p. 1-5
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Bibliographie
Le Temple des arts, ou le Cabinet de M. Braamcamp, par de Bastide, Amst. 1766. – He had 7 Rembrandts!1
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New observations to confront (Mai 59): 71
197. Ætatis. 56 1634 Mierevelt. Is this Cats?2 It is the same as in the Van der Hoop collection.3
420. Uytenbogaard is perfectly by F. Bol.4
HBerckman5
363 Wolf after the Titian in the Louvre.6
14 Beerstraten superb. Influence of Rembr.7
243. Potter f 1645. True. Very nice tone. a little bit worn.8
99 isn't it Gyzels?9
350 R. v. Vries f – much Hobbema.10
270 Ruijsdael absolutely Everdingen11
242. Potter to be authenticated.12
The sign. of van der Meer de jonge no. 189??13
367 Ph Wouwerman First manner.14
The de Vois of Steingracht is the same as 349 Amsterdam.15
234. Not Italian. Painted by a Fleming.16
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Vente Hendrik Trip, Bewinthebber van de Oost-Compagnie. 1740. Amsterdam.17
Trippenhuis is without doubt the house of this Trip.18
Van der Heyden painted a view of this home of Trip, with the old Market and the public Weighing House.19
[1] MUSEUM OF AMSTERDAM20
The Museum of Amsterdam dates back only to the beginning of this century, when under the reign of a foreign king21 the old city hall on Dam Square, begun in the year of the Peace of Munster, 1648, by the architect Van Campen,22 was transformed into a royal palace. Until then, the city hall had been a kind of museum, like some churches in Italy.23 Here people went to see the famous Rembrandt [1]24 and the famous Van der Helst [2],25 which so amazed the English painter Joshua Reynolds during his Tour in Holland in 1781.26 The large representations of national history in the seventeenth century were exhibited in the various rooms of the City Hall. The main six of these paintings are now in the museum;27 the other municipal paintings have been crammed into the new City Hall,28 which is too small for so many treasures.
The building in which the museum is housed is not worthy of its ...
1
Rembrandt
Civic guardsmen of Amsterdam under command of Banninck Cocq, dated 1642
Amsterdam, Rijksmuseum, inv./cat.nr. SK-C-5
2
Bartholomeus van der Helst
Banquet of the Amsterdam Civic Saint George Guard in Celebration of the Peace of Munster, June 18th 1648, 1648 (dated)
Amsterdam, Rijksmuseum, inv./cat.nr. SK-C-2
3 Pieter Oosterhuis
Trippenhuis Amsterdam, c. 1855-1860
Amsterdam, Rijksmuseum, inv. no. RP-F-1999-140-4
2 MUSEUM OF AMSTERDAM.
... purpose. But in Amsterdam, this artificial island on stilts, there is not much to choose in terms of location. For lack of other large buildings, and of free lots to build a real pinacotheque,29 they contented themselves with an ordinary house called30 Trippenhuizen,31 sandwiched between other houses on a canal called Kloveniers Burgwal [3]. It has not even been possible to carry out a renovation to get better light. Consequently, the rooms still have side windows instead of skylights.32
The Print Room is on the first floor, at the end of a corridor decorated with pale and empty grisailles, signed and dated: Gerard de Lairesse, 1689 [4][5].33 A dark staircase, where some invisible paintings hang, leads to the second floor: there are only two rooms, and they are so low, that in the most important one, the aforementioned Night Watch by Rembrandt and the Banquet at the Crossbowmen's Guild34 by Van der Helst had to be placed at floor level. In the second room are the Syndics, by Rembrandt [6], the Regents, by Karel du Jardin [7], large portraits, etc. On the third floor are four or five other rooms, also with side windows, and they are even lower. There is no space, and there is no light; and besides the fact that the paintings are poorly placed and poorly lit, they are always covered with a mist, due to the humidity; so that one can only see them under a veil and in shadow!
The museum is supposed to be managed by a committee ...
4
Gerard de Lairesse
Allegory of the glory of Rome, dated 1689
Rotterdam, Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen, inv./cat.nr. 3144 (OK)
5
Gerard de Lairesse
Allegory of the fall of Rome, 1689 (dated)
Rotterdam, Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen, inv./cat.nr. 3145 (OK)
6
Rembrandt
The sampling officials of the Amsterdam drapers guild, dated 1662
Amsterdam, Rijksmuseum, inv./cat.nr. SK-C-6
7
Karel du Jardin
Governors of the Spinhuis and the Nieuwe Werkhuis, with a servant, Amsterdeam, 1669, dated 1669
Amsterdam, Rijksmuseum, inv./cat.nr. SK-C-4
3 MUSEUM OF AMSTERDAM.
... consisting of four directors,35 but in reality by two inspectors, one curator especially for prints, the other for paintings, Messrs. Klinkhamer and Engelberts, who are the only active officials, with36 some attendants.37 The directors, who are bankers, artists and amateurs, have nothing to do according to the organization's bylaws.38 The curators can do nothing because the institution is underfunded. As a result, this wonderful museum remains static, with no prospect of improvement. Despite the good will of the expert curators, there is not even a printed catalog of the valuable print collection,39 and of the painting collection there is only a poor little catalog of 30 pages, with no notes about the painters, not even dimensions!(1)
------
(1) Since this book is at the printer in Paris, a new catalog (in Dutch) has appeared – really just appeared – that finally does justice to the importance of the Amsterdam museum. This catalog is based on the Paris catalog and, like the Vienna one, contains facsimiles of the signatures that I myself had so meticulously noted.40 My comments and criticisms of the old catalog are therefore no more than a memory, which will make this new publication by the Amsterdam commission all the more valuable.41 I regret, however, that I did not have time to change certain passages in my book. Since it was impossible to overturn my entire typographical structure, I decided to leave…
4 MUSEUM OF AMSTERDAM.
This catalog of paintings (in Dutch and French, 1855) contains, under the title Dutch School, among which the Flemings are mixed, 344 numbers; – under the title 'Onderscheidene Scholen/Écoles diverses' (Diverse Schools), eighteen numbers: seven names of Italians, three names of Spaniards, two names of Germans, one name of a Frenchman; – and, under the title Unknown Masters, 40 numbers, almost all of them portraits.42
A new building, a new arrangement of the paintings, a new detailed catalog, these are needed first and foremost for the honor of artistic Holland, which should be eager to clarify and popularize the history of its glorious seventeenth-century school.
The full and exhaustive examination of the Amsterdam museum in its present circumstances is therefore very painful.
At first I planned to produce a new catalog, painting by painting, in alphabetical order and ...
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… the text as it is, adding only a few explanatory or supplementary notes.
I am pleased, moreover, that the compilers of the catalog have made good use of my critical remarks, which I had forwarded to Mr. Engelberts, and that the new catalog vindicates me on the false Van Balen, now attributed to Van der Venne in accordance with my indications, on the false Van Eycks and the false Brouwers, which have disappeared, and on a large number of points which I shall mention in notes in the course of this book.43
5 MUSEUM OF AMSTERDAM.44
... numbered; this would certainly be the most suitable form to correct the wrong dates to the names of the painters, to correct the often erroneous attributions, and to add a large number of documents; but such a work would interest only a small number of critics and amateurs, and be very boring for most artists, for whom the description of the most outstanding works is sufficient.45
A simple stroll past so many fine works, and note at random what strikes you most, would undoubtedly be an easier and more enjoyable method, but not very instructive, whereas this museum of Amsterdam offers so many elements for studying the Dutch school of painting as a whole.
To reconcile the importance of painters, vivid impressions and a certain historical order, it might be best to start directly with the great masters and group around them their disciples and imitators, then the painters practicing the same genre or specialty; for example, Rembrandt, Van der Helst and the painters of large compositions; Gerard Dov and the fine painters who worked in small format; Adriaan van Ostade, Jan Steen and the painters of popular and comic mores; Terburg, Metsu and the painters of elegant mores; Aalbert Cuijp and the painters of animals; Jacob Ruijsdael and the landscape painters; Willem van de Velde and the marine painters, etc. This is an entirely arbitrary classification; but the strictly ...
Notes
1 De Bastide 1766. There are even eight paintings by Rembrandt listed in the Braamcamp sale catalogue (sale Amsterdam (Schley, Yver), 31 July- 3 August 1771 (Lugt 1950), lots 172-178 (two paintings are mentioned under number 174). Still known are, for instance: lot 172, Christ in the Storm on the Sea of Galilee, 1633, Boston, Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, inv. no. P21S24 (stolen in 1990); lot 178, Portrait of a Man, probably Ephraïm Bueno, c. 1647, Amsterdam, Rijksmuseum, inv. no. SK-A-3982).
2 The numbers on this page refer to the second Dutch edition of the catalogue by Dubourcq (Amsterdam 1859), in which new facsimiles are added compared with the first edition (Amsterdam 1858). The catalogue numbers are the same in both editions.
3 Michiel van Mierevelt, Portrait of Jacob Cats, 1634, Amsterdam, Rijksmuseum, inv. no. SK-A-258; see below, p. 57.
4 Michiel van Mierevelt, Portrait of Jacob Cats, 1639, Amsterdam, Amsterdam Museum, inv. no. SA7548 (on loan to the Rijksmuseum since 1885, inv. no. SK-C-180).
5 Govert Flinck, Portrait of a Man, probably Augustijn Wtenbogaert, c. 1643, Amsterdam, Rijksmuseum, inv. no. SK-A-582; see below, p. 30 and the annotations by Thoré-Bürger opp. p. 38.
6 Hendrick Berckman, Portrait of Adriaen Banckert, Vice Admiral of Zeeland, Amsterdam, Rijksmuseum, inv. no. SK-A-36; see below, p. 169 below and the annotations by Thoré-Bürger opp. p. 169.
7 Benjamin Wolff, Francis I, King of France, 1809, Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam, inv. no. SK-A-475; not in Aanwijzing 1853; Amsterdam 1858, p. 164, no. 363.
8 Jan Abrahamsz. Beerstraaten, The Ruins of the Old Town Hall of Amsterdam after the Fire of 7 July 1652, 1652-1666, Amsterdam, Rijksmuseum, inv. no. SK-A-21; see below, p. 154.
9 Paulus Potter, A Herdsman's Hut, 1645, Amsterdam, Rijksmuseum, inv. no. SK-A-315; see below, p. 75 and Thoré-Bürger’s annotations opp. p. 72.
10 Peeter Gijsels (I), Village with a Puppeteer Entertaining a Small Crowd, c. 1650-1660, Amsterdam, Rijksmuseum, inv. no. SK-A-126; Amsterdam 1859, no. 99, as by ‘Gijssels; see below, p. 177 and Thoré-Bürger’s remarks opp. p. 180.
11 Roelof Jansz. van Vries, Landscape with Falconer, Amsterdam, Rijksmuseum, inv. no. SK-A-459; see below, p. 151.
12 Jacob van Ruisdael, Mountainous Landscape with Waterfall, Amsterdam, Rijksmuseum, inv. no. SK-A-348; see below, p. 149-150.
13 Attributed to Caspar Netscher, Man trimming bales of hay, Amsterdam, Rijksmuseum, inv. no. SK-A-319; this painting was not in the earlier catalogues; see p. 175 (note 2).
14 Jan van der Meer (II), The Sleeping Shepherd, 1678, Amsterdam, Rijksmuseum, inv. no. SK-A-248; see below, p. 135. The facsimile is in Amsterdam 1859, p. 88, no. 189. The same remark is written opp. p. 144 (1/2).
15 Philips Wouwerman, Dune Landscape with a Signal Post, c. 1651-1653, Amsterdam, Rijksmuseum, inv. no. SK-A-479; see below, p. 130.
16 Ary de Vois, The Merry Fiddler, c. 1660-1680, Amsterdam, Rijksmuseum, inv. no. SK-A-457; see p. 96-97, below. The painting in the collection of Steengracht is: Ary de Vois, Sitting Smoker With a Jug, London, Robert Noortman Gallery by 1998. According to Thoré-Bürger these two paintings are made by the same artist.
17 Workshop of Quinten Massijs (I), The Virgin and Child, c. 1525-1530, Amsterdam, Rijksmuseum, inv. no. SK-A-247; see below, p. 183. While Thoré-Bürger says in the main text that this is a copy after Parmigianino, his notes show he is apparently the first to realize that it is a Flemish painting instead. This only becomes apparent in the Rijksmuseum's collection catalogues in 1880, see: Hoogland 2010.
18 Sale Amsterdam, 11 May 1740 (Lugt 520); see p. 2 and Hoet 1752, vol. 2, p. 5-7.
19 See on the Trippenhuis: Meischke/Reeser/Van Eeghen 1983. The Trippenhuis was built for the brothers Louys and Hendrick Trip, based on a design by architect Justus Vingboons. It remained in the Trip family's possession until the end of the 18th century.
20 Thoré-Bürger refers to what is now called Nieuwmarkt (New Market) on which is the Waag or weighing house. This facility was located in a former city gate, the St. Anthonispoort. There is no painting by Jan van der Heyden depicting this subject in Wagner 1971 or in the RKD images database. Perhaps he refers to a painting by Gerrit Berckheyde; see Lawrence 1991, p. 62, where four versions are mentioned (for instance, no. 67: View of the Kloveniersburgwal with the Trippenhuis on the Right, in the Background on the Left the Anthoniespoort and the Waag at the Nieuwmarkt, 1685, private collection). With many thanks to Norbert Middelkoop, email 1 November 2025.
21 Officially, in 1858 the museum was called 's Rijksmuseum, not the Museum of Amsterdam. This name is somewhat misleading because even though the main seven paintings were city-owned (to this day), the institution is a national or state museum and is funded by the national government, not the city.
22 Louis Napoleon, King of Holland (1806-1810), was indeed the one who in 1808 moved the national art collection from The Hague to Amsterdam and housed it as the Royal Museum in Amsterdam's City Hall, which he had turned into his Royal Palace shortly before in the same year. On Louis Napoleon and his cultural policy, see Bergvelt 1998, p. 55-87, 299-308; Grijzenhout 1999, Bergvelt in Koolhaas-Grosfeld 2007. It is somewhat surprising that Thoré-Bürger mentions neither the name nor the nationality of this king. Did he not want to remind his readers of the Napoleonic period?
23 Jacob van Campen designed the Town Hall on Dam Square, which was indeed begun in 1648. It was consecrated in 1655, after Van Campen had left in 1654. Construction, which lasted until 1665, was then supervised entirely by Daniel Stalpaert, who initially supported Van Campen (Buvelot et al. 1995).
24 Not only the Amsterdam city hall but many city halls in other Dutch cities had become a kind of proto-museums where the ever-growing municipal art collection was displayed since the Iconoclasm in 1566 (Bergvelt in Jensen/Leerssen/Mathijsen 2010, p. 172).
25 Rembrandt, The Night Watch Militia Company of District II under the Command of Captain Frans Banninck Cocq, 1642, Amsterdam, Rijksmuseum, inv. no. SK-C-5.
26 Bartholomeus van der Helst, Banquet at the Crossbowmen's Guild in Celebration of the Treaty of Munster, 1648, Amsterdam, Amsterdam Museum, inv. no. SA 7328 (on loan to Rijksmuseum, inv. no. SK-C-2, since 1808).
27 Joshua Reynolds traveled through the Southern and Northern Netherlands between 24 July and 14 September 1781. His notes of this trip were first published in 1797 as part of Reynolds' Works (see the 1996 reissue by Harry Mount, Reynolds/Mount 1781, p. xiii). Again, Thoré-Bürger shows a certain bias: the title of this edition is not Tour in Holland, but A Journey to Flanders and Holland.
28 The paintings in question are seven, not six, from municipal holdings that were on loan in Amsterdam first to the Royal Museum in the Royal Palace (formerly City Hall of Amsterdam) and then to 's Rijks Museum in the Trippenhuis: two Rembrandts (The Night Watch & The Syndics), two Van der Helsts (Banquet at the Crossbowmen's Guild in Celebration of the Treaty of Munster & The headmen of the Longbow Civic Guard House, the latter now back in Amsterdam Museum), a Karel du Jardin (Regents of the Spinhuis), a Govert Flinck (Civic Guardsmen of the company of Captain Joan Huydecoper and Lieutenant Frans van Waveren, now back in Amsterdam Museum), and a Willem van de Velde (II) (The Golden Lion on the IJ off Amsterdam, now back in Amsterdam Museum). Not the City Hall, but the City of Amsterdam was and still is the owner of these paintings. At the opening of the newly built Rijksmuseum in 1885, 259 paintings, including the original seven, were presented in the museum as loans from the city (Middelkoop 2001, p. 71). When the Amsterdam Historical Museum in Kalverstraat opened in 1975, three of the original seven artworks were returned to this Amsterdam Museum.
29 After the departure from the seventeenth-century city hall, Amsterdam's city government was based in the Prinsenhof on the Oudezijds Voorburgwal (1808-1988).
30 By 'pynacothèque', Thoré-Bürger refers to Munich, where the architect Leo von Klenze had designed the Pinakothek, later Alte Pinakothek. This museum was admired and imitated throughout Europe. Von Klenze was also invited to London to give evidence as an architect before the Parliamentary Commission of Inquiry into the National Gallery (1853) (Bergvelt in Bergvelt/Meijers/Rijnders 2005, p. 328).
31 Inserted in margin: 'Trippenhuis ou'.
32 The Trippenhuis, as it is called today, was not so ordinary; it was at that time the largest house on an Amsterdam canal. On this building, see: Meischke/Reeser/Van Eeghen 1983. More information on the Trippenhuis and the family Trip in the annotations of Thoré-Bürger opp. p. 1 (2/2).
33 It was then generally believed that museums should have large halls with overhead lights and cabinets with side lights. At least that is how Klenze had done it in the Alte Pinakothek (Van Wezel in Bergvelt/Meijers/Rijnders 2005, p. 314).
34 Gerard de Lairesse, Allegory of the Glory of Rome & Allegory of the Fall of Rome, 1689, Rotterdam, Museum Boijmans van Beuningen, inv.nos. OK 3144-3145 (on loan from the city of Rotterdam); Aanwijzing 1853, p. 16, no. 156, Lairesse (Gerard de; 1640-1711), Eene rijke zinnebeeldige Voorstelling, in het graauw (A rich symbolic Compositon, in gray) (tax.: fl. 500), and no. 157, Een dito [Eene rijke zinnebeeldige Voorstelling], als voren [in gray] (A ditto [A rich symbolic Composition], as before [in gray]) (tax.: fl. 500); Amsterdam 1858, p. 80, no. 172-173. These two grisailles were removed from the collection of the Rijksmuseum in 1920 and were gifted by the Dutch state to the city of Rotterdam, on the occasion of the opening of Rotterdam's new city hall. See also below, p. 146.
35 It says ‘le Repas des Arquébusiers’; arquébusiers are in Dutch 'haakbusschutters', yet Thoré-Bürger refers to Bartholomeus van der Helst, Banquet at the Crossbowmen's Guild in Celebration of the Treaty of Munster, 1648, Amsterdam, Amsterdam Museum, inv. no. SA 7328 (on loan to Rijksmuseum, inv. no. SK-C-2, since 1808). Amsterdam 1855, p. 11: '103. Le Banquet de la Garde civique à Amsterdam, à l'occasion de la Paix de Munster, conclue en 1648. The second Van der Helst mentioned there is: '104. Les Chefs ou Arbitres de la confrèrie des Arbalétriers à Amsterdam'. Today that painting is called The headmen of the Longbow Civic Guard House. Is Thoré-Bürger confusing the titles of these two paintings?
36 From 1844, after the death of the first director Cornelis Apostool, who did receive a salary, the Rijksmuseum was run by an unpaid Supervisory Committee (1844-1847). Starting in 1847, there was a Board of Governors, also unpaid. There were no directors between 1844 and 1875. It was not until 1875 that a paid director was again appointed. In 1858, the members of the Board of Governors were: underwriter and artist Pierre Louis Dubourcq, artist and collector Nicolaas Pieneman (secretary of the Board), banker, collector and artist Pieter Ernst Hendrik Praetorius (chairman), and underwriter and art patron Jacob de Vos Jacobsz., see Amsterdam 1858, p. vi.
37 'some attendants' is underlined and the upper margin of this page reads: 'on March 18, 1859, the Holy Family of Van der Werff was stolen’, See: Bergvelt 1998, p. 162, 330 (note 15). See also the clipping from the Gazette des Beaux-Arts that is pasted opp. p. 144 (2/2).
38 In 1858, Willem Jodocus Mattheus Engelberts was the second supervisor, to deal specifically with the paintings, and Hendrik Abraham Klinkhamer was the first supervisor, for the prints. Interestingly the print supervisor earned more than the supervisor of the paintings. They had no curatorial appointment.
39 After the death of director Apostool in 1844, there were new regulations. That concerned the prevention of fire and how the supervision of Pavilion Welgelegen near Haarlem was regulated. That pavilion housed the nation's nineteenth-century collection of paintings from 1838 to 1885. Until 1838, paintings (and very few sculptures) by 'living masters' hung in Amsterdam's Rijksmuseum and The Hague's Mauritshuis. Supervision of the collection in Paviljoen Welgelegen was assigned to the directors of the Rijksmuseum and the Mauritshuis together. Moreover, in 1857 new Regulations had been formulated about which Engelberts and Klinkhamer asked questions (Rijksmuseum Archives, Ingekomen stukken, inv. no. 26, no. 134 (Nov. 20, 1857), questions by Klinkhamer and Engelberts about new Regulations to the Board of Governors: 1). Did these Regulations replace all previous ones? There was an Instruction to the Board of Governors from 1847, Inventory Rijksmuseum (Rikhof 1989, p. 5, no. 68).
40 One of Apostool's main occupations at the museum was organizing the prints, following the example of Bartsch 1803-1821. There was a handwritten inventory of the prints, not a printed catalogue.
41 It seems that the last 's' in 'nous-mêmes' has been crossed out in pencil in the margin.
42 Amsterdam 1858. This catalogue was the work of Pierre Louis Dubourcq alone (and not of the committee as a whole), who was able to make use of the preparatory work of the supervisors Willem Jodocus Mattheus Engelberts and Hendrik Abraham Klinkhamer (Bergvelt 1998, p. 179-184). Paris catalogue: Villot 1852. Vienna catalogue: Krafft 1853.
43 Amsterdam 1855. There is no known Dutch version of this catalogue, but there is one from 1853, which will be quoted in this edition: Aanwijzing 1853, in which the appraised values of each painting have been written down.
44 The false Van Balen is: Adriaen van de Venne, Fishing for Souls, 1614, Amsterdam, Rijksmuseum, inv. no. SK-A-447; see below, p. 61-63. For the Van Eycks see below: p. 176-177; and for the Brouwers: p. 95-96.
45 Pages 5 and 6 have been placed between pages 8 and 9 in this interleaved copy of the book. In this translation, we have inserted them in the correct order.
46 Apparently, Thoré-Bürger had intended his Musées for an audience of artists.