Apollo

Shortly before Christmas 1704, a fire broke out in the Mauritshuis through the carelessness of a clerk who, the museum says, was drunk. The Hofvijver, the pond in front of the house, had frozen, so the fire was hard to fight, and only the blackened outer walls were left. Johan Maurits, who built the house, had died in 1679, and it was now used to lodge guests of the States General, the Dutch government. Rebuilding dragged on from 1708 to 1718. For the main reception room, now called the Golden Room, the Venetian painter Giovanni Antonio Pellegrini, then in The Hague, made 15 canvases to be set into the gilded panelling. Look up. On the ceiling, Aurora drives away the Night, and Apollo, the Sun, comes after her.