The Rijks Museum is tied with the Van Gogh Museum for being the prodominant museum in Amsterdam. Most of the paintings in it are from the 17th century, when the Netherlands were quite powerful.
There were some exquisite portraits (and some of some very fat Lords), beautiful still life paintings (my favourite being one of flowers, fruit and bugs- they all seem to have bugs in their still life paintings), and even some extremely detailed doll houses.
Doll houses back then were not just for children. Full, adult women would commision extrordinary doll houses as a sign of wealth and status that they could show to thier friends and acquaintances. One woman even had almost all of the pieces of furniture, dolls, china, etc. in hers made specially so everything was exactly to scale.
The most famous artist their is this guy named Rembrant, who was apparantly very popular in his time for his work with shadow and light on his subjects. He, unlike many other artists, also had several different styles, ranging from coarse, quick strokes to small, detailed strokes.
All in all, the Rijks museum was quite fascinating.
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