An English Princess and Rembrandt

Amsterdam was a two-hour drive from Oud Beyerland, but the Opal chugged along steadily, and Kees was pleasant company.  Our time was limited.  We went to two museums, the Rijks and the new Van Gogh.  After that I was too tired to do anything else but drive back to Margaret’s house and collapse.

The Rijks Museum, “the museum of the Netherlands”, with a magnificent collection of Dutch paintings, is housed in a monumental, neo-classical structure, like the Metropolitan in New York and the Art Institute in Chicago, typical of art museums built in the 19th Century. 

Tourists who are in a hurry can follow little signs with arrows directing them to “The Night Watch”, Rembrandt’s most famous painting.  In Paris similar arrows show tourists in the Louvre the direct route past all the other great works of art to the Mona Lisa. 

At the Rijks Museum, Kees and I took our time, pausing to look at all the paintings.  I remember a full-length portrait of the delicate young English princess who was mother to William of Orange, who became King William IV of England.  History books seldom point out that William and Mary were cousins.  She was the elder daughter of England’s King James II.  William was the closest male heir to the crown.  That’s why the English, who refused Mary Tudor’s request to give her husband Philip of Spain the title of King of England, welcomed the Dutchman and made William and Mary joint rulers.  After Mary’s death, he ruled alone, and no one protested.

To me his mother’s picture portrayed a young woman who was shy and sad.  As a teenager she was shipped off across the North Sea to marry this Dutchman, whom she did not know and who was rumored to prefer boys to girls.  However, pictures, even photographs, can be deceiving.  I hesitate to read too much into them.  Maybe the English princess and her Dutch husband had a happy marriage that produced this only son who was destined to be King. 

Deep in the museum, besides the “Night Watch”, was an entire room of Rembrandts.  Some superb portraits, but also a full-length painting of a beef carcase, correct in every detail of blood and guts.  I thought, “Ugh!”  

Just because it was painted by Rembrandt did not make it a fine painting.  I hated the ugly bloody thing.  Even the great Rembrandt could make a mistake.