Rijksmuseum

With close to one million objects and 1.2 million visitors a year, Amsterdam's Rijksmuseum (State Museum) is the largest museum of art and history in the Netherlands and Amsterdam's most popular attraction. The Neo-Gothic building located on Museumplein square holds the magnificent Dutch national art collection of some 5,000 paintings, 30,000 pieces of applied art and 17,000 historical artifacts.
The museum will start extensive renovations in 2003 until 2006, but the West Wing will remain open during the renovation and will house part of the collection. 

The museum was designed by P.J.H. Cuypers and opened in 1885. The Rijksmuseum is perhaps best known for its collection of 17th-century Dutch masters, with twenty Rembrandts, four by Vermeer and numerous other paintings by artists, such as Frans Hals and Jan Steen. But of course the museum houses more than just paintings: there are superb collections of for example silver, doll's houses, mysterious Asiatic art and since 1996 a photographic collection.

Van Gogh Museum

A visit to the Van Gogh Museum is a unique experience. There is no other place in the world where you can see so many of Vincent van Gogh's paintings under one roof. Most of Vincent van Gogh's works have never left Holland, and 200 paintings and 500 drawings are on permanent display in the Van Gogh Museum. Gerrit Rietveld designed the building and the museum officially opened its doors in 1973.

The Museum contains the largest collection of Van Gogh's work. You will find more than 200 exceptional canvases from the painter's hand, as well as 500 drawings and 700 written documents. Together, these provide a fantastic insight into his life and work. In the museum, Van Gogh's work is organized chronologically into five periods, each representing a different phase of his life and work: the Netherlands, Paris, Arles, Saint-R?my and Auvers-sur-Oise.

An extensive permanent collection of other 19th century artists can also be viewed in the museum. These artists were contemporaries and friends of Van Gogh, and include Paul Gauguin and Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec. Van Gogh met these artists in Paris. Here he saw with his own eyes how the French artists created their Impressionist pictures and living in Paris was formative in the development of his painting style. Van Gogh had known only Dutch painting and the French Realists and now he saw for himself how the Impressionists handled light and color, and treated their original themes from the town and country.