The Amsterdam Museum, until 2011 called the Amsterdams Historisch Museum, is a museum documenting the history of Amsterdam. Since 1975, it is located in the old city orphanage between Kalverstraat and Nieuwezijds Voorburgwal..
For some years the Archaeological Survey ·of the Netherlands Indies has been exploring various caves-in the Island of Celebes, where the occurrence of prehistoric settlements was proved or supposed. Under the leadership of the late Dr. P. V. VANSTEIN CALLENFELS,at that time Head of the Archaeological Survey, excavations were made in a Cave North of Tjani, in South Bone, in 1934, and in ,the Cave <OfPanganrejang Toedeja, near Bonthain, 1937. In both caves shells and shell-fragments were found. Some of these were evidently collected by the primitive inhabitants for • food or ornamental purposes. The presence of others, however, must be regarded as merely 'casual, introduced accidentally by man or animals, or by the agency of inanimate forcessuch as water, wind m earthfalls. The shells were presented to the Zoological Museum of Buitenzorg, Java. The Director of this Institute, Dr. K. W. DAMMERMAN,transmitted them to me for identification and discussion. In the same Southern fork of Celebes, at a little distance from the grottoes just mentioned, excavations were alsocarried out by Dr. VANSTEIN CALLENFELS and his collaborators in a 'cave near Tjita. On these operations a preliminary report was published: "Archaeologisch Onderzoek in Celebes" (Tijdschr. Kon. Ned. Aardr. Genootsch. (2) Vol. 60, 1938, p, 138 142). At p. 140 of this account
Rembrandt's Anatomy Lesson of Dr. Tulp, Nightwatch, and Syndics are rightfully considered masterpieces of seventeenth-century Dutch painting. Few museum visitors realize they are among over one hundred corporate group portraits commissioned in Amsterdam during that period by the civic guard, charitable institutions, and the craft guilds. Such paintings were the result of the collective desire of a group of people to be represented and immortalized during their execution of the jointly shared responsibilities on which the urban society was built. Corporate group portraits were commissioned and produced to occupy wall spaces in semi-public buildings, reinforcing the missions of both the institutions and the sitters. Their meaning changed fundamentally after they started to leave their original locations and found their way into the direct custody of the city. Some of the paintings were acknowledged as masterpieces and, with the focus firmly on their artistic value, their historical function became neglected.
