Visit Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam

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The Rijksmuseum is a Dutch national museum in Amsterdam, located on the Museumplein. The museum is dedicated to arts, crafts, and history. It has a large collection of paintings from the Dutch Golden Age and a substantial collection of Asian art. It also displays the stern of the HMS Royal Charles which was captured in the Raid on the Medway, and the Hartog plate. The museum was founded in 1800 in The Hague to exhibit the collections of the Dutch stadtholders. It was inspired by French example. By then it was known as the National Art Gallery (Dutch: Nationale Kunst-Gallerij). In 1808 the museum moved to Amsterdam on the orders of king Louis Bonaparte, brother of Napoleon Bonaparte. The paintings owned by that city, such as The Night Watch by Rembrandt, became part of the collection. The renovation of the south wing of the museum, known as the Philips Wing, was completed in 1996. The wing is used as a temporary museum space during the major refurbishment of the main building (2003-2013). In early December 2003, a large part of the museum closed for a renovation that initially would take only several years, but due to various delays, will now take about ten years to complete. In the meantime, the Philips Wing (named after one of the sponsors) of the museum remains open to the public. On 26 February 2008 it was announced that the renovation will take a lot longer than previously planned. The opening is now scheduled for the first half of 2013. The major renovations will take place for an amount of € 322 million. During this time, The Night Watch can be seen in the Philips Wing together with all 17th-century masterpieces of the museum. After the renovation, in 2013, the museum will display an exhibition of Dutch art and culture from 1200 to 2000. The Night Watch will return to the Night Watch Room, at the end of the Hall of Fame. The reconstruction of the museum was completed on 16 July 2012. It will take until April 2013 before the museum reopens. Two weeks before the opening the museum's main pieces of art will move from the Philips Wing to the main building.

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