Rembrandt may not have been much of a globetrotter – unlike many of his countrymen he never left the Netherlands – but you wouldn’t be able to tell from his etchings, which confidently depict the clothing, architecture and animals of foreign lands. (There may have been some projection involved: one self-portrait features Rembrandt holding what he imagined to be an Indonesian sword.) Arranged around themes such as ‘People’, ‘Animals’, ‘Buildings’ and ‘Stuff’, an exhibition at the Rembrandt House Museum comprises more than 40 etchings that attest to the artist’s boundless curiosity about life and material culture outside the Low Countries. It also tells a more wide-ranging story about Amsterdam as a global hub for commercial and cultural exchange (15 June–1 September).
Find out more from the Rembrandt House Museum’s website.
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The Shell (Conus Marmoreus) (1650), Rembrandt van Rijn. Rembrandt House Museum, Amsterdam
St Jerome Reading (1634), Rembrandt van Rijn. Rembrandt House Museum, Amsterdam
Self-Portrait with Raised Kris (1634), Rembrandt van Rijn. Rembrandt House Museum, Amsterdam