Ons' Lieve Heer op Solder (Our Lord in the Attic Museum)

Ons' Lieve Heer op Solder (Our Lord in the Attic Museum) Review

With its elegant gray-and-white facade and spout gable, this appears to be just another lovely 17th-century canal house, and on the lower floors it is. But tucked away in the attic is a clandestine place of Catholic worship, a schuilkerk (hidden church), one of the very few to survive more or less in its original state. Catholic masses were officially forbidden from 1578, but the protestant authorities in Amsterdam turned a blind eye provided the churches were not recognizable as such from the outside. The Oude Kerk was decatholicized and stripped of its patron, St. Nicholas, so this little church, consecrated in 1663, was dedicated to him until the St Nicolaaskerk opened in 1887. The chapel itself is a triumph of Dutch classicist taste, with magnificent marble columns, gilded capitals, a colored-marble altar, and the Baptism of Christ in the Jordan (1716) painting by Jacob de Wit presiding over all. As well as the hidden chapel, the warren of other rooms in the house with their period furnishings provide an atmospheric glimpse into the life of a rich merchant. The museum is undergoing reconstruction until 2012 but staying open throughout.