A Brief History of the Hague's Panorama Mesdag

At some point around 1880, a Belgian company approached Mesdag and asked him to create a lifelike, 360-degree painting of the Hague’s coastal vistas. As this painting was too large to complete by himself, Mesdag delegated certain tasks to his wife, Sientje van Houten, and other members of the Hague School; namely Théophile de Bock, George Hendrik Breitner and Bernard Blommers. Each artist focused on specific details, creating an incredibly intricate painting that contains many tiny, yet compelling elements.
The panorama’s perspective places its audience on a sand dune near Scheveningen and the painting itself features many, different interrelated scenes, including cavalry patrols on the beach, villagers going about their daily business, and Mesdag’s favourite subject matter: boats floating beyond the shore.
Although Mesdag didn’t originally expect to own the panorama, he decided to buy it back from his patrons in 1886 after they went bankrupt. He then installed this 14-metre (46-foot) high and 140-metre (460-foot) wide piece in a concentric, tailor-made building in the Hague, that is now known as Panorama Mesdag.