Rembrandt's Shah Jahan to go on display in Amsterdam

A series of portraits of Mughal Emperor Shah Jahan by Dutch master Rembrandt van Rijn are among a host of treasures from India that will be put up on display at an exhibition at Amsterdam's famous Rijksmuseum.
The drawings by Rembrandt, one of the greatest painters of the Dutch Golden Age spanning the 17th century, will be shown alongside Mughal miniatures of the period that inspired him as part of the 'Asia in Amsterdam' show.
"The exhibition features an extraordinary array of priceless objects from Asia, reflecting the lavish lifestyle of collectors of the period and the power of Amsterdam in the 17th century, built on the profits of the 'world's first multi-national', the Dutch East India Company," the museum said in a statement.

The exhibition begins on October 17 this year and will end on January 17 next year.
A prolific painter, draftsman, and etcher Rembrandt is usually regarded as the greatest artist of his period and has inspired numerous seventeenth-century painters.
At the museaum, on show will be shells, black ebony, filigree and gem-studded jewellery from India; white and blue porcelain from China; silks, lacquer work and ivory from Japan; masterpieces of Dutch and Asian art of the period.

The exhibits are drawn from the encyclopaedic holdings of the Rijksmuseum and the Peabody Essex Museum in Salem in the US, as well as loans from some of the world's other great museums and private collections.

Among these are the Royal Collection, London; the Ashmolean Museum, Oxford; the Royal Collections in Sweden; the Thyssen Bornemisza Museums, Madrid; the Chateau de Versailles, Paris, the National Gallery of Art, Washington; the Art Institute, Chicago; the Orientalist Museum, Doha; the Staatliche Museum, Berlin; the Museum of Fine Arts, Budapest; the Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna.
The exhibition will also throw light on some of the treasures of the Rijksmuseum's permanent collection alongside.
The exhibition is presented by the Rijksmuseum in partnership with the Peabody Essex Museum in Salem, Massachusetts, which has one of the biggest Asian export art collections in the world.

The exhibition will travel to the Peabody Essex Museum after its showing at the Rijksmuseum, opening in February 2016.