The 10-Millionth Visitor to the Rijksmuseum Spends the Night Sleeping Under Rembrandt

This story is a few years old but it charmed me too much this morning to let it slide. In 2017, four years after its grand reopening, Amsterdam’s Rijksmuseum welcomed its 10-millionth visitor, a man named Stefan Kasper. His lucky timing resulted in getting to spend the night in the museum, where he dined and slept underneath Rembrandt’s the Night Watch.

Here’s a short video of Kasper’s time in the museum:

I still can’t believe it. I discovered characters that I have never seen before. They came to life in front of me. It’s an experience that is forever etched in my memory.

Not the same, but I got to go to a press preview when the MoMA reopened a few years ago after renovations and it was quite an experience to wander those familiar galleries pretty much by myself. I stood in front of Starry Night and One: Number 31, 1950 for a really long time that morning.

• art
• museums
• Rembrandt
• Rijksmuseum
• Stefan Kasper
• video