The Hague, Mauritshuis Museum, and Delft

I had no plan how substantially I would enjoy The Hague! It really is a wonderful and peaceful metropolis, crisscrossed with canals, particularly walkable, whole of many fantastic restaurants, and with community transportation that would make it simple to get everywhere you go else in Holland. And on best of all that allure and livability, it has an incredible globe-class museum appropriate in the center of it, the Mauritshius, which has a collection of operates by artists like Vermeer, Rubens, Holbein, and Rembrandt! My husband Nowell and I were really satisfied with our final decision to make The Hague our property-base in Holland.

As we walked to the Mauristhuis museum we stopped for a photo at this breathtaking perspective of the Dutch Parliament. The 13th-century Binnenhof is the oldest parliament creating however in use. The system of h2o prior to it is named the Hofvijver which indicates “court pond”. It is amazing to see these magnificence in the middle of a metropolis… and glance at that traditional Dutch sky!

The Maurithuis museum was just a 15-minute flat and picturesque stroll from our hotel, so we arrived fresh and completely ready for an fascinating dose of Artwork! This is a breathtaking collection with quite a few incredibly renowned gems, like Vermeer’s Woman with the Pearl Earring and View of Delft, as nicely as Fabritius’ Goldfinch.

I received some excellent element pictures showing the cracks and restoration of Woman with the Pearl, the astonishing pointillism and tiny, precise styles of Perspective of Delft, and the luscious brushwork of the Goldfinch.

Girl with the Pearl and Goldfinch ended up basically exhibited a several a long time ago in San Francisco wherever I stay, so quite strangely this was my Second time looking at both these legendary works. I did prefer observing them in their residence in the Mauristhuis, though. In the San Francisco show Goldfinch was hung in a slender hallway, and The Pearl was hung in a wholly black room with an extreme spotlight, which was intended to increase the drama of the knowledge, but rather manufactured the facial area blindingly light-weight. So I was able to enjoy both equally is effective much better in this properly-lit museum.

How usually do you get to admire and examine two Rubens relationship portraits and two Van Dyck relationship portraits all in a person space alongside one another?

Still left Rubens’ Peter Van Hack, Claire Fourement and Van Dyck’s Peeter Stevens and Anna Wake (in between them is an outstanding “kunstkamer” or “artwork place” by Willem van Haecht.

I truly fell in appreciate with this Van Dyck portrait. As a lot as I admire Rubens as a painter, when it arrives to portraiture, Van Dyck has the capability to capture a robust sensation of getting in the presence of a genuine particular person.

The Mauristhuis also has a Rubens oil sketch of the similar issue I observed in the Our Lady cathedral in Antwerp just a handful of times ahead of this, Mary’s assumption to heaven:

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

You can see the stone arch to the appropriate of Mary was omitted in the ultimate, and you can also see the blue colour is distinct: The final portray used a lot more expensive pigments, which includes lapis lazuli for the blues, which at the time was even more costly than gold. Below are my depth pictures of the sketch:

Much more aspects from paintings by Rubens, Pieter van Anraadt, Pieter Claesz, Gabriël Metsu, Jan van Huysum, Franz Hals, Saloman van Ruisdale, Holbein:

And a wonderful assortment of Rembrandts, including this small head of a Laughing Man and the well-known Anatomy Lesson:

The Hague is a lovely metropolis and also very livable Mainly because it is not mobbed with visitors, most the men and women you see are just heading about their frequent daily life, buying up their kids from university or conference good friends for a drink right after operate. It can be a key town, but there does not feel to be a lot of sound or targeted visitors, probably because most folks travel by bike, so just going for walks all over felt relaxed and comforting.

There’s also a attractive minimal museum devoted to MC Escher, which we definitely liked.

Delft was a quite effortless daytrip, due to the fact we could get there on the community tram line which experienced a prevent right exterior the doorway of our lodge and took us to the heart of Delft in about 30 minutes. The Hague’s public transportation was extremely easy for a customer, since you can just obtain the “HTM” application to your cell phone wherever you can acquire single tickets or day-very long tickets, and the QRC ticket just seems.

Delft is a stunning position just to wander all over, and we savored obtaining a slower-paced day, so we didn’t do any formal tours, but just admired the landscapes (and the foodstuff!).

Back in the Hague:

We had excellent meals all within just a pair blocks of our lodge at Walter Benedict, Bistro Mer and Follia.

We cherished the YAYs hotel we stayed in (handle: Koninginnegracht 20, 2514 AB Den Haag), which has condominium suites with kitchenettes, including a cost-free laundry place for company, for fewer than a single lodge space in Amsterdam. It is in a fantastic minimal neighborhood with loads of restaurants and a practical tiny grocery keep, and only a 15 moment stroll to the Mauristhuis museum. It was straightforward to consider the tram from just a handful of actions outdoors the door of the lodge to the Holland Spoor coach station, which is how we frequented Amsterdam and the amazing Rijksmuseum, which I will create about in my next blog publish.

This write-up is component of a collection about our recent European tour by way of Paris, Antwerp, The Hague, Amsterdam, and Vienna. If you have not yet, sign up for my e-newsletter so you by no means overlook one particular of my information-packed blog site posts. Also, I am presently operating on a new portray movie to be produced by the close of this year. “Glazing and Scumbling a Nevertheless Existence with Roses” will be a comply with-up to my first “Glazing and Scumbling” on-line study course, so I propose getting that if you have not however, to get the most out of my following launch!