Rembrandt's Mystery Quest: three masterpieces revisited
The start of this cache is close to the Rembrandthuis. This is where Rembrandt van Rijn produced a remarkable number of paintings and prints. During this quest, you will follow in the footsteps of the Dutch master and you will explore and discover the stories behind three of his most famous paintings, all of which depict one of the city's medieval guilds. Along the way you have to collect eight pieces of coordinates (WXYZ and ABCD) to locate the cache. The full walk will be around 3km.
The map from 1649 below will be helpful to complete this quest. Your current location is marked by #77 on this map. Note that direction North is the bottom right corner of the map.
Waypoint 1 (N 52° 22.180' E 4° 54.073')
You are standing on an old water lock (sluis). Now look down and not to the sky and search for the places from far away:
- Cape Leeuwin xx Bxx
- Lake Aral x xCx
(A hint is available at the bottom of the page)
Waypoint 2 (N 52° 22.283' E 4° 54.057')
Navigate to Waypoint 2.
A poem is displayed on the floor. Search for the two “key” letters.
- Number of keys in “A” = coordinate D
- Number of keys in “R” = coordinate Z
You dont have to count the number of "A" and "R" letters in the poem, instead look out for the keys.
(Another hint is available at the bottom of the page)
Waypoint 3 (N 52° 22.350' E 4° 54.025')
Navigate to the Waag building on the Nieuwmarkt (#80 on the 1649 map).
The first stone for this building was laid down on the 28th of April 1488. This day is still visible on the stone tablet with Gothic signs and Roman numbers (on its wall on the side of Zeedijk). Amsterdam was a small walled city from 1481 to 1601. An entrance gate to the city was located here, and the city wall ran along the canal (as can be seen on another map from 1544).
As the city grew bigger, the wall and gate became obsolete, and the gate was transformed in a building. This building was used as a weigh house and later served as a guildhall for the different craftsman guilds of Amsterdam. This building is nowadays only one of the few surviving guildhalls left in Amsterdam.
If you walk around the building, you will notice the different entrances of different guilds. The guild of Saint Luke, the Painter’s guild, was located to the back side of the building. Rembrandt became a member of this guild in 1634. The guild of the Surgeons was also housed in this building. The entrance of this guild can be seen to the right of the main (restaurant) entrance. The setting of Rembrandt’s painting The Anatomy Lesson from Dr. Nicolaes Tulp (1632) was set inside those walls.
Besides the guilds of Saint Luke and the Surgeons, there are two other entrances with visible references to two other guilds. What are those guilds (to find coordinate pieces W and X with help from the matrix below)?
Waypoint 4 (N 52° 22.104' E 4° 53.762') - Optional
Navigate to the Doelen Hotel, which is a 500 meter walk along the former city wall. This is where the Kloveniersdoelen (Musketeers‘ shooting range) of the Amsterdam shooter's guild used to be located (#97 on the 1649 map). The Kloveniersdoelen was one of three shooting ranges for the Amsterdam civic militia guards. The original building was constructed in 1382, but was replaced in 1520 with a new building, adjacent to a defensive tower in the city walls known as Swych Utrecht. Its primarily role was to defend the city against attacks by the Bishopric of Utrecht.
The walls of the Kloveniersdoelen were decorated with group portraits of the different companies of the shooter's guild. One of them was Rembrandt’s most famous painting, the Night Watch (Nachtwacht). The Night Watch was commissioned in 1639 by Captain Banninck Cocq and seventeen members of his civic militia guard. It was completed in 1642, and was subsequently displayed in the central hall of the Kloveniersdoelen until 1715, after which it moved to the City Hall on Dam square. Nowadays two members of the city guard can still be seen on the facade of the hotel building.
Waypoint 5 (N 52° 22.097' E 4° 53.840') - Optional
80 meters away in the Staalstraat, you will find the Saaihal, which used to be part of the Staalhof complex (#96 on the 1649 map). Rembrandt's later work from 1662, the Syndics of the Drapers' Guild (De Staalmeesters), depicts the steel masters at work in this building.
The Staalhof was the center of the cloth industry, which dominated the area around the building. It was here that fabrics were checked by inspectors, who were known as "drapers" due to the way they made use of test strips to check the fabrics. The characters in the painting are at work directly behind these outer walls, studying the quality of the materials that their suppliers provided.
Waypoint 6 (?)
The final two coordinates can be found on the central statue of #71 on the 1649 map. Please head there and solve the puzzle below:
L. Royer. (MCDY.)
- M–C+D+Y = coordinate A
- C–M = coordinate Y
Cache (?)
Once you have collected the eight pieces of coordinates, you can navigate to the cache on the location below:
- N 52° 2W.XYZ' E 4° 5A.BCD'
(Checksum: the 8 pieces of coordinates add up to 29)
The Lost Painting
In case you enjoyed this Geocache, an extended version is available: Questo - Rembrandt's Mystery Quest - The Lost Painting