Mauritshuis

The Mauritshuis is an art museum in The Hague, Netherlands. The museum houses the Royal Cabinet of Paintings which consists of 841 objects, mostly Dutch Golden Age paintings. It has the best collection of works by Johannes Vermeer and Rembrandt van Rijn and also hosts a display of 17th century Delftware. The Mauritshuis was founded in 1798 as a stadthuis (city house) when King Louis Bonaparte gave the building which had previously been the residence of William III of Orange to the city council of The Hague. The oldest object in the collection is a portrait by Gerrit van Honthorst dating from 1603. The art collection also features paintings of artists such as Johannes Vermeer, Rembrandt van Rijn, Paulus Potter, Frans Hals and Jacob van Ruisdael. Today, the Mauritshuis is the only museum in The Hague with a substantial collection of paintings from the Dutch Golden Age. Aline Bonaparte, the niece of Napoleon Bonaparte, became one of the most important contributors to the collection. She had a large collection of artworks in her home in Paris known as Hotel Aline. When she fled France in 1815 after Napoleon was exiled, she brought many pieces from her museum with her to The Hague. These pieces eventually became part of the collection at Mauritshuis as well. The Mauritshuis was privatised in 1995, and is one of few private museums in the Netherlands. The museum's paintings were all put on short term loan to various museums around Europe, mainly so they could be viewed by more people, but also to raise money for the museum. In 2000, the Mauritshuis was brought back into public ownership.