Rembrandtplein & Night Watch statues

A square named after a painter

Rembrandtplein is a large open square in central Amsterdam, and the man it is named after stands in the middle of it. The statue is cast iron, on a grey granite base. On the base you can read a replica of his signature. It is outdoors, free, and there at any hour. Ten or fifteen minutes is enough.

The square carries his name because Rembrandt van Rijn owned a house nearby from 1639 to 1656. That house is a short walk away, and we come to it at the end.

The Night Watch in bronze

Many people come for the life-size bronze figures that once stood around the statue. They were a bronze version of Rembrandt's most famous painting, The Night Watch, made by the Russian artists Mikhail Dronov and Alexander Taratynov. They first appeared in 2006, for the 400th anniversary of his birth. After three years they travelled to New York, Moscow and Oranienbaum in Russia. In 2012 they came back to the redesigned square.

Here is what to know before you go. According to our sources, the figures were removed on 12 February 2020. The local business association could not agree with the artists on renting or buying them. So do not count on finding the group. If the bronzes matter to you, check locally first. The statue of Rembrandt himself is always there.

From butter market to nightlife

Before it was a square, this was part of the medieval defences. A gateway called the Regulierspoort stood here. By 1655 the city had grown beyond it, and farmers came to sell butter, dairy and poultry. The place became the Botermarkt, the butter market. By 1668 the gate held a weigh house. Every autumn a fair came, and dance orchestras and circus tents replaced the farmers' stalls.

The market lasted until 1876. Then the statue, made in 1852 by the sculptor Louis Royer, was moved from the edge of the square to the centre, and the square took the painter's name. The statue was cast in one piece. It is the oldest surviving statue in a public space in Amsterdam.

In the early twentieth century the square became a centre for nightlife. Hotels, cafés and entertainment venues opened in the streets around it, and artists, young people and labourers came. The present layout, with grey granite slabs, planters, trees and a small fountain, dates from a renovation finished in December 2009.

What to look for

Walk once around the statue and read the signature on the base. Then look up at the buildings. The largest, across Utrechtsestraat, was designed in 1926 by Bert Johan Ouëndag and Hendrik Petrus Berlage as the head office of the Amsterdamsche Bank. The bank left in 2002. After a five-year renovation it reopened in 2011 as an office and retail building called simply The Bank.

The edge of the square has grass and trees. The cafés around it carry on the old tradition of the fair days, and they are a good place to sit and watch the square.