The Hague, Mauritshuis Museum, and Delft

I had no plan how a lot I would enjoy The Hague! It is really a attractive and peaceful town, crisscrossed with canals, exceptionally walkable, full of a lot of excellent dining places, and with community transportation that helps make it easy to get everywhere else in Holland. And on top rated of all that attraction and livability, it has an amazing globe-class museum correct in the middle of it, the Mauritshius, which has a selection of works by artists like Vermeer, Rubens, Holbein, and Rembrandt! My partner Nowell and I were really delighted with our conclusion to make The Hague our dwelling-base in Holland.

As we walked to the Mauristhuis museum we stopped for a image at this amazing watch of the Dutch Parliament. The 13th-century Binnenhof is the oldest parliament constructing continue to in use. The body of drinking water before it is called the Hofvijver which implies “courtroom pond”. It can be gorgeous to see this kind of natural beauty in the middle of a town… and look at that traditional Dutch sky!

The Maurithuis museum was just a 15-moment flat and picturesque stroll from our resort, so we arrived clean and ready for an fascinating dose of Artwork! This is a spectacular assortment with several extremely famed gems, like Vermeer’s Girl with the Pearl Earring and See of Delft, as properly as Fabritius’ Goldfinch.

I received some great detail photographs showing the cracks and restoration of Girl with the Pearl, the surprising pointillism and tiny, precise designs of View of Delft, and the luscious brushwork of the Goldfinch.

Girl with the Pearl and Goldfinch ended up really exhibited a handful of yrs in the past in San Francisco where by I are living, so quite surprisingly this was my 2nd time seeing equally these legendary will work. I did like viewing them in their dwelling in the Mauristhuis, even though. In the San Francisco exhibit Goldfinch was hung in a slim hallway, and The Pearl was hung in a entirely black home with an extreme highlight, which was supposed to raise the drama of the encounter, but alternatively produced the facial area blindingly mild. So I was ready to value equally performs superior in this appropriately-lit museum.

How normally do you get to admire and compare two Rubens marriage portraits and two Van Dyck relationship portraits all in one space jointly?

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

I definitely fell in really like with this Van Dyck portrait. As a lot as I admire Rubens as a painter, when it will come to portraiture, Van Dyck has the ability to capture a solid experience of remaining in the presence of a authentic human being.

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

Left is the ~3-foot tall sketch in the Mauristhuis museum, on the correct is the ~15-foot tall painting put in in the Antwerp cathedral.

You can see the stone arch to the proper of Mary was omitted in the remaining, and you can also see the blue color is diverse: The last portray made use of more costly pigments, including lapis lazuli for the blues, which at the time was even more pricey than gold. Listed here are my element pictures of the sketch:

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

And a great assortment of Rembrandts, which include this very small head of a Laughing Male and the renowned Anatomy Lesson:

The Hague is a attractive town and also really livable Simply because it is not mobbed with tourists, most the people today you see are just heading about their normal lifetime, choosing up their youngsters from college or conference pals for a drink following function. It is really a significant metropolis, but there does not look to be a ton of noise or targeted visitors, in all probability for the reason that most folks vacation by bicycle, so just walking close to felt relaxed and enjoyable.

You can find also a beautiful tiny museum devoted to MC Escher, which we actually liked.

Delft was a quite simple daytrip, mainly because we could get there on the community tram line which experienced a end appropriate outside the house the doorway of our hotel and took us to the heart of Delft in about 30 minutes. The Hague’s general public transportation was extremely straightforward for a customer, simply because you can just obtain the “HTM” app to your telephone in which you can get single tickets or working day-extended tickets, and the QRC ticket just appears.

Delft is a wonderful area just to wander all-around, and we loved possessing a slower-paced day, so we didn’t do any formal tours, but just admired the surroundings (and the foodstuff!).

Back again in the Hague:

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

We loved the YAYs resort we stayed in (deal with: Koninginnegracht 20, 2514 AB Den Haag), which has condominium suites with kitchenettes, together with a no cost laundry space for attendees, for fewer than a one resort space in Amsterdam. It is really in a excellent small neighborhood with plenty of dining establishments and a effortless small grocery keep, and only a 15 minute wander to the Mauristhuis museum. It was quick to just take the tram from just a couple techniques outside the house the doorway of the lodge to the Holland Spoor teach station, which is how we frequented Amsterdam and the unbelievable Rijksmuseum, which I will generate about in my next blog site put up.

This write-up is part of a series about our latest European tour by means of Paris, Antwerp, The Hague, Amsterdam, and Vienna. If you have not but, indicator up for my publication so you never miss out on a single of my information-packed site posts. Also, I am presently doing the job on a new painting video clip to be launched by the stop of this year. “Glazing and Scumbling a Nevertheless Existence with Roses” will be a comply with-up to my primary “Glazing and Scumbling” online course, so I propose having that if you have not yet, to get the most out of my upcoming release!