Rijksmuseum to put €160 million Rembrandts on tour

The two Rembrandt paintings which the Rijksmuseum and the Dutch Government committed to buying for 160 million euros will first make an exhibition tour of all twelve provincial capitals around the Netherlands before reaching their new home at Amsterdam's Rijksmuseum. The Bonnefanten Museum in Maastricht won the honour as the first museum to receive the paintings, Director Stijn Huijts confirmed with Telegraaf.nl.

Huijts also told the paper that the paintings should be carried across the French border with a drumroll and fanfare. In recent years the wedding portraits of Maerten Soolmans and Oopjen Coppit have been dubbed, “Brother and Sister of the Night Watch,” referencing Rembrandt's masterpiece that hangs in the Rijksmuseum.

The event has brought the Cabinet, party leaders, and members of the art world together in the hope of getting the canvases, to the Netherlands.

Until ownership is transferred they are under the control of a French branch of the Rothschild banking family. The Louvre Museum in Paris is also believed to have made a competing offer.