Most kindly invites you to join us for a Special Event

On Sunday 16th March 2025 at 12.15* hrs. to

'The Illusionist - Samual van Hoogstraten'

A Guided Tour in English at the Museum Rembrandthuis, Amsterdam

*  I.e. that's meetup at the museum by 12.00.

Praise is due to the Museum Rembrandthuis for its eminent choice in reintroducing Rembrandt's most successful pupil to a wider audience – namely Samuel van Hoogstraten (1627-1678), who was born in Dordrecht almost four hundred years ago.  Now his oeuvre is being displayed in a first ever solo exhibition, where you´ll be able to admire works that have never been seen in the Netherlands before.

The Museum has worked in collaboration with the Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna, the Dordrechts Museum, Dordrecht, and the RKD (Nederlands Institute for Art History), The Hague.

The Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna, has recently devoted an exhibition to the artistic dialogue between Rembrandt and van Hoogstraten.

The Museum Rembrandthuis dug deeply into the reasons why Samuel van Hoogstraten's art distinguished itself compared to his contemporaries and concluded:  it was the effect of the optical illusion, a field in which van Hoogstraten was a pioneer.  Ancient Greek painters and his master Rembrandt had also searched for a way to deceive the onlooker´s eye – but the young artist had an advantage:  the camera obscura.

Samuel van Hoogstraten had left Rembrandt's atelier after having been under the latter's guidance for four years.

He returned to his hometown Dordrecht, where he worked very hard to improve his technique and soon mastered the visual tricks in creating a 3-dimensional illusion.  By using the perspective in a cunning way together with a perfect textural expression of the depicted materials, the artist created art, where it was difficult to distinguish the real from the painted world.

Van Hoogstraten was a very prolific artist, he was intrigued by all he observed and painted Still-lives, Portraits, Architectural pieces, scenes from daily life, Biblical, and mythological representations, his total oeuvre comprises over 500 paintings, drawings, and prints. But he was also a writer and published several art books based on a scientific approach to the arts.  He considered painting a science not a craft.

The artist travelled to Germany, Austria, and Italy in 1651 - some 11 years later he spent five years in England, where he painted for the well to do interested in science.  In his lifetime he was most successful, but after his death in 1678 his fame gradually faded, as happened to various 17th century painters, and nowadays few have heard of him.

Let´s celebrate this occasion by paying a visit to the Rembrandthuis, the very place, where it all started!  Are you joining us?

We have 15 places available.

You are requested to sign up for this Special Event beforehand by clicking on the sentence at the 'How to book' section.