The Hague, Mauritshuis Museum, and Delft

The Hague, Mauritshuis Museum, and Delft

I experienced no plan how much I would adore The Hague! It can be a lovely and peaceful city, crisscrossed with canals, particularly walkable, entire of a lot of exceptional places to eat, and with public transportation that makes it uncomplicated to get in all places else in Holland. And on prime of all that allure and livability, it has an extraordinary environment-class museum ideal in the center of it, the Mauritshius, which has a collection of is effective by artists like Vermeer, Rubens, Holbein, and Rembrandt! My spouse Nowell and I had been incredibly pleased with our decision to make The Hague our dwelling-base in Holland.

As we walked to the Mauristhuis museum we stopped for a image at this beautiful check out of the Dutch Parliament. The 13th-century Binnenhof is the oldest parliament making nevertheless in use. The overall body of water right before it is named the Hofvijver which means “court pond”. It is really gorgeous to see these kinds of natural beauty in the center of a city… and glance at that common Dutch sky!

The Maurithuis museum was just a 15-moment flat and picturesque stroll from our lodge, so we arrived clean and completely ready for an fascinating dose of Artwork! This is a stunning selection with a number of very well known gems, including Vermeer’s Girl with the Pearl Earring and Look at of Delft, as properly as Fabritius’ Goldfinch.

I bought some fantastic depth photographs showing the cracks and restoration of Girl with the Pearl, the shocking pointillism and small, precise designs of View of Delft, and the luscious brushwork of the Goldfinch.

Lady with the Pearl and Goldfinch had been in fact exhibited a couple years in the past in San Francisco where by I stay, so incredibly unusually this was my Second time viewing both equally these legendary will work. I did favor observing them in their household in the Mauristhuis, nevertheless. In the San Francisco show Goldfinch was hung in a slender hallway, and The Pearl was hung in a entirely black area with an powerful highlight, which was meant to increase the drama of the encounter, but as an alternative built the facial area blindingly mild. So I was able to enjoy both equally operates greater in this properly-lit museum.


How typically do you get to admire and assess two Rubens marriage portraits and two Van Dyck relationship portraits all in 1 space alongside one another?

Remaining Rubens’ Peter Van Hack, Claire Fourement and Van Dyck’s Peeter Stevens and Anna Wake (between them is an amazing “kunstkamer” or “artwork room” by Willem van Haecht.


I truly fell in like with this Van Dyck portrait. As considerably as I admire Rubens as a painter, when it comes to portraiture, Van Dyck has the capacity to seize a robust feeling of getting in the presence of a serious human being.

The Mauristhuis also has a Rubens oil sketch of the identical matter I saw in the Our Girl cathedral in Antwerp just a number of days ahead of this, Mary’s assumption to heaven:

Still left is the ~3-foot tall sketch in the Mauristhuis museum, on the correct is the ~15-foot tall portray mounted in the Antwerp cathedral.

You can see the stone arch to the ideal of Mary was omitted in the last, and you can also see the blue colour is unique: The last portray utilized additional highly-priced pigments, like lapis lazuli for the blues, which at the time was even a lot more high-priced than gold. Below are my detail shots of the sketch:

Extra specifics from paintings by Rubens, Pieter van Anraadt, Pieter Claesz, Gabriƫl Metsu, Jan van Huysum, Franz Hals, Saloman van Ruisdale, Holbein:

And a pleasant assortment of Rembrandts, such as this little head of a Laughing Guy and the renowned Anatomy Lesson:

The Hague is a lovely town and also quite livable Due to the fact it is not mobbed with visitors, most the people today you see are just going about their regular lifetime, finding up their young children from school or assembly good friends for a drink following function. It truly is a key city, but there does not seem to be a good deal of noise or targeted traffic, almost certainly because most people today vacation by bike, so just strolling close to felt quiet and stress-free.

There is also a lovely very little museum devoted to MC Escher, which we really appreciated.

Delft was a quite easy daytrip, simply because we could get there on the area tram line which had a stop right outside the house the door of our hotel and took us to the heart of Delft in about 30 minutes. The Hague’s public transportation was quite uncomplicated for a visitor, because you can just down load the “HTM” application to your cellphone the place you can acquire single tickets or day-long tickets, and the QRC ticket just seems.

Delft is a attractive spot just to wander close to, and we liked getting a slower-paced working day, so we didn’t do any official excursions, but just admired the surroundings (and the food!).

Back in the Hague:

We experienced fantastic meals all in a pair blocks of our hotel at Walter Benedict, Bistro Mer and Follia.

We loved the YAYs lodge we stayed in (address: Koninginnegracht 20, 2514 AB Den Haag), which has apartment suites with kitchenettes, which include a cost-free laundry room for attendees, for less than a single resort area in Amsterdam. It is in a great small community with heaps of eating places and a hassle-free very little grocery shop, and only a 15 minute walk to the Mauristhuis museum. It was uncomplicated to choose the tram from just a couple measures outside the house the doorway of the hotel to the Holland Spoor coach station, which is how we frequented Amsterdam and the incredible Rijksmuseum, which I will publish about in my future website publish.

This submit is element of a series about our recent European tour through Paris, Antwerp, The Hague, Amsterdam, and Vienna. If you have not however, sign up for my publication so you in no way pass up a single of my data-packed weblog posts. Also, I am now operating on a new painting video clip to be introduced by the close of this year. “Glazing and Scumbling a Continue to Lifetime with Roses” will be a follow-up to my unique “Glazing and Scumbling” on line training course, so I endorse having that if you have not but, to get the most out of my next release!