Another glorious spin through the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam.
Always a feast, or should I say a series of feasts for the eye, on this visit I was attracted to the abundance of opulent gold. Seventeenth-century Amsterdam was in the throes of a Golden Age across all the Arts, reaching economic heights powered by its success trading at sea. Its rich and powerful merchant class commissioned the paintings that gave this period its fame.
They were also busy furnishing newly constructed townhouses with both Dutch-made and European imports of extraordinary quality.
The Rijksmuseum is rich indeed in its holding of these treasures.
[The top image is the prize of the Rijksmuseum’s Golden Age holdings, Rembrandt van Rijn’s Nightwatch. It is never without a throng of Nightwatch watchers.]
