Vermeer's Girl with a Pearl Earring, the Peace Palace of International Justice, Scheveningen Beach & Delft Blue Pottery
📍 The Hague, Netherlands📅 3-day itinerary
The Netherlands' seat of government and global capital of international law — where the 1913 Carnegie-funded Peace Palace houses the International Court of Justice (the UN's highest judicial body), where the Mauritshuis palace contains Vermeer's Girl with a Pearl Earring and Rembrandt's Anatomy Lesson of Dr. Nicolaes Tulp (the works that defined Dutch Golden Age painting), where the Binnenhof parliament complex has been in continuous legislative use since 1446, and where Scheveningen's North Sea pier extends into the grey waters of the most famous beach resort in the Netherlands.
The 44.5cm Painting That Has No Documented Title from Vermeer's Lifetime and No Known Subject — and The Anatomy Lesson That Established Rembrandt's Reputation in Amsterdam at Age 26 — in a Palace Built as the Brazilian Governor's Residence
The Building That Andrew Carnegie Funded in 1907 for $1.5 Million (The Largest Single Private Charitable Donation to International Peace in History at That Date) to House Courts That Would Make War Between Civilised Nations Impossible — and the Scheveningen Pier That the German Occupation Forces Demolished in 1943 to Prevent Its Use as an Allied Landing Point
The City Where William the Silent Was Assassinated by Handgun in 1584 (the First Head-of-State Assassination by Firearm in History) and Where Vermeer Was Born, Died and Is Buried — and the Museum Housing the World's Largest Collection of the Painter Who Reduced Art to Black Grid Lines and Three Primary Colours