Rembrandt

Below Rembrandt's great painting The Syndics of the Drapers' Guild... The Dutch master's 1662 painting has been on my mind this week after I made a slightly embarrassing slip-up at the weekend. I was leaving a car inspection center and unwittingly stepped into a staff canteen rather than taking the adjacent exit door. As I popped my head in the door a gang of mechanics attending to their morning coffee looked at me with bewilderment before I made my apologies and a beeline for door number two. Thinking about the blunder afterwards, Rembrandt's painting came to mind with its suggestion that some interloper has intruded upon a meeting of a Clothmakers Guild. I love the dynamism of the painting, the figure, third from left, seated at the table with his hand open as if to demand an explanation for the intrusion, and more dramatic still, the gentleman second from left who appears to be getting up perhaps to eject the unwanted visitor. I was lucky enough to see this wonderful (and large) painting at the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam a few years ago, and if you're in town I'd highly recommend spending an afternoon browsing the museum's Rembrandts, but failing that Wikipedia has a very good collection with some impressively large scans including The Syndics of the Drapers' Guild