Panorama Mesdag

Panoramas were a mass entertainment across nineteenth-century Europe - vast circular paintings viewed from a central platform, hundreds of them built and almost all destroyed - and Panorama Mesdag is the oldest surviving one still in its original purpose-built rotunda. Hendrik Willem Mesdag painted it in 1881 with his wife Sientje and three assistants, in four months: a view of Scheveningen from the Seinpostduin, fourteen and a half metres high and about a hundred and twenty round, of the fishing village, the beach with the boats drawn up, the dunes and the sea. The illusion works because of the arrangement rather than the painting alone - a covered walk in, a platform, a canopy hiding the top edge and real sand and beach objects filling the space between platform and canvas, so the eye cannot find where paint begins. The village it shows has gone completely.

History

Hendrik Willem Mesdag, a marine painter of the Hague School, was engaged by a Belgian company in 1880 to paint the panorama, and with his wife Sientje Mesdag-van Houten and student painters including George Hendrik Breitner finished it by 1881. The fashion for panoramas was ending, the company went bankrupt in 1886, and Mesdag bought the panorama and met its losses himself; it is now the oldest surviving panorama in its original location (Wikipedia, Panorama Mesdag).

What you'll find

• A painting 120 metres round - fourteen and a half metres high, made in 1881.
• The original rotunda - the oldest surviving panorama still in its purpose-built building.
• Real sand at the foot - beach objects filling the gap so the join cannot be found.
• A vanished Scheveningen - the fishing village shown no longer exists.

When to go

All year. Two hours.

What to expect

It is one room and a short visit - an hour is enough. The effect depends on standing in the middle and giving it time. Closed on some public holidays. There is a small collection of Mesdag's other work alongside.

Nearby

The Peace Palace and the Mesdag Collection are close; Scheveningen is west.

Key facts