Rijksmuseum

The Rijksmuseum (English: State Museum) is a Dutch national museum in Amsterdam, located on the Museumplein.

The museum is dedicated to arts, crafts, and history. It has a large collection of paintings from the Dutch Golden Age and a substantial collection of Asian art. It also displays the stern of the HMS Royal Charles which was captured in the Raid on the Medway, and the Hartog plate. The museum was founded in 1800 in The Hague to exhibit the collections of the Dutch stadtholders inspired by French example. By then it was known as the National Art Gallery.

In 1808 the museum moved to Amsterdam on the orders of king Louis Bonaparte, brother of Napoleon Bonaparte. The paintings owned by that city, such as The Night Watch by Rembrandt, became part of the collection. The front of the museum is located at the Stadhouderskade, but on the other side it has a prominent position on the Museumplein, nowadays among the Van Gogh Museum, the Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam, and the Concertgebouw. In 1890 a fragment building was added to the Rijksmuseum. This building was made out of fragments of demolished buildings that together give an overview of the Dutch history of architecture.

In 1906 the hall for the Night Watch was rebuilt. In the interior more changes were made, between the 1920s and 1950s most multi-coloured wall decorations were painted over. In the 1960s exposition rooms and several floors were built into the two courtyards. The building had some minor renovations and restorations in 1984, 1995–1996 and 2000. From 2003 until 2013 the Rijksmuseum will be restored and renovated based on a design by Spanish architects Antonio Cruz and Antonio Ortiz. Many of the old interior decorations will be restored and the floors in the courtyards will be removed. During the restoration and renovation process only about four hundred of the one-million piece permanent collection are on display in an exhibition called The Masterpieces in the already renovated "fragment building," nowadays called the Philips wing.

The Rijksmuseum Research Library is part of the Rijksmuseum, and is the best and the largest public art history research library in The Netherlands. The paintings collection includes works by artists Jacob van Ruysdael, Frans Hals, Johannes Vermeer, Jan Steen and Rembrandt and Rembrandt's pupils.