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Picture Gallery. THE HAGUE. 39. Route.
Office (21. 9), and adjoining it on the S.W. is the Hooge Raad
(Pl. 5), the supreme court of Holland. In the S.W. angle is the
oftice of the Ministry of Justice (Pl. 5), a handsome building in
the Dutch Renaissance style (adm. after 4 p.m.). — On the opposite
side of the ‘Lange Poten’, the street beginning here, rises the War
Office (P1. 14). — On the N. side is the club-house of the Witte
or Litteraire Societeit. — The Korte Vyverberg begins at the N.W.
334).
de street to the E., stands the building
ted in 1899-1903. The most inter
is a copy of the Peace of Westphalia (4648).
angle of the square (p
Close by, between the Plein and the Vyver (p. 330), is the
Mauritshuis (Pl. 12; E, 5), with an entrance-court enclosed by a
railing, erected in 1633-44 from the designs of Jacob van Campen
(p.369) and Pieter Post for Count John Maurice of Nassau, the Dutch
West India Co.’s governor of Brazil in 1636-44, and rebuilt in
1704-18 after a fire. Since 1821 it has contained the celebrated
Picture Gallery (Koninklyk Kabinet van Schilderyen; adm., see
p. 318). Director, Prof. W. Martin.
The nucleus of the Gallery of The Hague consists of collections
made by the princes of the House of Orange. As early as the first half
of the 47th cent. Frederick Henry (d. 1647; p. x1) and his consort
Amalia, Countess of Solms-Braunfels, ordered so many pictures from
Dutch and Flemish masters that they left no fewer than 200 works
to be divided among their four daughters (1675). This collection
;, however, scattered, and the real founder of the gallery was the
Stadtholder William V. (1748-1806), who gradually collected in the
suitenhof (p. 329) about 200 pictures, most of which are still in
this gallery. To the purchase of the Slingelandt collection in 1768
the gallery was indebted for a number of its finest works. The flight
of the Prince of Orange in 1795, on the approach of the French
troops, was followed by the removal of the pictures to France. In
{815 a partial restitution took place, but 68 works still remained
in France, In 1847 the gallery contained only 173 pictures, but the
number was rapidly increased by the zealous exertions of King
William I. The catalogue now numbers about 500 paintings, of
which about one-fourth are by foreign masters. Several valuable
Dutch works (by Rembrandt, A. van Ostade, etc.) are lent by
Dr. A. Bredius. Many of the rooms are distinctly overcrowded,
and this gives rise to numerous rearrangements to make room for
new acquisitions.
Rembrandt and Van der Meer (Vermeer) of Delft, a painter who
has only recently obtained the fame he deserves, are the heroes of
the collection. Eleven of the sixteen works by Rembrandt are among
the best specimens of his early manner. Jan Steen, Terburg, Gerard
Dou, A. van Ostade, Paul Potter, and A. van de Velde are represented
by masterpieces. The finest landscapes are the three Ruysdaels.
Baxpeger’s Belgium and Holland. 15th Edit. 90
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