Press releases

Exhibition At Home in Holland great success for Mauritshuis 120,000 visitors for the masterpieces from the Royal Collection

06 Feb 2017

Tentoonstellingen Royal Collection A

The exhibition At Home in Holland: Vermeer and his Contemporaries from the British Royal Collection was a success, attracting 120,000 visitors. The exhibition, visited by Her Royal Highness The Duchess of Cambridge in October 2016, included masterpieces by artists such as Johannes Vermeer, Jan Steen, Pieter de Hooch and Gerrit Dou.

The exhibition, extended until 5 February, introduced the public to the ‘genre painting’, its many forms and the provocative symbolism it often conceals. These works are stunning in their variety, from simple farmhands gathered in an inn to elegant figures in rich interiors. Some of the everyday scenes carry a deeper, often moralistic meaning, which may be explicit or at times concealed. But in all of them, the artists portrayed the characters and their environments as skilfully as possible, which makes them even more attractive.

The British Royal Collection is one of the largest and most important collections in the world and one of the last great European royal collections to remain intact. The Royal Collection and the Mauritshuis have much in common: both are royal collections and both contain a magnificent collection of Dutch masters of the Golden Age. King George IV of England was a key figure in the history of the Royal Collection. In the early decades of the nineteenth century he acquired many of the paintings which are now seen as jewels in the crown of the English royal collection. The foundations for the Mauritshuis collection were laid by the stadholders William IV and William V. Their descendant, King William I, bequeathed the collection to the Dutch state in 1816 and the museum still bears the name Mauritshuis Royal Picture Gallery.

Johannes Vermeer (1632-1675), Dame aan het virginaal met een heer (‘De muziekles’), c.1660-1662, Royal Collection Trust / © Hare Majesteit Koningin Elizabeth II 2016
Johannes Vermeer, De Muziekles, c. 1660-1662, Royal Collection Trust / © Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II 2016

Upcoming exhibition: Slow Food: Still Lifes of the Golden Age. Featuring masterpieces by Clara Peeters, Floris van Dijck, Pieter Claesz and others

From 9 March through 25 June 2017 the Mauritshuis presents Slow Food: Still Lifes of the Golden Age, the first exhibition to be devoted to the development of meal still lifes – that were created in Holland and Flanders from 1600 onwards. The cornerstone of the exhibition is a masterpiece acquired by the museum in 2012, Still Life with Cheeses, Almonds and Pretzels by Clara Peeters. Alongside this work the exhibition also features masterpieces from the Museo Nacional del Prado (Madrid), Rijksmuseum (Amsterdam), National Gallery of Art (Washington), Ashmolean Museum (Oxford) and others.