Jan van Goyen House
Jan van Goyenhuis

During the Dutch "Golden Age" (the 17th century), The Hague was an important centre of painting. In those days three famous painters lived at the Dunne Bierkade: Jan van Goyen, painter of landscapes, riverscapes and seascapes, Jan Steen, famous for his interior scenes, and Paulus Potter, painter of rural scenes and cattle. 

In the house of the painter Jan van Goyen history stands still. As Van Goyen was a landscape painter, he never painted the inside of his own house. But fortunately his son-in-law Jan Steen, famous for his interior paintings, did it for us. He was the one who gave us an impression of the Van Goyen family in the safety of their own home as he portrayed them in several of his paintings. Jan van Goyen sitting in his chair near the fire place with his wife on a Sunday afternoon, their two daughters making music at the harpsichord and the lute, the two sons-in-law (of which Jan Steen was one himself!), their dogs, the maid preparing a meal, the grandchildren.

The outside of the house on the other hand was painted by Jan van Goyen himself. On his huge town view painting of The Hague, you can detect his own house, that of his neighbour and colleague Paulus Potter and the house where the palace builder Van Balckeneynde lived. This enormous painting can be admired in the Haags Historisch Museum.  Luckily for us, a lifesize copy of this painting can also be found in one of the period rooms in the Van Goyen house itself.  Besides this the Van Goyen House also has an authentic bed box (a bed-stead with little doors that can be closed) and a painter's workshop.
On the ground floor there's a pub where painter and son-in-law Jan Steen could have been an appreciated daily guest.

Jan van Goyen has left us hundreds of paintings that are now in museums all over the world, telling us about the Dutch landscape during the golden years of the Dutch Republic in the 17th century.

To view some sixty of Jan van Goyen's paintings and to learn more about his painting techniques click here. 

Learn more about Jan van Goyen and his upbringing or view the period rooms of the Jan van Goyen House in our gallery. For a virtual tour with a sign language interpreter guide: start here. 
Interested in visiting the Jan van Goyen House? Please see buitenmuseum.com/en/ and book your tour now!

Seventeenth Century Soap Opera

The relations among those three painters are very much similar to those of a soap opera. Jan Steen married Jan van Goyen's daughter, worked for some time in his workshop and lived in his house; father and son-in-law were artistically mutually influenced by each other. Next door lived Paulus Potter, a tenant of Jan van Goyen. Paulus Potter got married to the girl next door on the other side, daughter of palace builder Van Balckeneynde. He was the builder of the Noordeinde Palace, Palace Huis ten Bosch (residence of the former Dutch queen Beatrix and now currently the residence of the new king Alexander and his wife Maxima and their three daughters) and the Catshuis (the house of the Prime Minister).
 The Fundatie Voorhoeve was established in 1876. With more than 45 fully-furnished apartments in monumental Dutch canal houses in the city centre of The Hague, we are the place to stay when you are in need of accommodation. Whether it be for a business trip, an internship, a holiday or a transition period, we have plenty of possibilities. We have been around for a while and we know how to do things right. Service is our pleasure.
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