Mauritshuis Refurbishment, The Hague, review: 'nearly perfect'
The argument is that art galleries are getting far more visitors than ever before. The Mauritshuis's entrance hall and other 'public' spaces couldn't cope with the vast numbers of people traipsing through them, the wall coverings were getting worn out and the lighting was inadequate.
Where until recently you entered through a cramped doorway in a side street, you now pass through the building's forecourt, but rather than approach the grand main entrance, you head down a glass and steel staircase into an airy subterranean foyer, which feels larger than the entirety of the gallery upstairs. Containing the new ticket desks, cloakroom and shop, this harmonious space leads under the adjacent street, allowing the visitor to ascend into the new Royal Dutch Shell Wing, a former gentleman's club, which contains additional exhibition space, a library and a restaurant.
Given that the current display there, on the history of the Mauritshuis, is hardly likely to delay the foreign visitor for long, what of the place's raison d'être - the original galleries? After a slightly uneasy transition between the steel and slate of the new staircase and the white marble and carved wood of the original entrance hall, the place is substantially little changed. The damask wall coverings have been replaced, many in a deep and sumptuous blue. I'm informed that the lighting has been vastly improved, but as the essence of good lighting is that you don't notice it, I'll take their word on that.
As to the paintings, most have been left, very wisely, in their former positions. A few have been given new prominence to reflect current levels of interest, including Carel Fabritius's The Goldfinch, the inspiration for Donna Tartt's Pulitzer Prize-winning novel of the same name (although it is, in all honesty, a rather mundane little painting).
There are more Rembrandts than I remembered, and while the greatest of them, David and Saul, is currently in conservation, there's more than enough to keep you going with The Anatomy Lesson of Dr Nicolaes Tulp, superb early and late self-portraits and a wonderfully characterful study of two men.
READ: Mauritshuis, The Hague: the director's guide
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