The current President of the United States is visiting the Netherlands (I’m reluctant to even mention his name, lest it bring out of the woodwork the internet trolls who feel that any mention of his name is a call to arms to use the comments section to decry how the Affordable Care Act marks the end of liberty as we know it, etc., etc., etc. — sigh).

At any rate, the President (you know which one) is there to attend a Nuclear Security Summit, but has taken a side tour to visit the Rijksmuseum and its world-renowned collection of Dutch art and artifacts.

The museum has taken advantage of the PR event and photo-op, and also published on its website images of a group of paintings that were the focus of the tour given the visiting President.

I don’t think they are indicative of the President’s taste in painting (I’ve never heard mention of him being particularly interested in art); I think he was actually there to view a historical document called the Act of Abjuration, on which the U.S. Declaration of Independence was in part based.

However, he was given a tour of the museum and I find it more interesting to see which pieces out of the Rijksmuseum’s superb collection the directors thought suitable for a Presidential visit.

Unfortunately, I can’t find a written description of the reasons for their choices. Some are obvious, of course, and come under the heading of the museum’s “greatest hits” — and one seems related to the signing of an official document by a legislative body, perhaps the document in question.

The choice of the street scene with the Mayor of Delft and the raucous family gathering, both by Jan Havickszs Steen, are more of a mystery to me.

You can click on any of the images in their feature to go to the large, zoomable versions, which can be downloaded (like any of their other high-res images) if you register for a free RijksStudio account (see my 2012 post on the New Rijksmuseum website).

(Images above, with detail crops: Johnnes Vermeer, Rembrandt van Rijn, Frans Hals, Jan Havicksz Steen, Bartholomeus van Bassen, Jan Havicksz Steen, Rembrandt)

Art museums are like icebergs, in that only a small part of their collection is visible at any given time. It’s always a plus when museums manage to display normally unseen works in different venues.

Three museums in Amsterdam, the Rijskmuseum, the Amsterdam Museum and the Hermitage Amsterdam, are launching a joint long-term exhibit, called “Gallery of the Golden Age”, in which seldom-seen large scale works from the first two museums will be exhibited in display space available in the latter.

There is an article on nrc.nl that offers zoomable images of some of these large-scale group portraits, described as being in the same tradition as Rembrandt’s famous Night Watch (The Shooting Company of Frans Banning Cocq). The zooming features take a bit of time to load, and the text is in Dutch, but you can use a little patience and Google Translate, respectively.

There is an article in English on the Amsterdam Museum site for more on these works and others.

You can also search the collections of the Amsterdam Museum and the Rijksmuseum.

(Images above: Nicolaes Eliasz Pickenoy, Govert Flinck, Nicolaes Eliasz Pickenoy and Thomas de Keyser, Nicolaes Eliasz Pickenoy)

[Suggestion courtesy of Aelle Ayres]

As well they should, a number of art museums are seeking to increase public interest by arranging tours, virtual or otherwise, of works in their collection relevant to the new feature film, The Monuments Men.

These can be works either recovered, or preemptively protected from the Nazi’s attempt to accumulate — and potentially destroy — much of the cultural heritage of Europe during WWII.

The Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York has created a tour itinerary of relevant works in their collection. The museum’s relationship to the events in Europe is tied to James Rorimer, a member of the Monuments Men team who later became the Met’s director.

As always, for those of us who can’t conveniently stop by the Met to view the works in person, the great advantage of the Met’s website is their provision of access to high-resolution images of most of the works featured.

(Images above: Jean Siméon Chardin, Philips Konick, Claude Monet, Thomas de Keyser, Giovanni di Paolo, Abraham van Beyeren, David Teniers, Gustav Klimt, Jan van Goyen)