Guided Tours of The Hague

 

The Panorama Mesdag is a unique Museum experience on our Tour

The Panorama Mesdag was created in 1881. It was named after its painter, the artist Hendrik Willem Mesdag. It is a cylindrical painting (a.k.a. Cyclorama). It is the largest in Europe and the oldest original panorama in the world. It provides viewers with the illusion of really being at the sea.

 

Entrance to this small unique Museum costs € 10 p.p.

 

The panorama is more than 14 metres high and about 40 metres in diameter (an amazing 120 metres in circumference) and took 3 months to paint. Standing on an observation gallery in the centre of the room the cylindrical perspective creates the illusion that you are on a high sand dune overlooking the sea and village of Scheveningen in the late 19th century. A foreground of real terrain around the viewing gallery hides the base of the painting and natural light from above casts shadows of clouds onto the surrounding canvas making the illusion even more convincing.

 

Mesdag was a notable marine painter of the Hague School; in 1880 he was engaged by a Belgian company to paint the panorama, which with the assistance of his wife and many students was completed by 1881. However, the fashion for panoramas was coming to an end, and the company went bankrupt in 1886.

 

Mesdag purchased the panorama and met its losses from his own pocket and it has remained in the family ever since. Tour The Hague recommends a 15min visit when we guide you in the area as you may never see anything like it again.