Car interiors imitate art
Automotive group Bentley Motors has put a triptych of one-off vehicles on show at the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam. The three cars are from its Continental GT range, customised by its in-house artisans to commemorate three masterpieces by Dutch Masters.
In each case, specially chosen leather in the interior is an important element of the finished effect.
Rembrandt’s 1642 painting known in English as The Night Watch was the inspiration for the first of the cars, a Continental GT Convertible in Midnight Emerald.
For the interior, Bentley artisans chose magnolia leather as the main material, to reflect a military coat that the painting’s central figure, Frans Banninck Cocq, is wearing. However, this is complimented by leather in a colour called Hotspur red, inspired by a bright sash that Rembrandt included.
Car number two in the set, a Sapphire-coloured Continental GT, owes its inspiration to a Vermeer painting of 1658, known as The Little Street. Here, the interior makes extensive use of leather in Beluga and Ocean blue tones, with Citric yellow as an accent colour and vivid Klein blue in the seat piping.
Lastly, Bentley completed its Dutch Masters collection with a Continental GT in Dark Sapphire, inspired by Van Gogh’s The Starry Night. Here, the interior includes leather in a colour that the car brand calls Khamun yellow, explaining that it reflects the artist’s choice of Indian yellow as the colour of the stars in the famous painting.
