17th century paintings "couldn’t be more topical”

Since its opening, crowds have been flooding to visit the ING-sponsored exhibition Hendrick Avercamp – The Little Ice Age.

In the Christmas holidays especially, queues over an hour long formed in the freezing cold outside the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam for a chance to view Avercamp’s wonderfully detailed paintings.

Visitors could see for themselves just how much - and how little - the famous seventeenth century ice-skating scenes varied from those taking place outside on Holland’s frozen canals and lakes. As the Dutch newspaper Het Parool put it, “an art exhibition couldn’t be any more topical”.

Sell-out success

And it is not just the paintings themselves that are pulling the crowds: guided tours have sold out, people have flocked in their hundreds to hear special Avercamp lectures, and children’s workshops have proved so popular that extra ones had to be set up.

Hendrick Avercamp (1585 – 1634) is generally considered the greatest winter landscape artist of the Dutch Golden Age. The exhibition features 20 of his finest paintings and 25 of his best drawings loaned from museums and private collections across the world.

ING main sponsor Rijksmuseum

ING has been the main sponsor of the world-famous Rijksmuseum since 2005. “Culture is a mainstay of our sponsorship policy”, explains Irene Duyn, Arts & Culture programme manager at ING. “We find it important to open art up to a wide public, so that’s a focal point of all our cultural partnerships.”

50% discount for ING card holders

Show your ING account card and you get a 50% discount on your admission fee to the exhibition. This offer also applies to any ING account cards shown by overseas ING customers visiting the exhibition.

Hendrick Avercamp – The Little Ice Age runs until 15 February 2010 in Amsterdam’s Rijksmuseum. It then transfers to the National Gallery of Art in Washington DC, USA.