A Day at the Museum

Isn’t this a beautiful painting of a beautiful building? The painting is made by Bartolomeus van Hove, and can be seen at the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam.

But this post isn’t about the Rijksmuseum, but about the museum in the building on the painting; Het Mauritshuis

Although originally build as a palace for Dutch Prince John Maurits, it is now an art museum with the emphasis on Dutch and Flemish paintings from 15th/17th century.  The building still looks quite the same, and, completely renovated this year,  inside it is like a beautiful candy box.

One of the first paintings which caught my eye was this intriguing portrait of and old woman and a boy, by Peter Paul Rubens. The tenderness in her face is so wonderful to see.

Something completely different:

 

This cute fellow is the star in an amazingly detailed work by Paulus Potter: the Bull.

It was so amazing to actually see all these paintings. The images were all known; as all Dutch kids did, I grew up with pictures of all of these famous works, but in a picture in a book, you can never see how big a painting really is, you don’t see the texture, the actual colours, etc..

Of course there were a lot of paintings by other famous painters like Frans Hals and of course Rembrandt. But also:

Vermeer’s little girl; she actually follows you with her eyes when you move through the room.

A painting not as much interesting for the image, but much more for its frame:

A Portrait of Michiel de Ruyter by Ferdinand Bol. If you look at the frame (the original!) you can see all kinds of attributes which belonged to this Dutch Admiral, or which refer to him or his career. They were attached to a frame and coloured with a golden colour.

And finally, one of the smaller paintings but since it was used in a book last year, a very famous painting: Carel Fabritius’ Goldfinch.

Unfortunately, I can’t show you all the beautiful, paintings of this wonderful museum, I can only hope that you’ve enjoyed this little tour, and maybe you’ll go and have a look if you might be in the neighborhood.

Groetjes, Dorien