Prints

The Rijksmuseum’s print collection is one of the largest and best in the world. It comprises more than a half million engravings, etchings, woodcuts, lithographs, and sheets in other graphic techniques, and ranges from around 1440 to the present: from the medieval Master of the Amsterdam Cabinet to the 20th-century artist Carel Visser. The collection owes its fame to prints by Rembrandt and other Dutch masters, as well as works by great European and Japanese printmakers, such as Dürer, Raimondi, Tiepolo, Canaletto, Utamaro, and Hokusai. In addition, the Print Room accommodates substantial sub-collections, including history, portrait, fashion and ornament prints; topography; decorative paper; and popular prints.

The core of the collection was purchased by Louis Napoleon, then king of Holland, in 1807, and has since been expanded with numerous important acquisitions and gifts. Thanks to the fund that the print historian F.G. Waller bequeathed to the museum in 1934, the Print Room is able to purchase hundreds of new acquisitions every year.