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A research trip to Amsterdam December 8, 2024

We have just returned from a memorable few days in Amsterdam, where we stayed in an Airbnb apartment near Central Station.

The first day we took a bike tour of the old city, a great way to get our bearings although biking is not for the faint hearted!  Amsterdam has wonderful cobbled streets and canals, and there are people and bikes everywhere.  We even spotted a boat with a frogman trawling the canals to remove old bikes.

We visited Anne Frank’s house, which was a very moving experience. The secret annex where the family hid was larger than I imagined, but still small and dark. It is astonishing to think they had to be so quiet during the day when the office workers were there. They could not run any water or flush any loos in case it was heard in the pipes, and they made as little movement as possible in case of the floorboards squeaking.  It was wonderful to see her diaries first hand, and a video of her father with his memories, and those that helped them.

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We also visited Rembrandt’s house and it was very interesting to see where he lived and worked for nearly twenty years.  Rembrandt moved to Amsterdam in 1631 from Leiden, and in 1639, he and his wife took up residence at number 4 Jodenbreestraat, in the Jewish quarter at the heart of the city. I especially enjoyed seeing Rembrandt’s studio with its four north-facing windows. Here he experimented with dramatic lighting and loose brush strokes.

It was a surprise to hear that Rembrandt wasn’t a particularly nice man with a complicated personal life, including fraught relationships with two of his maids after the death of his wife. Although he enjoyed great artistic success during his lifetime, he was constantly in serious financial trouble, living well beyond his means. He amassed a large collection of art and rare artefacts from far off lands.

The Van Gogh Museum was well worth a visit. It contains the largest collection of Van Gogh’s paintings and drawings in the world. However, as the National Gallery in London is holding a Van Gogh exhibition this year, we did wonder how much would still be in the museum in Amsterdam. We needn’t have worried! There was a wonderful collection of works, woven through a timeline of his life.

Van Gogh had many correspondences with paintings and drawings attached, with his brother Theo to whom he was very close, but also with Anthon van Rappard, Emile Bernard and of course Paul Gauguin, with whom he argued and afterwards infamously cut off part of his own ear.  Van Gogh only sold two paintings in his life time. It was his sister in law Johanna van Gogh-Bonger who promoted van Gogh’s work after his death and made him famous.

The Rijksmuseum offered a wonderful trip through Netherlandish art.  The national museum of the Netherlands, it tells the story of 800 years of Dutch history, from 1200 to the present day. It was great to see the collection of sculptures and Vermeer’s paintings, but the highlight had to be The Night Watchman by Rembrandt. Probably Rembrandt’s most celebrated painting, it is nearly 400 years old and shows the citizens of Amsterdam protecting the city. In 2019, the Rijksmuseum started a wide-ranging research and conservation project on this masterpiece in full view of the visiting public, in a specially designed glass chamber.

It’s amazing to think that Amsterdam was built on marshland about a thousand years ago. The city was created by draining the swamps, digging canals, and building on millions of wood filings that serve as foundations.

We absolutely loved our time exploring the old town with its canals, bridges, streets and gabled houses. We wandered around the markets and enjoyed the street art too. Amsterdam has a vibrant cultural scene and is definitely one of my favourite European cities!

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