Museum Van Loon

The house at Keizersgracht 672 was built in 1672 by Adriaan Dortsman as one of a pair, and Ferdinand Bol, Rembrandt's pupil, was its first resident. The Van Loon family - one of whose members was a founder of the Dutch East India Company - bought it in 1884 and it is theirs still, opened as a museum in 1973 with the contents in place: family portraits going back to the seventeenth century, furniture, silver, porcelain and the staircase with its copper banister. What makes it worth choosing over the other canal-house museums is the depth of the plot. Behind the house is a formal garden, restored to an eighteenth-century plan, and behind that a coach house built to look like a classical temple, facing back at the house across the garden - the standard arrangement of a wealthy Amsterdam property, and one of very few surviving complete.

What you actually see

• A house of 1672 - built by Dortsman, first lived in by Rembrandt's pupil Bol.
• One family's contents - portraits, silver and furniture kept in place since 1884.
• A formal garden - restored to an eighteenth-century plan behind the house.
• A temple-fronted coach house - closing the plot at the far end of the garden.

When to go

All year. Two hours.

Honest expectations

It is a small house - two hours covers it. Stairs are steep. The garden is closed in bad weather and in winter. Photography is restricted in some rooms.

Nearby

The Willet-Holthuysen house and the Rijksmuseum are short walks away.