Image source: La casa di Alchemilla.com

Amsterdam, the capital of the Netherlands, offers art lovers many opportunities, with museums focusing on Flemish painting but also on contemporary art. A landmark figure in the city is Rembrandt, whose oil paintings are world famous: in Amsterdam, you can visit the house where he lived, the Rembrandthuis, but some of his works are also in the Rijksmuseum and other Dutch cities.

Tickets to visit Rembrandt’s house

Autoritratto di Rembrandt

Admission tickets to the Rembrandt House offer visitors a unique experience: to see where and how the painter worked, thanks to the reconstruction of the environment with objects and furniture from the 17th century. Also part of the Rembrandt House Museum is a more modern building, which houses more than two hundred of his masterpieces and temporary exhibitions.

With the entrance ticket to the Rembrandthuis, visitors will be provided with a free audio guide, which will take them through the rooms of the house where he lived between 1639 and 1658. The house and museum are open daily from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. The ticket can be cancelled or rescheduled, the timing varies depending on the type of ticket.

The house has been reconstructed to be as faithful as possible to life in the 17th century and is unfortunately not accessible for people with disabilities; however, the entrance, museum shop, auditorium, toilet and exhibition rooms are accessible to those with reduced mobility or wheelchair users, as is the new wing, which has a lift; this houses not only works by Rembrandt, but also those of his contemporaries and later artists who were inspired by him.

This house was the largest studio of the time and Rembrandt lived there in his last successful years until his tragic bankruptcy. With the auction sale of almost all his possessions, the house was also sold. In 1906, the year of the 300th anniversary of the artist’s birth, a foundation was established with the aim of buying the house and making it not only a museum, but a testimony to his life; in 1911 the museum opened to the public for the first time.

Inside, visitors can view the artist’s works, his collection of shells, as well as drawings and engravings; there are also engraving and painting demonstrations every day. Then, until 11 June 2023, there is the exhibition ‘The Art of Drawing’, the entrance to which is included in the ticket for the Rembrandthuis and which, in addition to drawings by Rembrandt, exhibits drawings by Bol and Mes.

Rembrandt Museum and Amsterdam Canal Cruise

Amsterdam is a unique city, also because it is largely developed on water, and its canals have always been a strategic element for communication and trade.

It is possible to combine a visit to Rembrandt’s house museum and a cruise along Amsterdam’s canals at a special price compared to single activity tickets: besides immersing yourself in the life of an artist from the so-called ‘Dutch Golden Age’ by entering what was his home for several years, the canal tour will give you a taste of the city’s history.

Boat tours on Amsterdam’s canals last one hour and take place daily from 9 a.m. to 10 p.m., giving tourists the opportunity to enjoy a fascinating sunset on the water. An audio guide will be provided on board explaining the highlights of the itinerary. The ticket does not include any food or drink, and rescheduling or cancellation is possible up to 24 hours in advance.

The starting point is in the medieval heart of Amsterdam, dating back to the 13th century. Some of the sights you can see during the tour are:

• the old harbour, with its replica of a 17th century merchant ship, named after Amsterdam
• the point where the river Amstel (hence the name of the Dutch capital) meets the canals
• Grachtengordel, the famous canal district
• Anne Frank House
• Westerkerk, a Protestant church whose 85-metre high bell tower is the tallest in the city
• Magere Brug, the wooden drawbridge built in 1934

Other works by Rembrandt in Amsterdam and Holland

Rembrandt’s works are not only to be found in his house-museum in Amsterdam. In the city, if you are a fan of the Dutch artist, you should visit the Rijksmuseum, where among the masterpieces you should not miss is the ‘Night Watch’, together with paintings by Van Gogh, Vermeer and Floris van Dyck. In The Hague, on the other hand, the ‘Anatomy Lesson of Dr. Tulp’ is kept at the Mauritshuis Museum.

To visit the many museums in Amsterdam, a good idea to get the most out of your stay in the city at the lowest possible cost is to buy a pass, which will give you access to a large number of attractions: not only museum admissions, but also experiences such as boat tours or the Heineken experience, as well as discounts for theatre performances, concerts and restaurants.

These city cards have a variable duration and are activated the first time they are used. Be careful, however: the validity refers to the date, not to days understood as 24 hours, so if it is activated in the afternoon it will already count as a whole day. It will then suffice to show it in the affiliated places to enter without having to make an additional ticket.