Cat Portrait, Willet-Holthuysen House Museum, Amsterdam 12.16

This double-fronted town house was built in 1687, towards the end of Amsterdam's Golden Age. It was occupied by various families. You had to be very wealthy to live a house like this, on one of the city’s smartest canals. This was certainly true of Abraham Willet and his rich wife Sandrina Louisa Geertruyda Holthuysen, who lived here from 1861 to 1895. Their lives feature strongly throughout the museum.
When Louisa died on 30 January 1895, she bequeathed the house, its valuable contents and her husband's extensive art collection to the City of Amsterdam. The following year, the doors were opened and the final wishes of the former lady of the house were fulfilled; her beloved home was transformed into a museum named after herself and her husband. Museum Willet Holthuysen, managed by the Amsterdam Museum, is still open to the public more than a hundred years later.