Mauritshuis

The Mauritshuis occupies a stately Dutch Classicist townhouse built between 1636 and 1641 as the private residence of Johan Maurits, Count of Nassau-Siegen, a former governor of Dutch Brazil, and designed by the celebrated architects Jacob van Campen and Pieter Post. A devastating fire in 1704 gutted the interior and cupola, requiring restoration completed by 1718. The Dutch state purchased the building in 1820 to house the Royal Cabinet of Paintings, and it opened to the public as a museum in 1822, making it one of the oldest purpose-repurposed museum buildings in the Netherlands. In 1995 the museum became an independent foundation, though it continues to receive Dutch government funding, and a 2012–2014 renovation added an underground extension connecting it to an adjacent building, nearly doubling public space while preserving the historic house's 17th-century character. Despite its intimate scale, the Mauritshuis punches far above its size, holding one of the world's most concentrated collections of Dutch Golden Age masterpieces, anchored by Vermeer's Girl with a Pearl Earring — often called the 'Mona Lisa of the North' — and Rembrandt's anatomical masterpiece. It remains a premier destination for Golden Age painting in The Hague.