Erasmus Huis brings a sample of Amsterdam’s Rijksmuseum collection to Kuningan, South Jakarta.

The exhibition, which is being held from Sept. 24 to Oct. 12, presents pictures of the museum itself, reproductions of some of its more famous paintings and video screenings that provide up-to-date information on the renovation of the museum.

Highlights of the exhibition include three huge reproductions of masterpieces from the Rijksmuseum collection. They are the famous Winter Landscape with Ice Skaters by Hendrick Avercamp, The Night Watch by Rembrandt van Rijn and Milkmaid by Johannes Vermeer.  

“The painter put great detail into the canvas. A body warmer, bread crumbs, the light and the nails on the wall,” said in-house designer Boy Siahaan of the Milkmaid.

The reproduction of Winter Landscape with Ice Skaters, dating from 1608, is large enough that we can gaze into the activities of the numerous people in the painting. Visitors are challenged to spot the couple making love, the bare buttocks and the man urinating in the painting and to post them on social media.  

Dutch Ambassador to Indonesia Tjeerd de Zwaan (left), Indonesian National Gallery director Tubagus Andre Sukmana (center) and filmmaker Jord den Hollander pose with characters in The Night Watch.The exhibition was opened by the Dutch Ambassador to Indonesia Tjeerd de Zwaan, Indonesian National Gallery director Tubagus Andre Sukmana and Erasmus Huis director Ton van Zeeland last week.

Boy said the most challenging part in putting together the exhibition was making use of a corner of the room. One of the team members came up with the idea of putting a reproduction of a painting of the interior of the church of St. Bavo in 1636 by Pieter Jansz Saenredam.

“The picture sets perspective. It is as if we are heading into another room. We actually want to say that Rijksmuseum has so many more artworks to see,” he said.

A visitor studies a replica of Winter Landscape with Ice Skaters by Hendrick Avercamp (photo above). Displays of the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam (photo right)According to the official website rijksmuseum.nl, the Rijksmuseum is home to a collection of around 900,000 items, which include drawings, prints and photos. In 2000, the Dutch government launched a renovation of the museum, which opened in 1885. The entire renovation cost ¤375 million. It expects to welcome some 1.5 million Dutch and foreign visitors per year when it reopens next April.   

Dutch filmmaker Jord den Hollander presented an introduction to the restoration of the museum before the screening of his documentary movie, Mission Statement.   

“It took 12 years to renovate the museum, while it only took four years to build it. This renovation is one of the biggest decisions taken by politicians,” he said.

He went on to say that the Dutch government decided to promote their national architecture abroad in 1991 through their new embassies, which were being built all over the world. His film talks about four embassies and the stories of the people who live in those places.

It begins with the embassy in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, which was designed by Bjarne Mastenbroek and Dick van Gameren. The embassy was inspired by the Ethiopian monolithic rock-hewn churches. The other embassies are the Berlin embassy by Rem Koolhaas, the embassy in Maputo, Mozambique and the embassy in Paramaribo in Suriname.

 Tubagus praised the Dutch government efforts in paying so much attention to the museum, a historical building that has become an international tourist destination. He said the museums in Indonesia were also in need of some restoration.

“Fatahillah museum may look good from the outside, but the objects inside have not been arranged according to the building’s character,” he told The Jakarta Post.

— Photos by Indah Setiawati