Panorama near Arnhem

Look at the house on the left of this wide view. Joris van der Haagen painted the year 1649 on its facade, which makes this the dated half of a pair. Its partner, the same size and from the same year, shows the Rhine Gate of Arnhem, and the two were made to hang side by side. Here the town stays at the edge. The picture belongs to the open country outside Arnhem, with a herdsman and his animals in the foreground and the Lower Rhine, the Nederrijn, running across the distance.

The pair belonged to the House of Orange. By 1758 they hung at Honselaarsdijk, a stadholder's palace near The Hague, and they later passed to Prince William V. The Mauritshuis owns the painting today and shows it in the Gallery Prince Willem V on the Buitenhof in The Hague, the picture gallery that the same prince opened to visitors in 1774.