Rijksmuseum of Amsterdam is a real pearl and not only due to its highest Royal status and the Girl with a Pearl Earring masterpiece painted around 1665 by the Dutch painter Johannes Vermeer. (Highly recommended on the subject: Peter Webber’s Girl with a Pearl Earring movie.)
There are several hundreds of amazing masterpieces by Dutch, Flemish and other painters across epochs and varying in style. Regular exhibitions held at the ground floors of the Rijksmuseum can become a really surprising bonus for you when you visit. An astonishing collection of impressionists for instances all in one place!
But talking about impressionists, Vincent van Gogh will always remain as the strangest during his life and the most expensive after his death painters born and raised in Holland. For those living in van Gogh’s times, it would have been impossible to imagine that he would become even more famous and certainly more commercial than his compatriot Rembrandt….
Vincent van Gogh reached his biggest fame after his death and he was never rich during his lifetime. He said “I can’t change the fact that my paintings don’t sell. But the time will come when people will recognize that they are worth more than the value of the paints used in the picture.” The 15 of May 1990, the painting The Portrait of Dr. Gachet was sold for $82.5 million US dollar, the highest price ever paid for a painting.
Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam stands right behind the Rijksmuseum. This neighboring is only practical though if you decide to visit both museums in just one day, which is probably not enough…
Request GUIDED TOURS of Brussels and anywhere in Benelux (in French, English, Hebrew, Italian, German, Spanish or Russian).