Amsterdam, Willet House Museum

Amsterdam Building Photos Thumbnails Buildings Home

Willet House Museum
Museum Willet-Holthuysen

A museum in Amsterdam, the Netherlands, on the Herengracht canal. It is the only fully furnished canalside patrician house in Amsterdam that is open to the public. The museum has a large collection of silverware, plates, and books from the Dutch Golden Age. It also has a substantial collection of art.

The house was built for Jacob Hop, mayor of Amsterdam, around 1685. He was not the last mayor to own the house. In 1739 the outside was redesigned to look as it does today, in the highly fashionable Louis XIV style. The last private owner, Mrs. Willet-Holthuysen, bequeathed the entire house to the city of Amsterdam on condition that it became a museum in 1895. The curator named in that year was Frans Coenen Jr., a writer, composer, and art critic. It has been a museum ever since.

Three floors are open to the public, the souterrain, with the kitchen and garden (restored in 1972), the first floor (bel-etage with long hallway), and the top floor, with one bedroom on display and rooms for exhibitions. In the blue room, several paintings on the walls show previous owners (by unspecified artists). In this room there are also several decorative paintings by Jacob de Wit, though these have been sourced from other buildings in Amsterdam. Decorative pieces by Jacob de Wit were at some stage in the house, but previous owners took them with them. It is not clear if some of the current Jacob de Wit paintings are 'back home'. Flower paintings are on display by various Amsterdam painters, such as Adriana Johanna Haanen.

Photo 475