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Southern California is home to the third-largest assemblage of Rembrandt paintings in the United States. “The Golden Age in the Golden State” is the fitting title of one of the current exhibitions that display Rembrandt van Rijn’s work in California this month. A number of museums coordinated their shows in Los Angeles, San Diego and San Marino.

One of the highlights is “Drawings by Rembrandt and His Pupils: Telling the Difference” in The Getty Museum. This exhibition features drawings by 15 of Rembrandt’s pupils in close comparison to drawings by the master himself. The show also features works of other Dutch painters taught by or inspired by Rembrandt such as Ferdinand Bol and Nicolaes Maes.

There are currently seven temporary exhibitions in Southern California:

• Through February 28: Drawings by Rembrandt and His Pupils: Telling the Difference (The Getty Museum, Los Angeles, CA)
• Through February 28: Drawing List: The Dutch Visual Tradition (also in the The Getty Museum)
• Through March 7: From Rembrandt’s Studio: The Prints of Ferdinand Bol (San Diego Museum of Art, San Diego, CA)
• Through March 22: The Familiar Face: Portrait Prints by Rembrandt (The Norton Simon Museum, Pasadena, CA)
• Through March 22: Rembrandt Prints (Hammer Museum, Los Angeles, CA)
• Through March 29: Exhibition: The Golden Age in the Golden State: Dutch and Flemish Prints and Drawings from the Huntington and Crocker Collections (Huntington Library, San Marino, CA)
• Through May 2: Rembrandt’s Recession: Passion and Prints in the Dutch Golden Age (Timken Museum of Art, San Diego, CA)

There is also a virtual exhibition of Rembrandt’s work in Southern California.

Today the Netherlands Board of Tourism and Conventions (NBTC) launched a new marketing campaign in North America. The campaign is titled “Just be. In Holland.” and means to appeal to every type of traveler.

According to the NBTC press release: “Whether your style is classic or contemporary, Holland has something for everyone, from iconic Dutch canals and windmills to innovative design shops and cutting-edge fashion.”

To mark the launch of the campaign various contests are held on the website www.holland.com with prices such as a Dutch Batavus bicycle, a trip to the Netherlands or having a fresh bouquet of tulips delivered to your home for a year.

Various promotional activities will take place in New York City, such as themed subway cars that represent Holland’s cultural, classic and contemporary aspects and street teams will be deployed at the Grand Central and Times Square stations each week to distribute Holland-themed giveaways

Conrad van Tiggelen, Director, NBTC North America, looks forward to engaging with potential travelers for the launch of the new campaign. “The new ‘Just be. In Holland.’ campaign epitomizes what repeat visitors to Holland already know—that Holland is a place where you can truly be yourself and discover a world of authentic and modern experiences, whether you are interested in art, culture, design, fashion or architecture.”

Netherlands Board of Tourism and Conventions
www.holland.com/us

Several weeks ago we mentioned on our Facebook page that Danku, a Dutch restaurant in New York, had temporary closed.

However, it became clear that Danku would not reopen. The telephone and their website stopped working and Midtown lunch wrote that eviction notices were posted on the store’s windows. An article today on 925.nl (in Dutch) talks about the eviction lawsuit and mentions that the second store of Danku in Antwerp, Belgium has also closed.

It’s sad to see a Dutch store or restaurant close but don’t forget that we have nearly 50 Dutch restaurants, stores and bakeries in the United States in our directory.

Last week we visited The Dutch Epicure Shop Bakery in Connecticut, one of nearly 50 Dutch restaurants, bakeries and stores in the United States that we know of.

The Dutch Epicure Shop Bakery is a Dutch bakery and grocery store in Litchfield, Connecticut. It’s located on a small strip mall on highway 202, about 45 minutes east of Hartford, the state’s capital.

The store was founded by a Dutch baker in 1967 and a few years later purchased by Wolfgang and Betsy Joas. Mr. Joas, an German-born pastry chef and Mrs. Joas, a Dutch national from Diemen, the Netherlands, met on a ship of the Holland-American Line and started a Dutch-German-American family and store. Eight years ago their daughter Wilma, who is trained as a chef at the Culinary Institute of America, took over the business and continued the tradition of friendly service and high quality products. Her mother Betsy still assists in the store and the ordering.

A friendly Dutch bakery

Over the years the family built up a successful bakery and grocery store with a loyal following, in Litchfield and far around it. “There’s only one other Dutch family in Litchfield”, Mrs. Joas explains, “but we receive Dutch customers from all over the Tri-State Region, coming as far away as Boston and New Jersey”. About 20% of the customers is Dutch — the store is also the bakery for the local community.

Popular items from the bakery are the bitterkoekjes and Amsterdams krentenbrood (baked on Fridays and Saturdays). They sell out quickly — “the people know about it and show up early!”

During the holidays Wilma bakes banketstaven and other traditional goods. Dutch cookies year-round include speculaas, hoefjes and bokkenpootjes. We can vouch for the Almond bitterkoekjes (of which we received a free sample) and the quality of the Dutch-style bread.

Customers are received with happy smiles and service in either English, German or Dutch.

Dutch groceries

Wilma and Betsy repeatedly warned your correspondent that “the store is empty because of our upcoming vacation”, but the shelves were still overflowing. The store closes each year for a few weeks in February to allow a vacation break. Wilma was born in the United States but learned Dutch from her mother and speaks Dutch fluently — something her mother is proud of.

The biggest selling item are the Dutch cheeses in many varieties and are available for a sample — “Ik zal hem even laten proeven because hij is zo lekker”. The store carries a large supply of Indonesian spices and condiments, including the Dutch Conimex brand. The store has about 30 varieties of drop, Dutch licorice.

The store combines German and Dutch influences, a nougat and strudel are joined with beschuit and Delft Blauw on the shelves. Mrs. Joas mother frequently visits the Netherlands to stay up-to-date on trends and new styles in food. Frozen herring is supplied by Vishandel de Otter from Den Haag (www.vishandeldeotter.nl) and the store carries gele vla and chocolade vla.

The Dutch Epicure Shop Bakery
491 Bantam Rd.
Litchfield, CT, 6759
View on map

On February 2, 2010, the India House Foundation will open Ships, Explorers and the World Trade Center, a new exhibition featuring discoveries, artifacts, and multimedia that illustrate the maritime history of downtown New York.

Highlights of the exhibition include:

• The charred remains of a ship’s bow excavated in 1916, long thought to be the ship’s keel of Dutch explorer Adriaen Block’s ship Tijger, which burned off Manhattan in 1613, and a bronze cannon marked “VOC,” property of the Dutch East India Company
• An ancient, 11-foot iron anchor hoisted from the construction site of the World Trade Center in 1967, where it had been buried for more than 300 years (Courtesy National Maritime Historical Society)
• Documentary film footage from 1916 of the discovery of the Ship Tijger keel and a section of Manhattan Company Water Pipe (1800) found during excavation for the IRT subway tunnel at the future World Trade Center site (Courtesy Brooklyn College Archives)
• A model and film of the USS NEW YORK, the Navy’s newly commissioned (7 November 2009) Landing Platform, Dock Warship, made with 7.5 tons of World Trade Center Steel forged into its bow (Courtesy USS NEW YORK Commissioning Committee)
• At the entrance to The India House: a steel artifact recovered from the World Trade Center. This will be a permanent reminder of the World Trade Center, the innocent victims, and the bravery of those who responded on September 11, 2001

“The India House is the perfect setting for this historic exhibition,” commented Margaret Stocker, IHF Trustee and curator of the exhibition. “The land at One Hanover Square was owned in 1673 by Peter Stuyvesant’s nephew and New Amsterdam’s secretary, Nicholas Bayard, and the current building dates to after the Great Fire of 1835.”

The India House Foundation was established in 1999 to document and preserve maritime history and help revitalize Lower Manhattan, New York City.

Ships, Explorers and the World Trade Center, India House, One Hanover Square, New York City
February 2-28, 2010
www.indiahousefoundation.org.