In 1631 John Maurits "the Brazilian" bought some land near the Binnenhof and had Jacob van Kampen build a grand house.

Later Jacob would design and construct the City Hall of Amsterdam..

 

John could not oversee the construction himself as he was appointed governor of Dutch Brazil. At his return in 1644 the Maurits House was ready and he could move in.

 

In 1820 the Dutch state bought the mansion to house the Royal Cabinet of Paintings in a museum open to the public.

 

The Mauritshuis underwent an extensive renovation and opened to the public again in 2014.

 

The museum's masterpiece is Vermeer's Girl with a Pearl Earring. Further there are several works from Rembandt, Rubens and Potter and the Goldfinch from Fabricius.

 

We visited the Mauritshuis in September 2016. Low light conditions and non ideal positions of some of the paintings made it difficult to take satisfactory pictures.