Rembrandt House Museum

This guide to the Rembrandt House Museum in Amsterdam opens in 1656, as officials move room by room through this Jodenbreestraat house, cataloguing everything Rembrandt van Rijn owned down to the last shell and stuffed animal. It traces how he filled the house after buying it in 1639 for a staggering sum, trained pupils like Ferdinand Bol in its studio, and painted The Night Watch under this roof, even as debts mounted, creditors circled, and his former companion Geertje Dircx took him to court over alimony. The studio where Bol once worked still sits just above the entrance hall.