Rembrandt probably would have been amused by the gala thrown in his honor at the Minneapolis Institute of Arts.

To celebrate the opening of the "Rembrandt in America" exhibit, the halls of the museum were awash in the glow of tinted bulbs reminiscent of Amsterdam's Red Light District. Bathed in the crimson, the marble sculpture "The Doryphoros" proudly guarded the rotunda of the museum's old entrance.

Guests (most of whom wore black and white with a touch of red) reveled in a night at the museum done up to resemble Europe's notorious party city.

"It's 10 o'clock at night and people are just trickling in," said partygoer Kevin Quinn. "We need more of that."

According to Tom Rassieur, an MIA curator and Rembrandt expert, Rembrandt himself would have been somewhat at home in a 21st-century red-light district. "I don't know if they had the electric illumination, but he definitely had some prostitutes as models," he said.

Sara Glassman • 612-673-7177