A famous artwork made entirely of peanut butter has returned to a museum in the Netherlands as a tribute to Dutch conceptual artist Wim T. Schippers, who died last month at the age of 83.

More than 800 pounds of peanut butter — enough to make about 15,000 sandwiches — has been spread across the floor of Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen in Rotterdam.

The artwork, known as Pindakaasvloer (Peanut Butter Floor), was first created by Schippers in 1969. It will reopen to visitors on Friday as part of a two-month exhibition.

Besides his work as a conceptual artist, Schippers was also known for providing the Dutch voices of Ernie and Kermit the Frog in the Dutch version of Sesame Street. His artworks often used humour and absurdity to challenge traditional ideas about art.

Speaking to reporters during a previous exhibition of the work in 1997, Schippers said, "Isn't it fantastic that we are all standing here looking at peanut butter?"

The peanut butter floor was part of his "Floor Covering Series," which also included floors covered with broken glass and salt.

Food photographer and writer Mieke Weismann, who visited the exhibition as a teenager in 1997, said the strongest memory she had was the smell, recalling that the scent of peanut butter filled the museum.

It took two museum employees several days to spread 40 buckets of peanut butter over a 25-square-metre (270-square-foot) hexagonal floor area. Using drywall trowels, they applied the peanut butter in a layer about two centimetres (0.8 inch) thick.

Schippers never set strict rules for recreating the artwork, leaving its size, shape, thickness and even the type of peanut butter open to interpretation. Dutch peanut butter manufacturer Calvé supplied smooth peanut butter for the latest installation.

The artwork has attracted unusual attention in the past. During a 2011 exhibition, several visitors accidentally stepped onto the sticky surface.

At an earlier exhibition in 1997, a group placed 12 slices of bread and several packets of hagelslag — chocolate sprinkles commonly eaten on bread in the Netherlands — on top of the artwork.

Rather than criticising the act, Schippers reacted with humour, telling Dutch newspaper Volkskrant that it "doesn't look bad" and praising the careful way the sprinkles had been arranged.