Girl with a Pearl Earring
Vermeer's best-known painting, and far smaller than its reproductions suggest.
Roman Boed from The Netherlands — CC BY 2.0 · Georg Balthasar Probst — CC0 · Txllxt TxllxT — CC BY-SA 4.0 · Txllxt TxllxT — CC BY-SA 4.0
A small seventeenth-century palace in central The Hague, holding one of the finest collections of Dutch painting in the world. Vermeer's Girl with a Pearl Earring hangs here, and is probably what brought you. The painting is far smaller than its reproductions lead you to expect, an impression nearly every visitor reports. Beside it are Vermeer's View of Delft, Rembrandt's Anatomy Lesson of Dr Nicolaes Tulp, and Carel Fabritius's The Goldfinch. What really distinguishes the place is its size. The collection can be seen entirely in two hours, and it hangs in the rooms of a house rather than in vast museum halls, so you look at the paintings from within a domestic space. This is the exact opposite of the Rijksmuseum experience in Amsterdam, and many people come away more strongly affected for precisely that reason. It stands beside the Binnenhof, seat of the Dutch parliament, in the heart of The Hague, so the visit folds easily into a half day in the city.
Vermeer's best-known painting, and far smaller than its reproductions suggest.
One of his earliest major works, and it hangs here rather than in Amsterdam.
The works hang in the rooms of a palace rather than in halls, so you stand close to them.
Plein, beside the Binnenhof in central The Hague
Grenadierspoort (Mauritspoort)A historic gate at the Binnenhof in The Hague, known by two names both in use: t1 minute walk4.3
The BinnenhofThe world's oldest working parliament as building: the Binnenhof — 'inner court'1 minute walk4.6
Museum BrediusMuseum Bredius is an eighteenth-century house on a canal near the Binnenhof, hol2 minutes walk4.6
Pulchri StudioAn artists' society and exhibition rooms in an eighteenth-century mansion on the3 minutes walk4.3
The Prison Gate MuseumA castle gate that became a prison that became a museum: the Gevangenpoort was b4 minutes walk4.3No — the two differ in nature rather than quality. The Rijksmuseum is vast, covers all of Dutch art and history and needs a day. The Mauritshuis is a concentrated collection of Golden Age painting in two hours. If your time is short and you want the highest density of great pictures, this is the smarter choice, and the two cities are under an hour apart by train.
A direct train to The Hague Central, about fifty minutes, then a ten-minute walk to the museum. A day trip from Amsterdam is entirely reasonable, and the Binnenhof and old centre fold in easily.