Head of an Old Man in a Cap by Rembrandt, which is part of the Agnes Etherington Art Centre's permanent collection, is one of several paintings from the collection of Queen's benefactors Alfred Bader and Isabel Bader on display at the Rembrandt House Museum in Amsterdam.

A group of 17th-century Dutch paintings from the collection of Queen’s benefactors Alfred Bader, Sc’45, Arts’46, MSc’47, LLD’86, and his wife, Isabel Bader, LLD’07, are on display at the Rembrandt House Museum in Amsterdam.

The exhibition, which will run until January 2012, includes eight paintings already donated to the university’s Agnes Etherington Art Centre. The remainder of the Baders’ extraordinary collection is a promised bequest to the Art Centre.

“The Bader Collection is unique for its focus and concentration on Rembrandt and his circle,” says Art Centre Director Janet Brooke. “To see some of these works temporarily installed at, or within short miles of, the location where they were originally painted some 400 years ago is a moving experience that I know will be deeply appreciated by the thousands of visitors to the exhibition in the weeks to come.”

Among the paintings on display in Amsterdam is Head of an Old Man in a Cap by Rembrandt, which is part of the Art Centre’s permanent collection. Additional loans from the Centre include those by artists who worked in Rembrandt’s circle, such as Aert de Gelder, as well as a rare self portrait by the Flemish painter Michiel Sweerts.

The Rembrandt House Museum includes the residence in which Rembrandt lived and worked from 1639 to 1658. It is also where he taught many pupils, who spread his style and way of working and reinterpreted it.

“This site offers deep resonance for the Bader Collection, in which Rembrandt and his pupils stand central,” says David de Witt, Curator of European Art for the Art Centre, who with Ms Brooke assured the safe transport of the Art Centre’s paintings to Amsterdam. Dr. de Witt was among the speakers at the well-attended formal opening of the show, which is already garnering international media attention.