Permanent exhibition - Museum Panorama Mesdag

Museum collection
The collection of Museum Panorama Mesdag offers the most varied and complete overview of Hendrik Willems and Sientje's oeuvre in the world.

The Panorama of Scheveningen
The Panorama of Scheveningen was painted in 1881 by Hendrik Willem Mesdag for the panorama company Société Anonyme du Panorama Maritime de la Haye. With the help of painters from the Hague School – Blommers, De Bock, and Breitner and his wife Sientje Mesdag-van Houten – Mesdag painted a seascape with a circumference of 120 meters and a height of 14 meters. Location: the Seinpostduin, then the highest dune in Scheveningen.

On August 1, 1881, the panorama was opened. Vincent van Gogh also stood on the Belvedere at the opening and admired the panorama from this place. He said: “…The only thing that is wrong with the Panorama of Scheveningen is that there is nothing wrong…”.

Collection Treasures
Museum Panorama Mesdag manages a special collection of works of art by Hendrik Willem Mesdag (1831-1915) and Sientje Mesdag-van Houten (1834-1909), the namesakes of the museum. Collection Treasures shows a selection of their masterpieces. Nowhere has such a large collection of work by the artist couple been collected as in Museum Panorama Mesdag. That makes this collection unique in the world.

Collection Treasures gives an insight into their artistic process: from early work from the time they lived in Brussels, to later work from their heyday.