The Rembrandt House Museum in Amsterdam has reopened its pop-up tattoo studio, where visitors can get tattoos inspired by the Dutch master’s work.
The museum’s Poor Man’s Rembrandt Project runs from 26 October to 7 November, bringing Henk Schiffmacher and his team from Amsterdam’s Schiffmacher & Veldhoen studio, alongside artists from Antwerp’s St. Catherina Tattoo, to Rembrandt’s former home.
First held in 2023, the project sees the tattoo artists set up their studio in the museum’s modern wing, next to Rembrandt’s former home on Jodenbreestraat, where the artist lived and worked in the 17th century.
The Poor Man’s Rembrandt Project connects traditional etching techniques with contemporary tattoo art at Rembrandt’s former home Rembrandt House Museum
Visitors can book appointments or enquire about walk-in slots for smaller Rembrandt-inspired tattoos. Prices range from €100 to €350, according to the museum.
Milou Halbesma, director of the Rembrandt House Museum, told The Art Newspaper that the project was about craftsmanship, saying: "This is all about content. We are a museum of craftsmanship, and we are trying to throw open the craft of Rembrandt and his students as widely as possible."
Alongside the pop-up studio, Schiffmacher and his team are recreating Rembrandt’s 1633 etching The Descent from the Cross on the back of a competition winner. The tattoo is being created over several sessions, with the final stage scheduled for the museum’s late-night opening on 7 November.
Schiffmacher said: "An old tattoo artist once called tattoos 'The Poor Man’s Rembrandt': a work of art that is more affordable than a painting by one of the old masters, but no less carefully executed and selected."
He added: "For us, it is an incredible honour to work in the place where Rembrandt’s soul can still be felt, and to work with his etchings and drawings. Grand and small art coming together."
The museum said that Rembrandt and Schiffmacher & Veldhoen share a connection to Amsterdam and a mastery of their craft. Tattooing, like etching, uses ink and a needle to create "a work of art that you carry with you for life".
