johannes Vermeer ( , , see below; also known as Jan Vermeer; October 1632 – 15 December 1675) was a Dutch Baroque Period painter who specialized in domestic interior scenes of middle-class life. During his lifetime, he was a moderately succe ...

. The museum also has a small

Asia Asia (, ) is one of the world's most notable geographical regions, which is either considered a continent in its own right or a subcontinent of Eurasia, which shares the continental landmass of Afro-Eurasia with Africa. Asia covers an are ...

n collection, which is on display in the Asian pavilion.

History

The collection of the Rijksmuseum was built over a period of 200 years and did not originate from a royal collection incorporated into a national museum. Its origins were modest, with its collection fitting into five rooms at in

Huis ten Bosch Huis ten Bosch ( nl, Paleis Huis ten Bosch, ; English: "House in the Woods") is a royal palace in The Hague, Netherlands. It is one of three official residences of the Dutch monarch; the two others being the Noordeinde Palace in The Hague a ...

palace in The Hague. Although the seventeenth-century was beginning to be recognized as the key period in Dutch art, the museum did not then hold paintings by Frans Hals, Rembrandt, Jan Steen, Johannes Vermeer, or Jacob van Ruisdael. The collection was built up by purchase and donation. Napoleon had carried off the stadholder's collection to Paris; the paintings were returned to The Netherlands in 1815 but housed in the

Mauritshuis The Mauritshuis (; en, Maurice House) is an art museum in The Hague, Netherlands. The museum houses the Royal Cabinet of Paintings which consists of 854 objects, mostly Dutch Golden Age paintings. The collection contains works by Johannes Verme ...

in The Hague rather than the Rijksmuseum. With the founding of the Rijksmuseum in 1885, holdings from other entities were brought together to establish the Rijksmuseum's major collections.

18th century

In 1795, the

Batavian Republic The Batavian Republic ( nl, Bataafse Republiek; french: République Batave) was the successor state to the Republic of the Seven United Netherlands. It was proclaimed on 19 January 1795 and ended on 5 June 1806, with the accession of Louis Bon ...

was proclaimed; its

Minister of Finance A finance minister is an executive or cabinet position in charge of one or more of government finances, economic policy and financial regulation. A finance minister's portfolio has a large variety of names around the world, such as "treasury", ...

Isaac Gogel Isaac; grc, Ἰσαάκ, Isaák; ar, إسحٰق/إسحاق, Isḥāq; am, ይስሐቅ is one of the three patriarchs of the Israelites and an important figure in the Abrahamic religions, including Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. He was the ...

argued that a national museum, following the French example of

The Louvre The Louvre ( ), or the Louvre Museum ( ), is the world's most-visited museum, and an historic landmark in Paris, France. It is the home of some of the best-known works of art, including the '' Mona Lisa'' and the ''Venus de Milo''. A centra ...

, would serve the national interest. On 19 November 1798, the government decided to found the museum. Roelof van Gelder
Schatkamer met veel gezichten
2000. Retrieved 15 April 2013.

19th century

On 31 May 1800, the National Art Gallery (

Dutch Dutch commonly refers to: * Something of, from, or related to the Netherlands * Dutch people () * Dutch language () Dutch may also refer to: Places * Dutch, West Virginia, a community in the United States * Pennsylvania Dutch Country People E ...

: ''Nationale Kunst-Galerij''), precursor of the Rijksmuseum, opened in

. The museum exhibited around 200 paintings and historic objects from the collections of the Dutch

stadtholder In the Low Countries, ''stadtholder'' ( nl, stadhouder ) was an office of steward, designated a medieval official and then a national leader. The ''stadtholder'' was the replacement of the duke or count of a province during the Burgundian and H ...

s. In 1805, the National Art Gallery moved within

to the Prince William V Gallery, on the Buitenhof.In 1806, the

Kingdom of Holland The Kingdom of Holland ( nl, Holland (contemporary), (modern); french: Royaume de Hollande) was created by Napoleon Bonaparte, overthrowing the Batavian Republic in March 1806 in order to better control the Netherlands. Since becoming Empero ...

was established by

Napoleon Bonaparte Napoleon Bonaparte ; it, Napoleone Bonaparte, ; co, Napulione Buonaparte. (born Napoleone Buonaparte; 15 August 1769 – 5 May 1821), later known by his regnal name Napoleon I, was a French military commander and political leader wh ...

. On the orders of king

Louis Bonaparte Louis Napoléon Bonaparte (born Luigi Buonaparte; 2 September 1778 – 25 July 1846) was a younger brother of Napoleon I, Emperor of the French. He was a monarch in his own right from 1806 to 1810, ruling over the Kingdom of Holland (a French ...

, brother of Napoleon, the museum moved to

in 1808. Paintings owned by that city, such as ''

The Night Watch ''Militia Company of District II under the Command of Captain Frans Banninck Cocq'', also known as ''The Shooting Company of Frans Banning Cocq and Willem van Ruytenburch'', but commonly referred to as ''The Night Watch'' ( nl, De Nachtwacht), i ...

'' by

, became part of the collection. In 1809, the museum opened in the

. In 1817, the museum moved to the

. The Trippenhuis turned out to be unsuitable as a museum. In 1820, the historical objects were moved to the

in The Hague and in 1838, the 19th-century paintings "''of living masters''" were moved to King Louis Bonaparte's former summer palace Paviljoen Welgelegen in

Haarlem Haarlem (; predecessor of ''Harlem'' in English) is a city and municipality in the Netherlands. It is the capital of the province of North Holland. Haarlem is situated at the northern edge of the Randstad, one of the most populated metropoli ...

. In 1863, there was a

design contest A design is a plan or specification for the construction of an object or system or for the implementation of an activity or process or the result of that plan or specification in the form of a prototype, product, or process. The verb ''to design'' ...

for a new building for the Rijksmuseum, but none of the submissions was considered to be of sufficient quality.

also participated in the contest and his submission reached the second place. In 1876, a new contest was held and this time Pierre Cuypers won. The design was a combination of

gothic Gothic or Gothics may refer to: People and languages *Goths or Gothic people, the ethnonym of a group of East Germanic tribes **Gothic language, an extinct East Germanic language spoken by the Goths **Crimean Gothic, the Gothic language spoken b ...

and

renaissance The Renaissance ( , ) , from , with the same meanings. is a period in European history marking the transition from the Middle Ages to modernity and covering the 15th and 16th centuries, characterized by an effort to revive and surpass ide ...

elements. The construction began on 1 October 1876. On both the inside and the outside, the building was richly decorated with references to Dutch art history. Another contest was held for these decorations. The winners were B. van Hove and J.F. Vermeylen for the

sculpture Sculpture is the branch of the visual arts that operates in three dimensions. Sculpture is the three-dimensional art work which is physically presented in the dimensions of height, width and depth. It is one of the plastic arts. Durable ...

s, G. Sturm for the

tile tableau Tiles are usually thin, square or rectangular coverings manufactured from hard-wearing material such as ceramic, stone, metal, baked clay, or even glass. They are generally fixed in place in an array to cover roofs, floors, walls, edges, or ...

s and

painting Painting is the practice of applying paint, pigment, color or other medium to a solid surface (called the "matrix" or "support"). The medium is commonly applied to the base with a brush, but other implements, such as knives, sponges, and a ...

and W.F. Dixon for the

stained glass Stained glass is coloured glass as a material or works created from it. Throughout its thousand-year history, the term has been applied almost exclusively to the windows of churches and other significant religious buildings. Although tradition ...

. The museum was opened at its new location on 13 July 1885. In 1890, a new building was added a short distance to the south-west of the Rijksmuseum. As the building was made out of fragments of demolished buildings, the building offers an overview of the history of Dutch

architecture Architecture is the art and technique of designing and building, as distinguished from the skills associated with construction. It is both the process and the product of sketching, conceiving, planning, designing, and constructing buildings ...

and has come to be known informally as the 'fragment building'. It is also known as the 'south wing' and is currently (in 2013) branded the ''

Philips Koninklijke Philips N.V. (), commonly shortened to Philips, is a Dutch multinational conglomerate corporation that was founded in Eindhoven in 1891. Since 1997, it has been mostly headquartered in Amsterdam, though the Benelux headquarters is ...

Wing''.

20th century

In 1906, the hall for ''

'' was rebuilt. In the interior more changes were made between the 1920s and 1950s - most multi-coloured wall decorations were painted over. In the 1960s exposition rooms and several floors were built into the two courtyards. The building had some minor renovations and restorations in 1984, 1995–1996 and 2000. A renovation of the south wing of the museum, also known as the 'fragment building' or 'Philips Wing', was completed in 1996, the same year that the museum held its first major photography exhibition featuring its extensive collection of 19th-century photos.

21st century

In December 2003, the main building of the museum closed for a major renovation. During this renovation, about 400 objects from the collection were on display in the 'fragment building', including

's ''The Night Watch'' and other 17th-century masterpieces. The restoration and

renovation Renovation (also called remodeling) is the process of improving broken, damaged, or outdated structures. Renovations are typically done on either commercial or residential buildings. Additionally, renovation can refer to making something new, ...

of the Rijksmuseum are based on a design by Spanish architects Antonio Cruz and Antonio Ortiz. Many of the old interior decorations were restored and the floors in the courtyards were removed. The renovation would have initially taken five years, but was delayed and eventually took almost ten years to complete. The renovation cost

375 million. The reconstruction of the building was completed on 16 July 2012. In March 2013, the museum's main pieces of art were moved back from the 'fragment building' (Philips Wing) to the main building. ''

'' returned to the Night Watch Room, at the end of the Hall of Fame. On 13 April 2013, the main building was reopened by Queen Beatrix. On 1 November 2014, the Philips Wing reopened with the exhibition Modern Times: Photography in the 20th Century.

List of directors

Cornelis Sebille Roos Cornelis Sebille Roos or Cornelis Roos (1754 – 1820) was a Dutch art dealer and inspector of the Nationale Konst-Gallery collection in Huis ten Bosch during the years 1799-1801 Roos was born 10 January 1754 in Amsterdam and baptized six days la ...

Cornelis Apostool Cornelis Apostool (; 6 August 1762 – 10 February 1844) was a Dutch artist, diplomat, and museum director. Biography Cornelis Apostool was born on 6 August 1762 in Amsterdam in the Dutch Republic. His father was Jan Apostool, a Mennonite a ...

(1808–1844) * Jan Willem Pieneman (1844–1847) * Johann Wilhelm Kaiser (1873–1883) * Frederik Daniël Otto Obreen (1883–1896) *

Barthold Willem Floris van Riemsdijk Barthold may refer to: Given name * Bertulf (Archbishop of Trier) (died 883) * * Surname * Vasily Bartold Vasily Vladimirovich Bartold (russian: Васи́лий Влади́мирович Барто́льд.; 1869–1930), who published in ...

(1897–1921) * Frederik Schmidt-Degener (1921–1941) * David Röell (1945–1959) *

Arthur F.E. van Schendel Arthur François Emile van Schendel (18 May 1910, in Ede – 6 February 1979, in Amsterdam) was a Dutch art historian and museum director. From 1959 to 1975 he was General Director of the Rijksmuseum Amsterdam. Lucette ter Borg,Gedonderjaag in het ...

(1959–1975) Lucette ter Borg,
Gedonderjaag in het Rijksmuseum
, ''

de Volkskrant ''de Volkskrant'' (; ''The People's Paper'') is a Dutch daily morning newspaper. Founded in 1919, it has a nationwide circulation of about 250,000. Formerly a leading centre-left Catholic broadsheet, ''de Volkskrant'' today is a medium-sized c ...

'', 2000. Retrieved 25 April 2013. *

Simon Levie Simon may refer to: People * Simon (given name), including a list of people and fictional characters with the given name Simon * Simon (surname), including a list of people with the surname Simon * Eugène Simon, French naturalist and the genus ...

(1975–1989) * Henk van Os (1989–1996) *

Ronald de Leeuw Ronald is a masculine given name derived from the Old Norse ''Rögnvaldr'', Hanks; Hardcastle; Hodges (2006) p. 234; Hanks; Hodges (2003) § Ronald. or possibly from Old English '' Regenweald''. In some cases ''Ronald'' is an Anglicised form ...

(1996–2008) *

Wim Pijbes Willem Meint Jans "Wim" Pijbes (born 9 October 1961) is a Dutch art historian and emeritus General Director of the Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam. Pijbes' initiatives at the Rijksmuseum include the museum's complete refurbishment and reopening in April ...

(2008–2016) *

Taco Dibbits Taco Dibbits (; born 7 September 1968) is an art historian from Amsterdam, Netherlands and director of the Rijksmuseum Amsterdam. Life and work Dibbits studied art history at the Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam and the University of Cambridge. He ...

(2016–present)

Building

The building of the Rijksmuseum was designed by

and opened in 1885. It consists of two squares with an atrium in each centre. In the central axis is a tunnel with the entrances at ground level and the Gallery of Honour at the first floor. The building also contains a library. The fragment building, branded Philips wing, contains building fragments that show the history of architecture in the Netherlands. The Rijksmuseum is a ''

rijksmonument A rijksmonument (, ) is a national heritage site of the Netherlands, listed by the agency Rijksdienst voor het Cultureel Erfgoed (RCE) acting for the Dutch Ministry of Education, Culture and Science. At the end of February 2015, the Netherlands ...

'' (national heritage site) since 1970 and was listed in the

Top 100 Dutch heritage sites The Top 100 Dutch heritage sites is a list of rijksmonuments in the Netherlands, established in 1990 by the Department for Conservation ( Monumentenzorg, today the Rijksdienst voor het Cultureel Erfgoed). The Top 100 was a selection of historical m ...

in 1990. The Asian pavilion was designed by

Cruz y Ortiz Cruz y Ortiz arquitectos is an architectural studio founded by Antonio Cruz Villalón and Antonio Ortiz García. The studio have offices in Seville and in Amsterdam. Biography Architect Antonio Cruz Villalón was born in Seville, Spain, in 1948 ...

and opened in 2013. According to Muriel Huisman, Project Architect for the Rijksmuseum's renovation, "Cruz y Ortiz always like to look for synergy between old and new, and we try not to explain things with our architecture.” With the Rijks, “there’s no cut between old and new; we’ve tried to merge it. We did this by looking for materials that were true to the original building, resulting in a kind of silent architecture." File:Trippenhuis Amsterdam interior 003.jpg, The Rijksmuseum was located in the

between 1817 and 1885. File:P.J.H. Cuypers Rijksmuseum perspective.jpg, Drawing of the design by

in 1876. File:Rijksmuseum Amsterdam ca 1895.jpg, Front of Cuypers' building, circa 1895. File:Museo Nacional, Ámsterdam, Países Bajos, 2016-05-30, DD 16-18 HDR.jpg, View of the facade by night. File:Amsterdam 2016 Rijksmuseum.webm, Video of the Rijksmuseum (2016).

Collection

The collection of the Rijksmuseum consists of 1 million objects and is dedicated to

crafts A craft or trade is a pastime or an occupation that requires particular skills and knowledge of skilled work. In a historical sense, particularly the Middle Ages and earlier, the term is usually applied to people occupied in small scale pr ...

, and

from the years 1200 to 2000. Around 8,000 objects are currently on display in the museum. The collection contains more than 2,000

s from the

Dutch Golden Age The Dutch Golden Age ( nl, Gouden Eeuw ) was a period in the history of the Netherlands, roughly spanning the era from 1588 (the birth of the Dutch Republic) to 1672 (the Rampjaar, "Disaster Year"), in which Dutch trade, science, and art and ...

by notable painters such as

Jacob van Ruisdael Jacob Isaackszoon van Ruisdael (; 1629 – 10 March 1682) was a Dutch painter, draughtsman, and etcher. He is generally considered the pre-eminent landscape painter of the Dutch Golden Age, a period of great wealth and cultural ach ...

Jan Steen Jan Havickszoon Steen (c. 1626 – buried 3 February 1679) was a Dutch Golden Age painter, one of the leading genre painters of the 17th century. His works are known for their psychological insight, sense of humour and abundance of colour. Lif ...

, and Rembrandt's pupils. The museum also has a small Asian collection which is on display in the Asian pavilion. Some of the more unusual items in the collection include the royal crest from the

stern The stern is the back or aft-most part of a ship or boat, technically defined as the area built up over the sternpost, extending upwards from the counter rail to the taffrail. The stern lies opposite the bow, the foremost part of a ship. Or ...

of which was captured in the

Raid on the Medway The Raid on the Medway, during the Second Anglo-Dutch War in June 1667, was a successful attack conducted by the Dutch navy on English warships laid up in the fleet anchorages off Chatham Dockyard and Gillingham in the county of Kent. At t ...

, the Hartog plate and the FK35 ''Bantam'' biplane. In 2012, the museum made some 125,000

high-resolution Image resolution is the detail an image holds. The term applies to digital images, film images, and other types of images. "Higher resolution" means more image detail. Image resolution can be measured in various ways. Resolution quantifies how cl ...

images available for download via its Rijksstudio webplatform, with plans to add another 40,000 images per year until the entire collection of one million works is available, according to

, director of collections. As of January 2021, the Rijksstudio hosts 700,000 works, available under a Creative Commons 1.0 Universal license, essentially copyright-free and royalty-free.

Gallery

File:Frans Hals - Wedding portrait of Isaac Abrahamsz Massa and Beatrix van der Laan.jpg, '' Portrait of a Young Couple'' (1622) by

File:Rembrandt Harmensz. van Rijn - Jeremia treurend over de verwoesting van Jeruzalem - Google Art Project.jpg, ''Jeremiah Lamenting the Destruction of Jerusalem'' (1630) by

File:Frans Hals, De magere compagnie.jpg, '' The Meagre Company'' (1633–37) by

and

Pieter Codde Pieter Jacobsz Codde (December 11, 1599 – October 12, 1678) was a Dutch painter of genre works, guardroom scenes and portraits. Life Codde was a technically skilled painter. He is said to have studied with Frans Hals, but it is more likely ...

File:La ronda de noche, por Rembrandt van Rijn.jpg, ''

'' (1642) by

File:Bartholomeus van der Helst, Banquet of the Amsterdam Civic Guard in Celebration of the Peace of Münster.jpg, ''Banquet at the Crossbowmen’s Guild in Celebration of the Treaty of Münster'' (1648) by

Bartholomeus van der Helst Bartholomeus van der Helst (1613 – buried 16 December 1670) was a Dutch painter. Considered to be one of the leading portrait painters of the Dutch Golden Age, his elegant portraits gained him the patronage of Amsterdam's elite as well as th ...

File:Jan Asselijn - De bedreigde zwaan; later opgevat als allegorie op Johan de Witt - Google Art Project.jpg, ''

The Threatened Swan ''The Threatened Swan'' ( nl, De bedreigde zwaan)The Threatened Swan, Jan As ...

'' ( 1650) by

Jan Asselijn Jan Asselijn (c.1610 – October 1, 1652) was a Dutch Golden Age painter. Biography Asselijn was born at Dieppe from a French Huguenot family as ''Jean Asselin''. He received instruction from Esaias van de Velde (1587–1630), and distingu ...

File:Johannes Vermeer - Het melkmeisje - Google Art Project.jpg, '' The Milkmaid'' ( 1657–58) by

File:Rembrandt Harmensz. van Rijn - Portret van een paar als Oud-Testamentische figuren, genaamd 'Het Joodse bruidje' - Google Art Project.jpg, ''

The Jewish Bride ''The Jewish Bride'' ( nl, Het Joodse bruidje) is a painting by Rembrandt, painted around 1665‒1669. The painting gained its current name in the early 19th century, when an Amsterdam art collector identified the subject as that of a Jewish fath ...

'' ( 1667) by

File:Portret van een meisje in het blauw Rijksmuseum SK-A-3064.jpeg, ''

Girl in a Blue Dress ''Girl in a Blue Dress'', also called ''Portrait of a Girl Dressed in Blue'' ( nl, Portret van een meisje in het blauw) or simply ''Portrait of a Girl''Johannes Cornelisz Verspronck Johannes Cornelisz. Verspronck (between 1600 and 1603 – 30 June 1662 (buried)) was a Dutch Golden Age portrait painter from Haarlem. Life Johannes Cornelisz. Verspronck was born between 1600 and 1603 in Haarlem as the son of the painter Co ...

File:Jacob Isaacksz. van Ruisdael - Landschap met waterval - Google Art Project.jpg, ''

Landscape with Waterfall ''Landscape with Waterfall'' (Dutch language, Dutch ''Landschap met waterval, in de verte een kerk'') (c. 1660s) is an oil painting, oil on canvas painting by the Netherlands, Dutch landscape painter Jacob van Ruisdael. It is an example of Dutch ...

'' (1660s) by

File:Shivaji Rijksmuseum.jpg,

Shivaji Shivaji Bhonsale I (; 19 February 1630 – 3 April 1680), also referred to as Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj, was an Indian ruler and a member of the Bhonsle Maratha clan. Shivaji carved out his own independent kingdom from the declining Adil ...

's portrait (1680s) in the Rijksmuseum (1630-80)

Special Exhibitions

All the Rembrandts

in 2019, to mark the 350th anniversary of the artist's death, the museum mounted an exhibition of all the works by Rembrandt in its collection. Consisting of 22 paintings, 60 drawings and over 300 prints, this was the first time they had all been exhibited together. Principal features were the marriage portraits of Marten Soolmans and Oopjen Coppit along with the presentation of the ''Night Watch'' immediately before its planned restoration. The exhibition ran from February to June.

Slavery in the Dutch Empire

After previous temporary exhibitions on art historical themes, the Rijksmuseum in 2021 presented an exhibition on the history of

slavery Slavery and enslavement are both the state and the condition of being a slave—someone forbidden to quit one's service for an enslaver, and who is treated by the enslaver as property. Slavery typically involves slaves being made to perf ...

in the Dutch colonial Empire, with more than a million people forced into slavery. It covered trans-Atlantic slavery from the 17th to the 19th century in

Suriname Suriname (; srn, Sranankondre or ), officially the Republic of Suriname ( nl, Republiek Suriname , srn, Ripolik fu Sranan), is a country on the northeastern Atlantic coast of South America. It is bordered by the Atlantic Ocean to the nor ...

, Brazil and the Caribbean, as well as Dutch colonial slavery in South Africa and Asia, where the

Dutch West India Company The Dutch West India Company ( nl, Geoctrooieerde Westindische Compagnie, ''WIC'' or ''GWC''; ; en, Chartered West India Company) was a chartered company of Dutch merchants as well as foreign investors. Among its founders was Willem Usselincx ...

(WIC) and the

Dutch East India Company The United East India Company ( nl, Verenigde Oostindische Compagnie, the VOC) was a chartered company established on the 20th March 1602 by the States General of the Netherlands amalgamating existing companies into the first joint-stock ...

(VOC) were engaged in slavery. Besides objects, such as a wooden block for locking slaves, paintings, archival documents, oral sources, poems and music, the exhibition also presented connections of the slavery system at home in the Netherlands. In the permanent collection, labels were added to 77 paintings and objects that had been seen as symbols of the country's wealth and power to indicate previously hidden links to slavery. The exhibition was presented both physically in the museum from May to August 2021 and in an online version. It was complemented by audio tours and videos relating personal and real-life stories as well as an accompanying book titled ''Slavery''.

Number of visitors

The 20th-century visitor record of 1,412,000 was reached in the year 1975. In the 1990s and early 2000s, the Rijksmuseum was annually visited by 0.9 to 1.3 million people. On 7 December 2003, the main building of the museum was closed for a renovation until 13 April 2013. In the preceding decade, the number of visitors had slightly decreased to 0.8 to 1.1 million people. The museum says after the renovation, the museum's capacity is 1.5 to 2.0 million visitors annually. Within eight months since the reopening in 2013, the museum was visited by 2 million people. The museum had 2.2 million visitors in 2013 and reached an all-time record of 2.47 million visitors in 2014. The museum was the most visited museum in the Netherlands and the 19th most visited art museum in the world in 2013 and 2014.Top 100 Art Museum Attendance
''

The Art Newspaper ''The Art Newspaper'' is a monthly print publication, with daily updates online, founded in 1990 and based in London and New York City. It covers news of the visual arts as they are affected by international politics and economics, developments ...

'', 2014. Retrieved on 28 June 2014. The

COVID-19 Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) is a contagious disease caused by a virus, the severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2). The first known case was identified in Wuhan, China, in December 2019. The disease quick ...

pandemic forced the closure of the museum from December 15, 2020 until June 4, 2021.

Library

The

Rijksmuseum Research Library The Rijksmuseum Research Library is the largest and oldest public art history research library in the Netherlands. The library is part of the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam. The profile of the library collection parallels that of the museum. The onlin ...

is part of the Rijksmuseum, and is the best and the largest public

art history Art history is the study of aesthetic objects and visual expression in historical and stylistic context. Traditionally, the discipline of art history emphasized painting, drawing, sculpture, architecture, ceramics and decorative arts; yet today, ...

research library A research library is a library which contains an in-depth collection of material on one or several subjects.(Young, 1983; p. 188) A research library will generally include an in-depth selection of materials on a particular topic or set of to ...

in The Netherlands.

Restaurant

Rijks, stylized as RIJKS®, is a restaurant with 140 seats in the Philips Wing. Joris Bijdendijk has been the

chef de cuisine A chef de cuisine (, French for ''head of kitchen'') or head chef is a chef that leads and manages the kitchen and chefs of a restaurant or hotel A hotel is an establishment that provides paid lodging on a short-term basis. Facilities ...

since the opening in 2014. The restaurant was awarded a

Michelin star The Michelin Guides ( ) are a series of guide books that have been published by the French tyre company Michelin since 1900. The Guide awards up to three Michelin stars for excellence to a select few establishments. The acquisition or loss of a ...

in 2017.Michelinster voor Amsterdamse restaurants Rijks, Bolenius en Mos
, ''

Het Parool ''Het Parool'' () is an Amsterdam-based daily newspaper. It was first published on 10 February 1941 as a resistance paper during the German occupation of the Netherlands (1940–1945). In English, its name means ''The Password'' or ''The Mott ...

'', 2016. Retrieved 10 January 2017.

Notes

References

External links

*
Multimedia Content of museumVirtual tour of the Rijksmuseum
provided by

Google Arts & Culture Google Arts & Culture (formerly Google Art Project) is an online platform of high-resolution images and videos of artworks and cultural artifacts from partner cultural organizations throughout the world. It utilizes high-resolution image technol ...

* {{Authority control 1798 establishments in the Batavian Republic Amsterdam-Zuid Art museums and galleries in the Netherlands Art museums established in 1798 Articles containing video clips Museums in Amsterdam National museums of the Netherlands Order of Arts and Letters of Spain recipients Pierre Cuypers buildings Rijksmonuments in Amsterdam