Curated stories of home and away mingle with special focuses on Warhol, women and watercolours.

There are only 36 officially recognised Vermeers in the world, and one of them will be headed to Sydney next year as part of the Art Gallery of NSW’s summer blockbuster, Rembrandt and the Dutch golden age. The collaboration with the Amsterdam’s legendary Rijksmuseum will see seven Rembrandt paintings, including the haunting Self Portrait as the Apostle Paul, and a dozen rarely shown etchings by the great Dutch artist join works by Hals, de Heem, de Hooch and Ruisdael in an exhibition shedding light on all aspects of what was one of the richest nations in the 17th century.

^{Rembrandt’s Self-portrait as the Apostle Paul, 1661}

Many of the 77 masterworks will be borrowed from the Rijksmuseum’s Hall of Honour, the room that leads visitors on towards the iconic Night Watch. In a time of enormous prosperity – don’t forget Tulipmania when a single bulb went for the price of a house – what the Dutch valued they painted, so expect to see portraits, seascapes, landscapes, still life and interior scenes, not the least of...