Across the Cafe Table #5: What’s Your Favorite Museum?

Welcome to our 5th Across the Cafe Table! This month we’re asking the question: What is your favorite museum? We invite you to answer this question on your own blog (or Facebook, if you don’t have a blog) and link back to this post and add your link to your answer below. First time? You can read all about Across the Cafe Table here.

As usual, I’m having a hard time answering because I always have a hard time picking a favorite of anything. My “favorites” are mostly in a state of flux.

Maybe a better question would be, “What’s your favorite museum that most people have never heard of? Or for me, what’s your favorite museum in Holland?”

Well today it is the Mauritshuis museum in The Hague, Netherlands. The structure, a former residence built in the classical style of the 17th century is set among the city’s governmental buildings, making it easy to miss unless you know it is there.

Mauritshuis Museum

Eventually acquired by the Dutch government, the building came to house the art collection of William of Orange. The permanent collection has grown over the years to include over 800 paintings by Dutch and Flemish masters such as Rembrant, Vermeer and Rubens.

The museum was privatized in 1995. Small and uncrowded, I fell in love with Flemish art at this museum. I chose it to share with you today, because interestingly, before visiting for the first time, I wasn’t interested at all in Flemish masterworks, much preferring the work of another one of Holland’s famous artists, Vincent Van Gogh.

Two of the most celebrated Johannes Vermeer paintings are part of the museum’s permanent collection. Although the museum is probably best known for The Girl with a Pearl Earring by the Dutch master, seeing Vermeer’s View of Delft, in the same quiet room is a special experience.

My grandparents had a small reproduction of View of Delft in their home that I remember loving when I was growing up. Something about the clouds and the way the light played on the small cityscape and canals, made me imagine and hope that it represented exactly what Holland looked like, and even more importantly I think, what it felt like.

Johannes Vermeer, 1632-1675 View of Delft, c. 1660-1661 Canvas, 96,5 x 115,7 cm The Hague, Mauritshuis

Lacking Amsterdam’s funk and flash, The Hague is notably more austere, but arguably more elegant. For anyone spending time in Holland, The Hague is worth a stop for the Mauritshuis museum alone (45 minutes by train.)  Delft, where Vermeer lived and worked, in turn, is only a 20 minute train ride from The Hague’s center. Both cities could easily be incorporated into a day trip from Amsterdam.

And on those sunny days which are sometimes few and far between in Holland, the light really does look and feel a lot like View of Delft.

Mauritshuis
Korte Vijverberg 8
NL 2513 AB The Hague
The Netherlands

Now tell us… What’s your favorite museum?

Link below to your post, or we would love it if you would share in the comments!

(Please comment before linking! And thank you so much for participating!)