Panorama Mesdag, located in The Hague city center, is world-famous, as it should be. Walking through a mysterious dark 19th-century corridor, followed by climbing a spiral stair and entering a wooden platform on top of an artificial dune that’s surrounded by an outstanding daylight illuminated 360⁰ painting of Scheveningen in 1880. It amazed me when I was only a child and it still amazes me today.
3 months, 5 people
At the end of the 19th century, panoramic paintings were an absolute fashion, so Dutch marine painter Hendrik Willem Mesdag was commissioned to produce one here in The Hague. His image reflects the village Scheveningen and its surroundings from its highest point: Seinpost. It is unbelievably lifelike. The painter wanted all citizens of Scheveningen to recognize their own home on his canvas and he probably succeeded in this. In only three months, Mesdag and his four co-workers Sientje Mesdag – van Houten, Bernard Blommers, George Hendrik Breitner and Théophile de Bock painted the entire 1680 m² canvas. At the beginning of the 20th century, the popularity of panoramic paintings rapidly declined and Hendrik Willem Mesdag bought his own 360⁰ painting back from the company that originally commissioned him. Nowadays, the creation of Mesdag is the only panorama left in Europe at its original site. To this day it is owned by the descendants of the painter.
