Strengthening your image with a (self)portrait, enjoying food, drink, reading and making music, growing old with a wrinkle or showing off your wealth. The exhibition in the H’ART Museum shows it all, in an ode to 17th-century Amsterdam. With no fewer than 18 Rembrandts and a Vermeer, and much more. 

On the occasion of Amsterdam’s birthday, H’ART Museum shows various facets of daily city life in this new exhibition. Not in today’s life, but in that of the 17th century. Great artists from Dutch history show life in the city: on stage, in everyday reality and in the privacy of home. The best artists are represented, including Rembrandt van Rijn, Frans Hals, Jan Steen, Ferdinand Bol and Johannes Vermeer. There is also work on display by the hitherto lesser-known Maria Schalcken: a prominent female artist from the 17th century.

Using various themes such as fashion, religion, science and leisure, a total of 75 works of art, mainly portraits, by 27 artists provide an image of city life at that time. The exhibition ends with the Vermeer. One of his last paintings and a masterpiece in this collection. A young woman sits at a virginal (a type of harpsichord) and looks straight at you.

18 Rembrandts and a Vermeer
The collection comes from The Leiden Collection, one of the largest and most important private collections of Dutch 17th-century art in the world. The founders of the collection are the French-American collector Dr. Thomas S. Kaplan and his wife Daphne Recanati Kaplan. A private collection that you normally can’t just see. What’s also special is that the collectors lend all the Rembrandts especially for this exhibition: 17 paintings and 1 drawing. In total, eighteen Rembrandts that are shown together to the public for the first time.