Word: amstel
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Dates: during 1920-1929
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...family is famed in Holland. In the 16th and 17th centuries Sixes were shrewd magistrates of Amsterdam, portly, solid men with provincial sagacity. Burgomaster Jan Six (1618-1700) was something of a visionary. As he walked by the placid River Amstel he heard the clopping of wooden shoes, saw the bright pageantry of Dutch costume, buxom, healthy girls in voluminous skirts, aprons, peaked caps. He loved little, angular Dutch gables, the wide Dutch sky over the flatlands. He knew an advanced, much-mooted artist named Rembrandt and often bought his etchings which caught the homely beauties of life in Holland...
Recently the Six heirs found their inheritance taxes a burden. There were too many paintings. Works of art are heavily assessed in an age where everything is interpreted financially. An auction in Amsterdam was announced. To the auction rooms of Frederk Muller, on the banks of the Amstel, came a host of connoisseurs from all over the world. They came to take away from Holland the treasures that the loving Jan Six had collected. Without a particle of sentiment for the Dutch they gathered for refined looting...
...world's record price for an etching. A total of 64 paintings and 10 Rembrandt etchings were sold. The sales realized $925,012. Of this sum $250,000 had changed hands in four minutes. Auctioner Muller could well afford to smile on the River Amstel. His firm had received the customary 10%, amounting in this case to $92,500. Displaying paintings to serried rows of gentlemen with beards and pince-nez, soliciting their cash, seemed more than ever a genteel and happy profession...