The Famous Mauritshuis Museum In The Hague, Netherlands ~ Greets Our Editor

Written by Allison Krugier Thursday, 13 January 2011 22:59

In 1822, the Mauritshuis was opened for the public and housed the Royal Cabinet of Paintings and the Royal Cabinet of Rarities. In 1875, the entire museum was available for paintings.The Mauritshuis was a state museum until it was privatized in 1995. The foundation set up at that time took charge of both the building and the collection, which it was given on long-term loan. This building, which is the property of the state, is rented by the museum. The museum collaborates regularly with major museums in other countries. In the center of The Hague, directly adjacent to the Binnenhof government buildings on the Hofvijver pond, the mansion of Johan Maurits, Count of Nassau Siegen, governor-general of Dutch Brazil, arose around 1640. The strictly classical building was designed and built by Jacob van Campen and Pieter Post, the two most important Dutch architects of that time. Since 1822, the intimate 'Mauritshuis Royal Picture Gallery' has housed the Royal Cabinet of Paintings, one of the most famous collections in the world. In 1774 the stadholder William V, Prince of Orange-Nassau (1748-1806), brought the most important paintings of his collection together in this building and regularly opened his picture gallery to the public. That made the Gallery the first public collection of paintings in the Netherlands. The largest part of William V’s collection was brought to the Mauritshuis Museum in 1822. The Gallery gives a good impression of artistic tastes in the 18th century – the age of the periwig. Following the custom at that time, the walls of the long gallery are covered with paintings from floor to ceiling. Most of the paintings on display are by artists who were popular in the 18th century, such as Jan Steen, Isaac van Ostade, Philips Wouwerman, Abraham Bloemaert and Gerard ter Borch. The paintings come from the Mauritshuis, supplemented by paintings on loan from other collections. The Gallery Prince William V is now reopened for visitors. In 2009, the museum had almost 450,000 visitors from every where ... Worldwide. Visit the website at : www.mauritshuis.nl/

The Royal Picture Gallery Mauritshuis houses a world-famous collection of art. The heart of the collection consists of paintings from the Dutch Golden Age, including top-quality work by Vermeer, Rembrandt, Jan Steen and Frans Hals. But this is not all. The collection also offers a splendid overview of Dutch and Flemish painting from 1400 to 1800. The masterpieces on display include work by Rogier van der Weyden, Hans Memling, Rubens, Van Dyck, Cornelis Troost and Adriaen Coorte. Moreover, the museum owns several top-notch works by the 16th-century German artists Lucas Cranach the Elder and Hans Holbein the Younger. This exceptional collection has been housed for nearly 200 years in the Mauritshuis, a 17th-century palace on the Hofvijver in The Hague. Only after 1875 did the Mauritshuis pursue a deliberate policy of acquisition. In those days most acquisitions were either purchases funded by the Dutch state at the urging of the directors or else donations made by private individuals. In all these years it has never been the intention to form a collection that represents an art-historical overview. The museum strives chiefly to round out its strong suits by enlarging the collection with important paintings by leading artists, concentrating on the areas of the stadholder’s collection that were already the best represented: Dutch and Flemish painting. Thus the collection has been enriched over time with a large number of exceptional paintings, including: • Portrait of a man by Hans Memling in 1894 • The goldfinch by Carel Fabritius in 1896 • ‘As the old sing, so pipe the young’ by Jan Steen in 1913 • Travellers outside an inn by Isack van Ostade in 1925 • Self-portrait by Rembrandt in 1947 • The adoration of the shepherds by Jacob Jordaens in 1959 • Simeon praising Christ by Arent de Gelder in 1987 • Wooded landscape with farmhouses by Meindert Hobbema in 1994 • Portrait of an elderly man by Rembrandt in 1999 • Portrait of a man and Portrait of a woman by Rubens in 2003

The Mauritshuis was built in what was then one of the most fashionable neighborhoods in The Hague. In its immediate vicinity were the city’s most beautiful homes, as well as the Binnenhof – the centre of government with the stadholder’s quarters. The land on which the house was built, which was part of the garden of the Binnenhof, was put up for sale in 1631. Both Johan Maurits and Constantijn Huygens, secretary to the stadholder, bought plots on which to build. Johan Maurits acquired the most desirable plot, bordering on the pond called the Hofvijver. The Mauritshuis is one of the first examples of Dutch classicism; it is also one of the most perfect. Jacob van Campen was the founder of this architectural style, which flourished between 1640 and 1665. Dutch classicism was based on the principles of classical Greek and Roman architecture. Another important source of inspiration for Van Campen was the work of the 16th-century Northern Italian architects Scamozzi and Palladio. The layout of the 17th-century Mauritshuis is strictly symmetrical. Both story's have the same series of rooms on left and right, starting with an antechamber and continuing through a chamber and a cabinet to a cloakroom. Together they form a so-called ‘apartment’, of which there are four in the Mauritshuis. The apartments are divided by a central hallway, a staircase and – at the back of the house on both floors – a Great Hall. The Great Hall on the upper floor was the grand finale of a tour of the building. The ceiling of this hall boasted a cupola with a walkway around it, where musicians could sit and play, thus adding a festive note to banquets and celebrations. The large hall on the ground floor – the Golden Hall – was lavishly decorated in a late Louis XIV style with much gilding. The walls and the ceiling were decorated with allegorical representations, which were painted by Giovanni Antonio Pellegrini, a Venetian artist who happened to be in The Hague in search of work.